View Full Version : What & When Did You Get Hooked on HiFi?
Hypnotoad
19-04-2010, 16:18
When I was in my late teens I used to listen to records on my families console stereo, it was a nice unit for those days and sounded pretty good to us.
I got a job and wanted something better to play my records on, I saw a used Fisher valve amp around 25watts for both channels cheap so I snapped it up.
I then went to a local HiFi store and purchased a Sansui SR-212 turntable and a pair of Ultralinear 200 speakers.
Went home and connected it all up, to me it sounded great at first but I quickly learned that I could upgrade. I went and bought a Shure M91ED cart and it improved things dramatically compared to the cart that came with the Sansui.
Listening to the speakers, a 12" 3 way system, I found they were neither ultra or linear.
I saw a pair of home made Bailey design KEF transmission line speakers for sale. I picked them up cheap and put them in place of the Ultralinear's.
It improved things a lot they had the sweet, detailed sound that I craved. However the Fisher amp wasn't up to the task, I couldn't turn it up over half way unless severe distortion set in. The speakers needed more power.
I saved hard and went and bought a Yamaha CA-800 amp, 45wpc rms, that should get the walls shaking or so I thought.
I connected it up and grabbed a Rod Stewart album, first track Tonight's the Night, dropped the needle and turned up the volume.
Rod's husky voice filled the room, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife, the sax near the end gave me goose bumps.
From that moment I was hooked on HiFi.
That was what and when that really started it all and my first taste of what I considered true high fidelity.
I always loved music so better equiptment just made sense.
I started out with an all tube 1950 RCA Stereo Console.
Later a Kenwood TK-88 45watt per channel reciver and two pair of speakers KLH modles 5 and 6 and a BIC belt drive turntable with a Sure v15 ,Realistic 999 RTR.And a pair of Superex pro B headphones.
I then went backwords thinking newer was better in 1981 when I went to macy's and dropped $1100.00 on a compleate Fischer Studio Standard rack system.(POS)
The only one happy was the salesmen who sold it.
I left the Rack with my brother,moved alot and lived with a JVC Boombox and a case of CD's till I settled down and found a nice Pioneer Spec 1&2 had it modded to death and sold it to move into tube gear agein.I call the boom box years the Dark Years.
From before I could toddle... :)
I don't remember a time when I didn't have music in my life from records and radio and I was always keen to watch the Deccalion being loaded with records and the Collaro Conquest tonearm "measuring" each record before allowing it to drop into place..
In about 1973 (when I was about five), my father bought his first 'proper' hifi system. It consisted of AR 2AX speakers, a lovely Technics receiver (teak side cheeks, more knobs and switches than the space shuttle and a truly fabulous illuminated display) and a Trio semi-auto turntable which emitted a strangely comforting metallic 'kerthunk' through the speakers when the cut mechanism operated.
I found the original receipt for the system when I was going through my mum's attic recently - just shy of £400. I wonder what that is in today's money....
The receiver is still going strong (gave it to a friend years ago, having used it myself for a while). The speakers are still in the attic - driver foams are shot though.
I will never forget the excitement generated by the annual simultaneous Radio 3 and TV broadcast of 'Last Night of the Proms'. Those were the days!
I definitely inherited my interest in hifi from my dad - along with my enthusiasm for the music of Sidney Bechet, Tchaikowski and Beethoven. I should also mention my inherited tendency to drink too much and fall over. The old man would be proud of me, I'm sure :).
Cheers
Martin
twelvebears
20-04-2010, 08:44
Became hooked on music with the purchase of my 1st album - MJ's Thriller in 1982 - when I was 11.
My HiFi obsession started shortly after because I was very aware that the way MJ sounded through my (admittedly very good and generous gift from my Godparents) Sony WM-2 (http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-2) was very different (and not in a good way) from the way he sounded via my Dad's crappy music centre.
Combine this realisation with the fact that there was a proper, old school, independent (as so many were back then) HiFi dealer around the corner from my house, and my fate was sealed....
