Introduction to "high Fidelity"

laminarflow

New Member
In the summer of 1965, I just graduated from HS, turned 18, and was attuned to AM radio, and my older brothers Zenith console, for the reproduction of music.
I was in for a rude awakening, when working in Manhattan (NYC), during my lunch hour I went to Grand Central Station, and visited for the first time, the AR Showroom.
WOW! I went practically everyday to listen.
Since then I have been buying, trading, selling equipment.
What's your introduction?
 
I just grew up around it.. dad always had the radio or records playing.. then I started going to dances at the youth center when I was maybe 8 or so, and got into helping out the DJ, and he took me under his wing and taught me a lot about music and gear.. then I started DJ'ing at around 13 or 14 at the youth center.. and from there I just kept buying new stuff... and here I am still today can't get enough..
 
My dad was into tube gear back from before I was born and on into the late 60s. He had a SUPER system, gold faced HH Scott gear I think a stereo Master 399 or something similar with a turntable and a TON of jazz LPs. He would have the stereo on all day in our living room, he worked from home and his office was off the living room so he'd leave his door open and stereo on all day every day. One day in the early 70s he got talked into SS gear, I think early NAK stuff.

So us kids got into AM radio (mid 60s) and when I was in grade school we spun 45s at school durring study hour. Once I got out of high school in the mid 70s I wanted a stereo. So I got a summer job and saved until I have enough coin to get a Sony TT, ESS AMT-1b speakers and a JVC integrated/tuner. Still have it all cept the TT. I've moved on and up over the years to building my own stuff when I have time. So I guess I can thank my dad for turning me onto to some nice tunes and gear ever since I was alive... Oh and tubes.

Thanks dad - you are the best.

Cheers,

Bob
 
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I grew up around it. My old man was a sales rep for several of the major manufacturers like Kenwood. I actually have a system almost identical to the one he used for demos back then: Kenwood L-07Ms, AR9s, and his Empire 398. Of course he had some much cooler stuff then also, like a Kenwood L-07D! :drool:
 
Intro HiFi

When I was little, I remember my dad's Telefunken Sonata console and finally being old enough to play records on it. The cabinet is still out in my garage, although my brother had long-since tossed the receiver chassis out of there to work on it.

Back in the 70's when I was about 16 I finally made enough money working at my mother's restaurant to buy my own receiver, and the rest they say is history.

Are you spending too much time in a HiFi store, when one of the salesmen ends up in your wedding?:yes:
 
Dad had a GE console that was verboten. In 8th grade ('69) I had a friend, Otto, whose dad had added-on a sound proofed music room to his house that connected to the house through 2 sliding glass doors with a 2" air gap between them. I still remember the wall of RTR's and chrome and glass Macintosh. And those blue meters! That was it for me. Plus Otto's dad had a yellow AMX in the driveway.
 
My father built his console and DIY Klipschorn speakers while in the Airforce in the early 60s. Once we settled in Houston, he bolstered his system with a McIntosh C22 and 60watt monoblocks. He had a record changer at one point, but ended up with a Mitsubishi DP something or other, a quartz lock direct drive turntable. He still has the McIntosh gear, got rid of the corner horns, and got some Bose after I had moved on to my life.

I listened to his stereo a lot, with speakers and some yellow foamed Koss headphones. By teen age years, I had built a set of 3 way speakers (no clue to how I did, or if I even did a crossover) and used a Harmon Kardon receiver, with some sort of turntable in college.

A hurricane in '84 ate my record collection, and moved me to CDs, which seemed magical back then. Still a music fan, I was still not an audiophile.

90s saw more interest in a home theater system, then the iPod era.

I started the path back to the audiophile hobby with a headphone system at my office in the mid 2000s. A Headroom Desktop DAC/AMP paired with Sennheiser HD650s gave me "aha" which has moved me on to today.

I am currently assembling an AudioNoteKits DAC4.1 for my system, and planning a new mancave for a house to be built in the next couple of years.

I have managed to turn one of my 3 kids on to quality music. My youngest is a headphone addict, he is still in college, and can't do a big system yet. His latest aquisition is a pair of Audio Technica W5000 which he loves with his electronica focused music.

