Where did it all start for you? The music and hi-fi thing I mean.

[Haselsh1]

It started for me at the age of five years old listening to the Yardbirds 'Shapes of Things' on a bright pink Dansette Tempo that was at the time my parents record player. I quickly moved on to listening to Renaissance and all of that beautiful Prog Rock that I was so lucky to have been born in to. Thank my parents I was born when I was...!

[chris@panteg]

Ok for me i got my love for music , mostly because of my Dad ! he introduced me to the greatness of Classical music and also the Beatles and Simon and garfunkel .

Back in about 1970 ' i remember my Dad took delivery of this large cabinet thing ,and i asked what it was ' a stereo radiogram ' my Dad said , here take a look , inside was a Garrard autochanger ' and Bush reciever (solid state) , it was a marvelous at the time and Dad was so proud of it. l

This stood us well throughout the 70's , though i seem to recall that vinyl playback gradually got worse , then i got my own 1st system in 1982 , a phillips rack system ' pretty poor really but i ddn't know any better , in 1984 i added a Phillips CD101 , wow CD perfect sound ? not.

It was about this time i discovered real hifi , and started reading the mags , i remember coming across an odd rag so it seemed ' and a bloke called Frankland raving about a turntable called a Linn LP12 and how crap my prized CD player was and of course i believed it.

So i got shot of everything bar the 101 and went out and bought a

Dual 505 mk2

NAD 3020 because Frankland said it bested an SP8 lol

Technics st400 tuner

Tannoy Mercury mk1

79 strand cable

Target rack

Sorted

Very soon i realized i needed a better TT and the following year i had a mad desire to get a Logic Tempo with Datum arm and p77 cart , though i really wanted a Linn , i could not wait the extra 6 months or so to afford one .

The Logic was a great improvement , i then decided to upgrade the amp and not liking the fave rave 8000A which my neigbour had i went for a Cyrus 2 followed by the PSX psu , this turned into a mistake after the initial impressive powerful presentation , it sounded very dry and a bit hard

Almost forgot to put this in ! i traded the Logic in for an LP12/basik+ in very late 1986

In 1988 i got an Ittok and K9 for my LP12 followed in 1990 by Ekos/Troika ,
but it was at this time i met Darryl and John ' both guy's had LP12's like myself although John had quite literally just jumped ship and sold his as he had just discovered valves ( Audio by design) and had just bought a deck called the Voyd .

Darryl had a LP12/ittok/Asaka ' but was really into Valve amps and an agent for Concordant and a mad tweaker/DIY'er , he introduced me to the late and great Doug Dunlop ' we went to his house in Barwell for a music evening and marvelous it was , the sight of Doug swapping valves ! while the amp (Quad 2) was playing ' will live with me forever ' Darryl looking at me with an astonished look , trying very hard not to laugh .

I ended up buying an Excelsior pre and Doug's modded Quad's and sold all the Misson Cyrus stuff (i also had the CD player) later i got hold of a Pioneer PD9300.

I used the Concordant amps with Rogers LS7t , adding in 1994 the Exemplar solid stater ,during a brief dalliance with some rosewood AE1's but i still had the Quad's , i tired of the AE1's and on Dougs advice bought Snell type J's .

It was at this time that poor old Doug developed Alzheimers and ended up in a home , eventually he passed away a few years later.

My LP12 had not really changed much up until 1996 when i had it serviced getting the Cirkus upgrade' at the same time i had my Troika rebuilt and i got hold of an Audio innovations 1000 mc transformer .

By this time my good pal John had a Helius orion AN IO cart for his Voyd , he also had invested in some new amps a series 1000 pre and 2nd audio mono's
to use with his Snell type E's , i decided i had to have the 2nd's but i did not care for the 1000 pre .

In 1997 i sold my Concordant Quads and the Exemplar and found a pair of 2nd audio's at a good price , adding a pair of Border patrol psu's in 1999 ,
it was in 1999 that i made the decision to part with my Linn as i was offered a Voyd .5 with reference psu for £1500 a bargain when you consider it was £4500 new , so i went for it getting an SME 310 and having been pursuaded to try a Music maker at the same time .

This was intended to be my last turntable , but in 2005/6 i made the rather rash and hasty decision to sell everything to help with my mortgage ,as things turned out i didn't need to ! but ahh well such as life.

These days i have a much more modest or less ambitious set up but am enjoying my music just as much and buying more of it than ever .

looking back i dread to think of how much i have spent and wasted , not even gone into cables and other shite ' but then again i've squandered quite a bit on cars , having made a few mistakes ' what the hell.

[webby]

lying on the sitting room floor with a speaker either side of my head.

I used to do that. It's amazing.

[Techno Commander]

I was 15 years old and enjoyed playing records on the family music centre. War of the worlds has a lot to answer for.

Anyway, one day my mother "volunteered" my to babysit for a friend of hers as they were off on a night out. I was not amused.

There was some solace due to the fact I could use their stereo, they would give me some tins of beer and a crispy new £5 note.

I duly arrived at the appointed time and was shown their stereo and given a brief instruction to its use. I nearly wet myself when I saw the stack of Silver Sony separates, the JBL speakers and a pile of Zappa records.

I was in heaven. I settled down to Sheik Yerbuti and a beer and engrossed myself in quality music to a level previously unheard of. An hour later, things got even better when the 15 year old daughter arrived back home and we spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and "discussing" the finer details of Joes Garage.

I vowed that one day I would have a stereo that good and when I started work thats what I did. Today, my stereo is infinitely better than that Sony system, but I still remember it well. Or was it her daughter I remember with such fondness??