The Grand Wazoo
20-04-2010, 08:46
I found the original receipt for the system when I was going through my mum's attic recently - just shy of £400. I wonder what that is in today's money....
Martin,
According to a couple of historical value converter websites, your Dad would be shelling out £3884 today!
jandl100
20-04-2010, 08:57
I must have been 13 or 14, and was visiting some distant cousins - they had a Philips all-in-1 with separate small speakers and I was just gobsmacked by the sound! :eek:
I couldn't afford that model with my meagre pocket money funds but got the model a few down the range - it must have been truly awful :lol:, but I loved it.
Once I was old enough to get a Saturday job, needless to say the money went into hifi upgrades! I've never looked back. :)
chris@panteg
20-04-2010, 09:54
Ironically it was CD that got me into HiFi ' in 1984 i bought the CD101 and quickly realized that a i needed a decent system to go with it , that got me into proper vinyl replay and a Dual 505 ' then a Logic ' LP12 etc ' etc
We always had music in the house when I was a kid via my parents 3 in 1 type system (Hitachi from memory). My first proper hifi was an Amstrad midi-system (my old man was in the trade and got them cheap) - they had these horrible big FO loudspeakers that I placed one on each of my bedside tables, and had them facing each ear like giant headphones. I kid you not, I used to float around the room listening to records, tapes and radio. Guess I was 9 or 10.
I progressed to a better Aiwa midi system which I kept for ages, then my Dad started working for the service company for Lasky's, which meant he got staff discount. From age 17 or 18 I quickly progressed to a technics CD player, then a Nad 3130, Ariston Q-Deck, Nad CDP and some Mission 737s. My first real hifi by about age 20 I guess. But AMS Trading started it all :)
Richard
In about 1973 (when I was about five), my father bought his first 'proper' hifi system. It consisted of AR 2AX speakers, a lovely Technics receiver (teak side cheeks, more knobs and switches than the space shuttle and a truly fabulous illuminated display) and a Trio semi-auto turntable which emitted a strangely comforting metallic 'kerthunk' through the speakers when the cut mechanism operated.
I found the original receipt for the system when I was going through my mum's attic recently - just shy of £400. I wonder what that is in today's money....
The receiver is still going strong (gave it to a friend years ago, having used it myself for a while). The speakers are still in the attic - driver foams are shot though.
I will never forget the excitement generated by the annual simultaneous Radio 3 and TV broadcast of 'Last Night of the Proms'. Those were the days!
I definitely inherited my interest in hifi from my dad - along with my enthusiasm for the music of Sidney Bechet, Tchaikowski and Beethoven. I should also mention my inherited tendency to drink too much and fall over. The old man would be proud of me, I'm sure :).
Cheers
Martin
For Gawd's sake, get the 2ax's out and have them re-foamed. They're still great speakers and worth keeping going..
I got into going to gigs at 15 but HIFI came many years latter and actually happened when I moved away from a component based trio system to my first HIFI I just got very frustrated with the sound and spent the next 10 years trying to resolve it slowly everything started to fit into place
For Gawd's sake, get the 2ax's out and have them re-foamed. They're still great speakers and worth keeping going..
Agreed - shame to let such good speakers suffer such ingnominy.
Regards
I think I've posted here before about this, but it was my best mate's uncle Tim who was the original owner of my 401 who lit the fuse. He was single when I first met him, when I was around 11, and it seemed his whole house was just full of hifi! My dad had a Ferguson "Music Centre" on which I played my Shakin' Stevens, Adam & The Ants and Toyah records but it never sounded the same as Uncle Tim's...