A great hobby. Lots of fun people involved.
 
1976, Freshman year Iowa State, Helser Hall. My neighbor had a Phase Linear system...
 
My parents never had anything more than a compact turntable/radio deal and about 18 albums - mostly Christmas music.
I was exposed to good audio by friends in High School. Tube Head Geeks.
Still my friends - I love 'em. We ran pirate AM stations in Milwaukee in the late 60's.
1030 during the day and 1610 at night.

In college I met a guy who worked part time at the high end HiFi shop in Milwaukee. He knew from Mac and other top end gear. Together we built some very nice speaker cabinets. His based on Altec 15" woofers with horn drivers, mine using EV 2 ways.

I built a PAT-4 / Stereo 120...other friends had Mac...Crown...Awesome home brew tube amps - you name it. We'd have listening parties powered by a Crown DC 150 with the Altecs, the EV's, Altec Studio Monitors, University 12's all sorts of things.

Got away from big stereo in the late 80's- by the mid 90's the EVs were gone. I settled for cheesy digital audio. Now I'm getting back into it. Going through all my vinyl. The friend with whom I built speakers is sending me a Harmon Kardon A500 that he isn't using...life is good...again :~)
 
It was 1975 my dad was as far away from an audiophile as you could get. Candle systems 8 track's he listened almost daily to music but never owned any good equipment. My best friend these past 40 yrs was my reason for getting hooked he had Pioneer, Sansui, a Revox B77.He's 3 yrs older and had the cash before me we would go to Kawartha stereo in Peterborough and drool
 
I grew up around it. My old many had a store that had an electronics department selling televisions, radios, parts and offered service. So, lots of toys. Back then television was just coming into voque, 1953. He had EICO, Philmore, Jensen and Jayell as some of his lines so we had the audio market covered though the offering was not broad.

I picked up a trade-in; a Motorola television, am/sw radio, phono that used a field coild speaker and for some reason this unit would not run for more than 30 seconds. The owner gave up, traded it in and Dad was going to junk it. I pulled it apart and rebuilt it. For a kid in grade school, I had the cat's meow. I could spin all the 78s I wanted because they were all over the place and cheap. LPs at the time were not around used and for me, new are expensive.

From there I found a deal offered by a retiring pastor; a pair of QUAD II amps, the 22 preamp and a pair of E-V Aristocrat speakers with a turntable which from memory was a Weathers. My first tuner I do not remember. I later sold them to a kid at Philips Exeter Academy for a BIG profit and I was off and running.
 
I was nineteen and in the Navy aboard a carrier sitting at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard outside of San Fransisco being upgraded, etc. Met a gal at a dance over in the city and she took me to meet her mom and dad. They had a console stereo, don't remember the name, but it was all wood and had a record player inside. He took out an LP by Martin Denny, set the stylus on it, and I dropped my jaw. I was mesmerized by the sound bouncing back & forth between the two channels and then coming together in the middle for a glorious combined sound. I knew I had to have a stereo and the search immediately began. I have always loved music and owning a fine system, and will never be without either one...............

Some good memories going on right now due to this thread. Thanks to the OP for posting it..................

Regards, Terry:thmbsp::music:
 
My next-door neighbor's son who still lived in his parent's basement at age 30. I think the term "failure to launch" applies. But he had a Marantz receiver, Dual TT, and a set of Klipschorns. He had two albums, Supertramp's "Crime of the Century" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."

That was all it took. I bought a used H/K 50+ receiver, a set of 'Sonic' brand speakers, a Toshiba TT, and an Akai cassette deck. Not Hi-Fi, but it was a start.
 
Intro from Pacific

The year is 1980, I'm 10. My friend Chuck waits till his parents leave and fires up the monstor Kenwood powering Bose 901's. The Bose are hanging from the ceiling and begin to sway from the ported air. Chuck says, "my dad never gets em to do that." I was in love with the power.

Coming from a household where am radio was the high fidelity of choice, the sound coming from the Bose is something I never forgot. The beauty of being 41 is having some extra $$$ to relive those childhood memories....big fun in progress.

