What first got you into hi-fi?

[Zoidburg]

So what was it that first got you interested in hi-fi? What made you search out separates or something more than a "all in one" box?

For me it was as a kid of about 13 at the house of a friend of my dads. He had what I know realize was a quad pre and power (im not sure what ghough i
Pretty sure it was a 306 power) with which he played me dark side of the moon to me very loudly. I was hooked from then on really.....

What got you hooked then ?

[Alex_UK]

Hi again Ben - I'm afraid there's nothing new under the sun...

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3420

Good excuse to bump it though, for the newer members :)

[biggzy]

Christmas 1996 i got my first CD lol, it was Huge Hits 97, that was the same christmas i had an aiwa all in one also, the bloke who lived next door gave me some Gale bookshelf speakers to use with it, sounded lots better, but i wanted more, went through quite a few all in one systems until i decided to buy my first proper hi-fi.

Started reading What hi-fi mag also, so then came new Phono leads, speaker wire etc etc.

My first proper hi-fi cost me i think £2000 and included:

Technics SU-A900mk3 Integrated Amp.
Technics SL-PD670D CD Player.
Technics SJ-MD100 Minidisc Deck.
Technics ST-GT350L Tuner. (not 100% sure on this)
Technics RS-BX501 Tape Deck.
Technics SB-M500 Floorstanding Speakers.

Also some expensive interconnects etc, cant remember what they was, the system sounded great, had it for around a year n half and sold it for £700, missed it alot and regret selling it, so started again a year after and built a new Technics system:

Technics SU-A909 Pre/Power Amp.
Technics SL-PS7 CD Player.
Technics SJ-MD150 MD Deck.
Eltax Liberty 5+ Floorstanders.

Again i loved it, but slowly found i wasn't using it much, so i sold it again.

Didnt have any decent hi-fi then, just another cheap all in one.

Now 8 years later im back, i bought from ebay these:

Technics SU-A700mk3 Amp.
Technics SL-PS670D CD Player.
Technics SJ-MD100 MD Deck.
Eltax Wave Mini Speakers.

Now i had this for the bedroom as i have got a Sony STR-DH810 / BDP-S360 for the main room, but the Technics was too big, so just finished selling back on ebay and got myself a Teac A-H300 Reference Amp, and still looking for a matching CD player and MD recorder along with some Tannoy Mercury V1's.

Lesson learnt, never have Technics again lol, even if i do love there kit.

I like good kit and good looks with sound also, im not an audiophile but do try lol.

Thanks for reading,
Adam.

[Barry]

Hi again Ben - I'm afraid there's nothing new under the sun...

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=9769

Good excuse to bump it though, for the newer members :)

I thought we had 'been there'! :scratch:

[The Grand Wazoo]

That link takes me to the Abbey Rd speaker cables thread, Alex - are you on a percentage?

[Alex_UK]

Doh! copy and paste issues!

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3420

[biggzy]

That link takes me to the Abbey Rd speaker cables thread, Alex - are you on a percentage?

:lolsign: im sure he is.

[Rare Bird]

My school mates dad got me into it, i was about 14..after persistent pestering he gave me a JVC 'JAS11' Amp.

[Mark Grant]

My Grandad when I was aged about 9 :)

[Reid Malenfant]

My father had a hifi system :eyebrows: I guess i got impregnated with the bug at a very early age ;)

Full explaination on this thread (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3420) ;) Post 26 was my contribution :cool:

[Ali Tait]

Possibly unusually, I got myself into all this madness. Got an ITT music center for my 14th birthday, an old one but the speakers had some nice little paper cone full rangers in which were actually quite nice. Then I got an Akai stack system to which I wired two sets of speakers which predictably eventually blew the amp. That was when I got my first proper bit of kit, the NAD 3020. Been on the slippery slope ever since, though was fortunate enough to meet all the chaps on the then WAD forum when I bought my 300b kit, which got me into the diy side of things and no doubt has saved me a bloody fortune over the years!

[Pete The Cat]

For me it was the music first, and the belief that I could hear it taller / wider / deeper / louder and better than on the Marconiphone that I'd inherited from my folks.

Being in the same class as a guy from a well-off family who had brushed aluminium fronted Japanese separates, and begining to read Hi-fi Answers, were the other ingredients.

I still read HFA... ;)

Pete

[Puffin]

I used to be "the record man" or what would later be known as a Disc Jockey, for my sister and her friends. I had to push the radiogram to the window of our lounge which was on the first floor of a victorian terrace in Battersea and put the records on, turn the volume up so that she and her mates could dance to the Beatles and Motown in the street below.

Then whenI was about 11 I took the speaker out of a record player and put it in a separate box. Oh yes it sounded soooo much better :lol:

I then got a Philips amp and speakers which I thought was rubbish.

Then went to Laskys in Tottenham Court Road and bought an Eagle amp, and a Garrard SP25 MkII TT with a Shure (M something) cartridge. I bought some speakers off an old school friend whose dad used to buy him all the latest stuff. They were like very large footballs with a honeycomb type baffle. Made by Sykes & Hirsch (I think) they sometimes sold them with B&O systems as they were a quite a bit of a design statement.

They sounded quite good, but now I know what I know, I realise that the amp was woefully inadequate to drive them properly. I always thought that when you pushed them hard it was the speakers that were distorting.