When I was 15 I was tempted into giving Rumbelows (remember them?) a huge chunk of my paper round savings and birthday money for a Sharp midi system which played both sides of the record! OMG, the technology! Of course it sounded crap, but that didn't stop my love affair with Depeche Mode, Human League, Frankie et al (this was about 1983) and it has never stopped. 2nd hand Wharefedale Linton (XP3?) speakers added, then some sort of Trio receiver, until the Midi system went and WHF was never out of my hand until eventually in about 1994 I succumbed to a Pioneer CD player... I'm still much happier spending 10 x my annual equipment budget on music, though probably a lot more than that. My system just sounds so good (to me) that I don't have a great urge to upgrade, just play more music! I expect that will all change when I eventually get to meet HiFi_Dave and his Croft & Harbeth (etc) combo... ;)
Double Post - Bloody Forum
When I was about 12, I was offered a nice portable Radio.
My parents had an old "furniture" radio (you know, the one which looked like a big table, with a big boomer and nice speakers, but which didn't work properly. But its amp section was still working.
I made a cable to connect my own radio to the "furniture"'s speakers. The sound was really great.
I think this was my first "upgrade".
Three years later I bought my first cassette deck (Sankyo) and a good pair of headphones. :)
For Gawd's sake, get the 2ax's out and have them re-foamed. They're still great speakers and worth keeping going..
Just spotted your reply.
Hmmm - in that case I'll dig them out of my mum's loft next time I visit.
They will need some work - seem to remember the pots on the back to adjust the mids/treble were utterly gone, so will need replacing.
What are the odds of finding refoam kits I wonder....
Never occurred to me that they might be worth saving.
Cheers
Martin
dave2010
29-04-2010, 19:43
Martin
They will need some work - seem to remember the pots on the back to adjust the mids/treble were utterly gone, so will need replacing.
What are the odds of finding refoam kits I wonder....
Wouldn't it be worth finding a firm to do this? There must be some. For example http://www.wembleyloudspeaker.com/ - but there are others. Could be worth a few phone calls. Probably best to find a firm which has experience of doing this particular job - if there are any.
Good luck with this.
As a poor student, and studying for an electronic engineering degree, I pretty much built all of my first system. I made a solid plinth for a Connoisseur BD-1 record deck to go with my very first true hi-fi purchase, an SME 3009-II arm. I ran this with a Goldring G800 cartridge. Amplifier was a kit based on the Linsley-Hood 75W design. I acquired a pair of Cambridge R40 transmission line cabinets from liquidated stock and finished them with KEF drivers and crossovers. This system sounded fab despite the rather rough cartridge and an amp that ran very hot indeed due to marginal heatsinks. Most importantly, it didn't cost me a lot compared with ready-made equipment.
What are the odds of finding refoam kits I wonder....
Measure the drivers and check various American websites offering all sizes of re-foam kits. Last year I successfully re-foamed a pair of JBL bass drivers for a friend, the kit was excellent and even came with a DVD of step-by-step instructions. It was a great success and the speakers sound great.
My first experience of hi fi was probably back in '83 when a mate of mine built me an integrated amp (one input, a huge toroidal transformer, a bunch of mosfets and an aluminium box made in the school woodwork classroom). I then built a pair of standmounts from Wilmslow Audio before their prices went out of the reach of teenagers. Source was a nice (if basic) JVC tape dec.
Unfortunately my mate had wired the volume control wrongly so all you could get was max volume and because I was scared of all things electrical I ended up getting a Nad pre amp which worked a treat.
The whole thing sounded sweet up until the day it was all nicked (b'stards!). Ever since I've been trying to capture that sound (rose tinted tho it may be). Ah, those were the days when life was relatively sweet and simple.
Have now gotnap150, nac72 with Avondale 821 cards, beresford Caiman , Rotel Rcd855 & ATC Scm40's. I think I'm just starting to hear some of the excitement again.
Hi 'Quince' - welcome to AOS :)
Could you do me a big favour please and pop into the Welcome area and introduce yourself, giving your first name, basic location, system details and music tastes.
Use the existing threads there as a template for what is required.
This a requirement for all new members joining our community - cheers! :cool:
Marco.
