What got you started into "hi-fi ?

[daytona600]

Musta had some paper round

worked 3 part time jobs for a year grant , mind you a full LP12 was £ 275 back then

[jollyfix]

Music got me into Hi-Fi. I wanted to hear my music better.

Same here.
I remember going to the bank to ask for a loan of £400.00. Told the manager it was for a van for work ( i couldn't even drive at that time), he kept saying " can you get a van for £400.00", etc. After what seemed like hours of questions, i was given the money. Jumped on the bus down to Cardiff, straight into Laskys. Bought a technics turntable and amp, and some Mission speakers. Then realised i had to carry all my new bits back to the bus stop, and then carry them home.
A while later would pop back to Cardiff to one of those rarely seen shops these days, Pro audio and instruments back of shop, second hand HI FI at front. Bought some mission amps, passed on the speakers which looked like oil heaters ( 57's) for £25.00. Kept going back for years.

[RichB]

Anyone remember Bill Hutcinsons hifi shop in Newcastle?

Bought my first separates in there. Mission speakers (still got them and modified them), a pioneer pds -701 and a400 amp.

My sister was given the aiwa stack system I'd bought only 12 months before.

Working in Newcastle town centre I was a regular lunchtime visitor to Bill Hutcinsons and soon upgraded to ruarks after hearing them in the shop. They also used to stock Royd speakers which I still have a soft spot for but the ruarks looked posher and I got them instead.

[Pete The Cat]

It was music that did it for me (not trying to be clever here). I just wanted to hear it better and louder.

We had a family friend with a quadrophonic B&O system in the late 70s which was pretty impressive to a young lad.

In 1982 I had a revelation at a hi-fi show. Walking down the hotel's corridor passing rooms with equipment playing inside each, I thought it was a great idea that one room at the end had a female vocalist singing live in it. Except when I walked through its door there wasn't - it was a LP12 + NAD 3020 + Mission 700 rig.

However I preferred to spend my cash on records rather than kit and settled for a modest system for the next 25 years until the bug really got hold of me to try to experience that thrill again.

Pete

[Floyddroid]

When I was about thirteen I used to call at my friends house to make models and stuff. He had an older brother who was also an excellent model maker and to cut a long story short I ended up going to visit him more because he played great music. He had a Pioneer SA500a amplifier an Ariston turntable and a pair of omni directional Bose speakers. He played a lot of early Elton John, Allman Brothers, James Gang, Genesis and Pink Floyd. I even ended up going to see Pink Floyd with him at Newcastle Odeon in 1973. I plagued my mum and dad for a record player and they bought me a Bush Arena with matching speakers which i soon got rid of replacing them with a pair of Wharfdale Linton 3XP's. This lasted me until started my apprenticeship and i could start saving up for a real hi-fi separates system. This was the start of my addiction for which there is no councilling.

[Macca]

I was into music but only had my mother's crappy Saisho music centre, which wasn't too bad if you set the speakers up properly.

But I sort of knew there was better but hadn't heard it until I was at a school friend's one Saturday. We were milling about and I went into a living room that had a JVC set up with JBL loudspeakers. I asked my mate if we could play a record but he was reluctant saying his dad would kill him.

Well I had met his dad before who was a college lecturer and a very friendly. mild-mannered bloke so I figured he was shitting me and so bugged him until he said okay play one track. Dire Straits 'Brothers In Arms' had just come out and was sitting right there next to the TT so I stuck that on and compared to the Saisho it was all kinds of wonderful. After that all my spare money went on stereo gear, a problem that continues to this day.

[sumday]

although a fully paid up punk in the mid 70s with a particular love of the clash, what set me down the road was a copy of OUT OF THE BLUE by ELO.
at the time, this sort of music was "the enemy".
but someone left a copy in the school common room and I took it home for a quick listen.....I HATED it and swiftly returned it.
at the time, my impressions were the music was overblown, over produced and worst of all...boring.

"oh...you should hear it on a decent system", suggested a friend.
went round his gaff later that week to hear his copy on his dads setup.
I cannot remember the model numbers for sure but I recall a HUGE pioneer receiver lit up like the las vagas strip fed by a DD turntable with almost as many bulbs!!!
the speakers were of course also huge and guess what....ELO still sounded shit...but better definded!!

luckily I took some music of my own to demo and was was hooked. "sound of the suburbs" by THE MEMBERS never sounded so nice.

NIGE.

[Audio Advent]

and that is a pair of HD414s

My parents had/have a pair of those - strongest memories of them are enduring subtle pain because by the time I'd got around to using them, the foam had gone and some plastic was broken so it basically had spikes digging into your ear lobes!

[Audio Advent]

For me the seeds were planted by both memories of the clunky, ergonomics of the family 70s era hifi (Aiwa 6500 tape deck, Yamaha 620 receiver - didn't pay attention to the record player back then, a Connoisseur with SME 3009) and a school friend's dad being a car boot fanatic with lots of strange hifi gear turning up. There is also memories of a primary school's parents having first a Lecson system complete with FM tuner (wonder if the mother still has it?? - the father was a designer) then NAD (which was kind of 80s designer in the designer circles, oddly enough! ) .

So after university living I suddenly wanted some vintage hifi because it was so cheap and looked good - back when Celestion 44s would be about £30 in Loot. Ended up with Celestion 332s because of the hessian speaker covers - much better looking than the 44s.

Then I lived in a post-uni house shared with a couple of people into vintage music equipment and defacto into old hifi too, which was also when I discovered ebay and things went wrong from there! At some point I got some bashed up B&W Matrix 805Hs for cheap on ebay and discovered how shit and boxy the previous speakers sounded in comparison.. I was kind of shocked. That started me off on a search for the best sound as well as just being into the older gear.

[struth]

I had a nice quadraphonic amp speakers and if memory serves a turntable that played quad records I think; it was when they came out so memory is weak. Is that possible. Sure I got a quad record with it. Might have been Sharpbutcant really remember now. ..anyways prettysure i thought it the dogs doodas at the time