I actually stayed with that set up for a number of years. I was also given a pair of very large DIY floorstanding speakers that sounded quite good. I sold them for £25 in the early 80s. I now realise that the Goodmans Axiom drive units would be worth a bit now :doh:

Then in the late 80s early 90s realised that the Eagle amp had to go. I bought a Rotel RA930, and my first CD player, a Philips CD610mkII. The Rotel is still working. My son was using it, not sure if he still. I suppose I ought to talk to him really :lolsign:

I was given a Rank (make, not quality) Turntable with a wiggly arm and a Grado cartridge. That was a lot lot better than the Garrard.

I then decided to get some modern speakers. I bought the Mission 760is and picked up what I later found out were Linn Kan or Sara stands. I thought the Missions were really good. I have still got one of them.....yes, only one :( the other one fell off a high shelf in the garage. They were modded to SE status for bi-wiring and the crossover split and up-graded

Next amp up-grade was to an Audiolab 8000A. I know a lot of people don't like them, but I really liked it. I bought a QED Digit dac to add to the Philips CD player. The Dac was tweaked and a dual PS made for it (I have recently dug it out again and it is suprisingly good amongst the much younger up-starts)

Pt2 from late 90s to date....somtime.

[Spectral Morn]

Love of music and wanting to hear more :)


Regards D S D L

[Rare Bird]

You a Technics fan then Adam? ;)

After using a Garrard 'DD 130' turntable (oops shhhhhh don't want to start a new DD trend orf :eyebrows: ) with Goldring 'G800' cartridge for a few years, i got my first propar bought & paid for Turntable was a 'J.A.Michell 'Focus One' with Hadcock 'GH228', i couldnt afford a new cart so i used the old Goldring.. then a couple of Shure's! but eventually a new Nagaoka 'MP11' in the end wow i thought!..i save hard for this deck & arm with money i earned peeling potatoes & cutting chips at my local chip shop & supreme pot washer late at night in a local Italian restraunt :lolsign:, this deck was brilliant to me at the time a fantastic looking turntable that won me over as soon as i clamped eyes on it.

First real propar speakers i bought to replace some big Solavox's :scratch: were Celestion Ditton:15XR' i loved these but they didnt like the JVC 'JAS 11'..first real job in record shop came along, i outtted the JVC amp & bought myself a spankng new A&R Cambridge 'A60', Technics M253? 3 head cassette deck to replace Teac 'V9' i had (I used to love watching those multi coloured VU's on the Teac while laid on bed in cuckoo land ).. i bought the A&R Cambridge 'T21' radio to finish the system off.

I thought this new little system was great till i started getting plenty cash rolling in,still kept my old little paid jobs going aswell as the Record shop job.. late nights with my head in Hi-Fi Answers with all sorts of brainy ideas going off upstairs, note pad & pencil in hand with dangerous intentions in buying/trying virtually everything in those mags, which just about happened :lolsign: , this is where the slippery slope started to form very quicky with me, before i knew it i'd lost the plot, still have :rolleyes:.. what happend to me after i left home was nothing more than a compulsive buyer.

What a W*nker eh :D

[Vinyleyes]

Pink Floyd and pounds shillings and pence ......... :mental: ......... :lolsign:

[Beechwoods]

:rave: ;)

[biggzy]

You a Technics fan then Adam? ;)


I am yes, there 90's stuff was great, the top end stuff was built like tanks etc, it all started to go downhill once they changed the design towards the end of the 90's, e.g. the SJ-MD100 minidisc deck, cheap plastic and silly front panel flaps, not sure why they did this instead of making it look like the good older stuff with metal panels or the die-cast fronts as on the top end CD players.

Still theres no point me moaning now, they have been long gone (10 years now?) and looks like they will never come back, such a shame for good stuff to come to an end, there mini/micro systems took the same direction, at the end they was all plastic and cheap, back at the start of the 90's they had some really well built midi separate systems.

So now the task in hand is to complete my TEAC Reference system for my bedroom then mod a squeezebox 3 to match it, its all good ;)

Adam.

[WAD62]

For me it was the music first, and the belief that I could hear it taller / wider / deeper / louder and better than on the Marconiphone that I'd inherited from my folks.


Parallel lives Pete...same motivation, same inherited Marconiphone ;)

I then bought a second hand Pioneer PL514 (Ortofon FF15E) and hacked into the Marconiphone phono inputs, then came 'Comet' and some Goodmans RB20 speakers, and then the ultimate a second hand leak 20 valve amp (bought very cheaply)...that would be about '75/'76 I think, probably my first true Hi-Fi.

[biggzy]

Parallel lives Pete...same motivation, same inherited Marconiphone ;)

I then bought a second hand Pioneer PL514 (Ortofon FF15E) and hacked into the Marconiphone phono inputs, then came 'Comet' and some Goodmans RB20 speakers, and then the ultimate a second hand leak 20 valve amp (bought very cheaply)...that would be about '75/'76 I think, probably my first true Hi-Fi.

I think this is what got me into it, music first then the thought of hearing it at its best so to speak.

'75/76' i wasnt even a twinkle in my parents eyes lol, was born in 81, half of the classic/vintage stuff on these forums is all new to me, but im loving it here, very nice place and great members :)

Adam.