Probably in 1966. I had heard the system of the father of a school chum of mine, if I remember correctly, it consisted of: a Garrard SP 25 with a Shure M44E into a Leak ST20 valve amp and a pair of Wharfdale SFB3 speakers (3-way units using an 'open' sand filled baffle). Most of the music hear was classical and, at that impressionable age, I thought that classical music was all you were meant to play on these systems. Also at that time, "stereo" and "hi-fi" were not synomymous.
My epiphany came when I visited a shop in Bristol (long gone) where they were playing The Beatles' 'Norwegian Wood' through a Radford valve amp. Believe it or not, but it wasn't until then that I realised that you could play anything on a good system and it would sound good.
Went to university but couldn't afford much. Inital system was mono. Garrard SP25 II, Shure M3D cartridge, home made preamp, home built Mullard 5-10 amp, Wharfdale RS8 DD speaker in home built 1.5 cu foot distributed port enclosure (a Wharfdale design). Later built a second 5-10 and Wharfdale speaker and replaced the preamp with a Sugden C51 preamp for stereo.
Next stage was to replace the deck with a Collaro 2020 deck (rim drive with lots of inertia): had wanted to get a Garrard 401 of Goldring G99 but had great difficulty getting either. The Collaro was a 'stop gap', but I fitted it with an SME and it sort of remained. Cartridge upgraded to M55E (pace Marco). Valve amps were replaced with home built copy of Sugden A51 25w class A amp (I knew someone who knew Jim Sugden, so could get hold of the boards, components and transformer, cheap). Later replaced the Sugden preamp with a Hafler DH101.
Turntable upgraded to Thorens TD124/II, retaining arm and cartridge. Went through a succesion of Shure V15's before discovering ADC's and the Ortofon moving coil. Had a brief dalliance with a Quad 22/ 2x II valve set up.
Speakers changed to Quad ESL's and later the electronics were changed to Quad 44/405. And that's where we are today- more or less, though there are some changes in the pipeline.
On the way I have collected three more turntables, seven more pickup arms, about a dozen cartridges, five tuners, three reel-to-reel tape machines, two cassette decks a Quad 33/303, three Quad 50E's and another pair of speakers. Oh, and I've been through about four CD players.
Looks like I'm not the only collector here on AoS (thank goodness!).
Regards
Rare Bird
30-04-2010, 08:14
Be 15 years old. My best mate at school dad was an hifi nut, i used to spend nearly all my time at his house. His dad used to be a keen homebrewer, infact he owned two homebrew beer shops, he used to have about half a dozen rota kegs of Bitter going at one time, you can easily imagine i hardly went to school the last year :eyebrows: However i had my first propar hi-fi system before actually leaving school.I've always listerned to prog.
Like Dave, I can never remember a time when I didn't enjoy listening to music. We had an old wind-up cabinet record player into which Dad had inserted an ancient Garrard tt and an amp and speaker, and a stack of 78s, favourites being Toscanini conducting Beethovens 6th Symphony on 6 discs, and and Bob Crosby and the Bobcats playing Big Noise from Winnetka (check that out on Youtube...). Then came a Bush SRP31C, and my garandfather's bloody great big Grundig table radio, but the real Damascus moment was going babysitting at a neighbours house and being told not to touch the TD124/Leak Stereo 30/Wharfedale Lintons. Fancy telling a 16-year-old that! No chance! Compared notes on that with a school mate by the name of Comeau the next day. Come round and have a listen to mine, he said...
I will never forget the excitement generated by the annual simultaneous Radio 3 and TV broadcast of 'Last Night of the Proms'. Those were the days!
Nor me, and it put me off the whole idea of home theatre for life, although that hadn't been invented at the time. In 1973 they did Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and another mate's Dad had set up his telly between the Wharfedale Dentons for the event. Sat down and listened, and found out all about psycho-acoustics. With eyes shut, the whole Albert Hall was laid out in front of me (yes, even through Dentons), but with eyes open, the soundstage collapsed into the telly. Ever since then, I've found that recorded music benefits from a lack of visual stimulus, the ideal being to listen in total darkness, although the warm glow of a couple of valves doesn't go amiss.
magiccarpetride
06-05-2010, 18:25
When I was in my late teens I used to listen to records on my families console stereo, it was a nice unit for those days and sounded pretty good to us.