My Kenwood KR-7050 is on the way, I'll be turning to this site to "devolve" with my equipment and evolve with purity of sound. :thmbsp:
 
When my older brother was about 16, he bought a used Marantz receiver, an Akai reel-to-reel, a turntable and a pair of large Advents. The sounds that came out of that system were dynamic and great, or that is what I remember. That system, as well as the music from it, started it for me.
 
Dad gave me a Sony cassette recorder, a TC-110B, when I was about 8 years old. I started buying KISS cassettes starting with Destroyer. I also remember 97.9FM (98 Rock) playing back in entirety all 4 of the KISS solo albums one night. I took my parent's Sony radio and used the TC-110B to record live, all 4 albums that night, while trying not to make any sounds.

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A few years later, my parents bought me a Panasonic RX-5150 as a birthday present. A great step forward, since now I could record FM broadcasts directly. This was important because 97.9FM (98 Rock) along with many other stations back then used to play complete sides or even whole albums. I also used to love recording "King Biscuit Flower Hour" programs.

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I started getting interested in audio when I discovered magazines such as Stereo Review and Audio. I was gobbling up all these magazines, reading them cover to cover. On weekends, I would go to all of the high end audio shops. Most of them would be friendly except for one shop that ignored me because of my age. I remember the first set of speakers I bought were a pair of Infinity RS-1000's. Soon they would be replaced by Polk Monitor 10's driven with a Yamaha receiver (I believe it was a R-3) and cassette deck. The Yamaha receiver was replaced by the original MXR-150 "original" Carver Receiver.

Fast forward to college (Boston University) and I began purchasing products from NAD, ADS, Boston Acoustics, etc..

When I moved to NYC to study at Parsons, my audiophile disease had become out of control. Although I brought my system from Boston with me, I started buying stuff from B&K, Adcom, Spica, B&W, Nakamichi, Naim, Rega, Magnavox/Philips (CD players), Sequerra, Magnepan, California Audio Labs, etc... At this time, I also had yearly subscriptions to Stereophile and The Absolute Sound when they were still in their digest size format. I also used to love going to the magazine stands and picking up all of the British hi-fi rags and reading them cover to cover.

Fast forward many years and my system evolved into this. Mostly made up of Musical Fidelity front end with Vandersteen 2Ci speakers along with a VPI Scout and Logitech Squeezebox:

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Which has now currently become a Naim based system with Thiel CS1.6 speakers. The VPI Scout and Logitech Squeezebox remain as does the Musical Fidelity A324 DAC:

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Sony TC-110B, I remember it well. I think almost every reporter and law firm in and around the Boston area used them. We'd get bid requests weeking for dozens of them and I think for some time we sold more per week than all other product combined. It was a workhorse. Our warehouse guy was always confused when we as for 1 as he'd send a single unit up when we wanted 1 case and vice-versa.

Superscope rebadged the TC110B and it too was extremely popular in the business environment.
 
^^^
trhee,
Beautiful gear and presentation!

I have a set of 2ci's I've finally, yet begrudgingly, decided to sell. It makes me second guess myself right into madness when I see someone with your apparent level of experience and exposure to some very fine equipment has chosen them as his keepers. Fortunately I scrolled down to the next picture, saw the Thiels, and now don't have to worry about having that problem!

What's the small box with the VU meters?
 
Thanks for the compliment. The 2Ci's were hard for me to let go of as well. They served me well for so many years and it became like a well worn pair of jeans or a favorite pair of shoes. However, when I decided to go the Naim route, the Thiel's were a much better match just like the Musical Fidelity and Vandersteen combination.

The small box with the VU meters is a Logitech Squeezebox.

^^^
trhee,
Beautiful gear and presentation!

I have a set of 2ci's I've finally, yet begrudgingly, decided to sell. It makes me second guess myself right into madness when I see someone with your apparent level of experience and exposure to some very fine equipment has chosen them as his keepers. Fortunately I scrolled down to the next picture, saw the Thiels, and now don't have to worry about having that problem!

What's the small box with the VU meters?
 
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