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Memories........What made you catch the Audio Bug?

I remember back in high school, my ''industrial arts'' teacher was an avid audiophile and music lover. We are going back to '73 now. I remember one day being very different from any other. Upon entering class for our usual 40 minutes of the usual wood-cutting and bird-cage building routine,(some of us were luckier, getting ,'design' classes instead) we found our teacher,Ed, busy at setting up an LP on a Thorens turntable. Alongside, some strange, industrial-looking brown and orange boxes (QUAD) and a cloth-wrapped box with the initals B&W on them. He informed us that, today, we would discover something new, ''high-Fidelity'' as he called it.

We all sat in awe as our teacher put the SGT Peppers Lonely Hearts on full blast, to the amazement of everyone in the room. Wow! What was THAT? The equipment, the sound, the MUSIC was unlike anything most of us had ever seen or heard. I remember thinking to myself, now this is how the Beatles really sound like? I just could not beleive it.

I remember that we had no quality music equipement in our home back then, as with most other kids.

It was just amazing. Word got around that 'something special was happening, in industrial art's class. Turned out the topic of the week was 'high-fidelity' discovery I guess, as every other class in turn got the same treatment all week long.

The Following year, our teacher somehow managed to get the school board to approve a special ''equipement'' expenditure, officially probably a vacuum system, or new circular saw, or band saw, whatever. The class built a special wooden closet complete with locks, to accept the new ''equipement''. When it finally arrived, holy smokes, a McIntosh amplifier and preamp, with Thorens turntable !

We ended up ''founding'' an audiophile club at school, and would have students spend their lunch hour seating in a closed room in complete darkness, listening to a complete album...against a 10 cent fee that we would keep to buy records !

If you are reading this ED, these 30 years old memories are as fresh in my mind as yesterday. Thank you so very much for sharing your passion with us, and opening our eyes to so many horizons, music being just one of them.

Just wondering how others in this forum got the audio bug also?
sonicbeauty

Showing 3 responses by slappy

slappy
903 posts
 
Theduke, great story! :)
slappy
903 posts
 
ASK ME THIS QUESTION IN 20 YEARS.

Nobody in my family is into this stuff. None of my friends are either. I have a few aquaintenances that are into this hobby, but that is about it.

I first discovered stereo gear in the military, and spent whatever i could to get my system sounding good. It never reached the level of clarity i desired though.

When i got out of the military i went to this place in denver called SOUNDTRACK AUDIO, same thing as audio king and ultimate electronics.

What really facinated me was the room with Martin Logan, Sunfire, Krell, Adcom, and the like. I saw that shit and knew i wanted it. Even in thier crappy listening room it was far far superior to my system and had virtually none of the shortcomings.

I started reading every audio mag i could and checking manufacturer web sites.

Then i stumbled into AUDIOGON one day while doing a search about audio related. I was instantly hooked.

I also managed to piss off the entire audiogon community within a couple weeks. I thought i knew way more than i did, and i got offended when people told me i diddnt know what i was talking about, and i ran my mouth, and was basically chased away.

Couple months went by and i finally logged back on under a new name and tried again. I knew that there was alot of experience here, and that the advice i got could potentially save me from bad buying decisions, and save me thousands of dollars.

Then i lost my system, which sucked, but it was not well thought out and put together terribly. There were some good pieces of gear that i would still like to have though.

Im glad i came back on here though, because the level of experience that i suspected the audiogon community to have was only the surface, and over the past year i have become to realize how deep that experience and knowledge really runs, and how little i knew.

I still dont know a whole lot now, but if my experience then was a gram, i have a ten solid pounds of it now. Which aint much compared to the 50 metric tons that people like Sean and TWL, and Albert Porter have.

So like i said, Ask me this question again in 20 years, my responce will be

"When i stumbled across Audiogon"
slappy
903 posts
 
Wow! You remember that Gunbei?

Man, i thought nobody noticed that little incident. It was actually a pretty embarassing situation, lets just pretend that it happened as you said!

Stereo gear really diddnt matter a whole lot to me in the military. I remember buying a Technics SA-TX50 reciever while i was in japan that was AC3 ready. Ran me about 600 bucks new. In fact, i dont think they ever sold that model in the US. I paired it up with a $400 pair of pioneer speakers i got from the BX, and as far as i was concened, i had the best stereo system in the planet. I had no idea there was better stuff out there.

I had a buddy who had a set of BOSE 701's that he let me use while he was deployed in Korea. I was real excited to get em hooked up. They were in my system about 2 days when i boxed em up and put my pioneers back into play.

I spent most of my time there getting drunk off of Soju and Asahi and doing tattoos for the enlisted folks for beer. There werent any tattoo artist up there so i ended up becoming one.

That Technics SA-TX50 and those pioneers stayed with me for about 7 years, when i finally replaced them with a set of Definitive Technology 2004tls after i got back to the real world. I gave those Pioneer speakers to a friend of mine (a decision i have always regretted) It was not too far down the road where i learned how good stereo systems could be.

I guess that is when i got bit by the mid-fi bug. I was outta the BEST-BUY gear and into something a bit better.
It still was not untill around the time i first started with audiogon that i really relaized what a good stereo system should be.

Funny thing, is my music taste has changed as i got more into high end audio. Instead of spending all my time listening to techno and industrial, i listen to alot of nick cave and diana krall. However, every now and then i put the old school back in play. Earlier today i was jamming to XTORT by KMFDM.

one of these days ill have a good rig again. Getting there very very slowly, but at least instead of selling gear im back to buying it again. In fact, i plan to buy a new amplifier here in a few weeks. I enjoy the anticipation though. It makes it that much sweeter when i get something good. Patiece.
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