I got a job and wanted something better to play my records on, I saw a used Fisher valve amp around 25watts for both channels cheap so I snapped it up.
I then went to a local HiFi store and purchased a Sansui SR-212 turntable and a pair of Ultralinear 200 speakers.
Went home and connected it all up, to me it sounded great at first but I quickly learned that I could upgrade. I went and bought a Shure M91ED cart and it improved things dramatically compared to the cart that came with the Sansui.
Listening to the speakers, a 12" 3 way system, I found they were neither ultra or linear.
I saw a pair of home made Bailey design KEF transmission line speakers for sale. I picked them up cheap and put them in place of the Ultralinear's.
It improved things a lot they had the sweet, detailed sound that I craved. However the Fisher amp wasn't up to the task, I couldn't turn it up over half way unless severe distortion set in. The speakers needed more power.
I saved hard and went and bought a Yamaha CA-800 amp, 45wpc rms, that should get the walls shaking or so I thought.
I connected it up and grabbed a Rod Stewart album, first track Tonight's the Night, dropped the needle and turned up the volume.
Rod's husky voice filled the room, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife, the sax near the end gave me goose bumps.
From that moment I was hooked on HiFi.
That was what and when that really started it all and my first taste of what I considered true high fidelity.
I was always into music, however my parents weren't, so we never had decent stereo. When I was a student at the University, and strapped for cash, I managed to beg, steal and borrow some money to buy me a half-decent system (only remember my then pricey Thorens 125 MK II turntable with Stanton pickup, the rest was pretty much consumer grade). Overall, didn't sound too good.
However, one day I got some extra cash and went out and bought a fairly high-end Orthofon phono cartridge. Brought it home, installed it, calibrated the cartridge and the arm, and put on Dave Liebman's "My Lady" (from his phenomenal album "Drum Ode", 1975). My god, I literally fell off the couch! The plethora of percussion just leapt out of the speakers, the sound was three dimensional and muscular.
It was at that particular moment that I've experienced how sweet a really good sound reproduction system can be. I got immediately hooked on hi-fi (this was still during the pre-digital days).
quadsugdenman
06-05-2010, 19:02
First real HiFi experience was a college friend who had spent his hard earned summer vacation earnings on a Goldring G102/G800, Rotel series 4 amp/ Wharfedale Linton 3XP set up. Not the best, but a major step up from Fidelty music centres!
When I graduated it was a Goldring G102/800, Amstrad 5000 receiver and Videotone Minimax to get me going in September 1976. The G800 tracked like a pig on stick, the Amstrad and the Videotones packed up within a month!!
So my next steps were a Trio KD1033 turntable with Ortofon FF15E, Rotel RX 402 receiver, Akai 4000DS RtoR and Tangent TM1 speakers. These got me started on the spiral upwards and lasted until 1978. Since then it has been a forever changing scene.
I still remember with fondness those early days, maybe with rose tinted ears!!
Garry:rolleyes:
the Amstrad and the Videotones packed up within a month!!
My Videotone Minimax 2s are still going strong on this 'ere PC.
The Grand Wazoo
06-05-2010, 20:36
Just to give this thread a little 'goose', I found this one which is not unrelated & perhaps explains why some people haven't contributed. Many had already done their 'when I was a lad' essay!
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3420
Where did it all start for you? The music and hi-fi thing I mean.
twelvebears
07-05-2010, 03:51
Just to give this thread a little 'goose', I found this one which is not unrelated & perhaps explains why some people haven't contributed. Many had already done their 'when I was a lad' essay!
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3420
Where did it all start for you? The music and hi-fi thing I mean.
Oh yeah. That was me! :)
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