[John]

I always liked music even as a kid but that passion for music started when I was 15 I was always listening to music on the radio and started to read about the bands I liked , I was quick to discover my music taste at the time was Heavy metal so started to get albums by the artist I liked artists like Sabbath, Rainbow, Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple, Van Halen and Rush. I started going to concerts I was lucky enough to see Bon Scott with AC/DC, Boston and many more bands.
In about 82 I started going to smaller clubs like the Marquee I still remember the first band I saw play their Y&T both nights...the heat was intense. So all my money started to go on buying records from Shades (2 to 3 a week) or going to the Marquee (at least twice a week), to be honest I thought Hifi was for the piped slipper brigade and pretty much sure the youth of today will look at me in a similar way.
I started to play the guitar this opened my ears to different styles of music I started to listen to people like Django and Charlie Christain
Getting into Hifi was a complete accident My component system I had for years finally gave up, I decided to get something decent so not knowing anything I ended up with a AE109 some Myriad T40 power amps and Phillips CD player. I remember just feeling so frustrated, every upgrade I got improved something but lacked something else, it was a frustrating time and I spent far to much money trying to get it right. Over time I got a better understanding of what I wanted in a system and for the last year or two I been pretty happy with the sounds I am getting.
I think the worst time for me was when I started to always analysis what I was hearing it really got in the way of simply enjoying music, thankfully I can now turn on and off this. I do not want to be listening to aspects of the sound, for me its about the enjoyment of the music
As for forums I only really fitted in here at AOS I used to post on other sites
With my friends I do not really talk hifi it would bore them, but music I can always have good chats about music with them as they have similar obsessions that way, so here I have a place where I can join in when I want too.

[Reid Malenfant]

Ok for me i got my love for music , mostly because of my Dad ! he introduced me to the greatness of Classical music and also the Beatles and Simon and garfunkel .

Snap

I'm not sure how old i was but i guess about 4 years old, so we are looking at 1970 when i had my first proper introduction to a decent hifi system. Father took me into the "music room" as it was known then on a Sunday & we'd listen to some music together. He'd have quite a bit specifically tailored for children to listen to, some of it must still be here in actuality After the kiddy stuff he'd put on some Simon & Garfunkel or Beatles, Mamas & Papas or classical. I always sat there happy to listen, after all it sounded marvelous to me At the time he had Goldring G99, SME3009, Shure M75ED? Quad 33/303 & Leak Sandwich 600 speakers.

My first system (if you can call it that) was a mono radio cassette (Panasonic) that soon had an extension speaker plugged into it. As my father was the manager of a TV & radio shop a rather dead Lloytron speaker found it's way home & with a fair selection of drive units that sat in the loft i picked an old 10" stentorian (odd thing, it could be wired 4, 8 or 16ohms) along with something else for the treble.

Soon after i built my first enclosure myself & fitted a Wharfedale cloth surround 12", wharfedale cs8" gold chassis & the super3" tweeter. I was probably 12 years old at this point.

My first stereo was a Furguson Cassiever, the silver one, not the more powerful & better specified black version. At this point i was back to giveaway speakers A pair of Castle Richmonds were borrowed on a longish loan from the shop until one xmas santa sent me a Kefkit which consisted of a pair of B200 & T27 along with the crossovers

I soon built a pair of smallish transmission lines which after a load of fettling sounded pretty darn good if i do say so myself

Some time later this cassiever was replaced with a JVC stack system & i had my first record deck

My first decent buy of what i'd call hifi gear was probably when i was 19 or so when i purchased a secondhand JVC QLY5F with JVC MC2E moving coil cartridge. I also purchased a QED MC pre amp to compliment this.

Since that time it has been a gradual case of upgrading kit & building new speakers until i got where i am today. A house full of stuff that i don't use hardly any of I honestly can't remember a quarter of what has been used in my systems. I still have more stuff than i can shake a stick at sitting here & i often go looking for something & turn up some things i totally forgot about like a pair of Quad 405 amps i rediscovered recently

It's been a hell of a lot of fun getting here though

[Welder]

When I was in my early teens (thank god that’s over) I remember listening to Alan Freemans Top of the Pops on my parents Bush Radiogram.
I can also remember Beatle mania and the Rolling Stones early releases
My greatest teen music related experience was getting to meet Count Bassie and Georgy Fame after a concert they held at the Albert Hall. I’ve also met the Rolling Stones among others
Teenagers didn’t have much in the way of disposable income in those days so buying records let alone a Hi Fi was out of most teenagers reach. I had a paper round though and can recall buying my first Long Playing record; Vanilla Fudge who I had heard on one of the pirate radio stations around at the time, probably Radio Caroline.
My very first sound system comprised a car radio tape player and a pair of car speakers which I screwed to the wall
After I finished my studies and started work as an engineer ( yes it is true, you did used to be able to earn a living doing this in this country ) I became interested in sound; not necessarily Hi FI, through my job.
The first bit of serious kit I bought was a Reel to Reel, a Revox B something or other feeding an old Leak valve receiver; can’t remember too much about the speakers but I think they were a relatively cheap offering from Mission.
The reason for the Reel to Reel was at the time me and few mates were putting on bands in local venues and recording them as some were participating in competition a music newspaper called Melody Maker ran at the time.
(It makes me smile to think we paid AC/DC £20 to play at a small local venue in Watford when they first came to England; took me about a week to straighten up after that gig)
In my early 20’s I bought my first proper Hi Fi more or less by accident. I was looking for some Threshold amps and had gone to a shop in London called Unilet Hi Fi. They had on demo a pair of Volt Boxers built by David Lyth to demonstrate his bass drivers primarily. Feeding these was a Quantum Electronics set up(102 and 207DA’s) I bought a Thorens TD160S, SME3 and Goldring 900iGC to feed that lot the next day. After a bit of pestering I managed to persuade Unilet to sell me the lot and I still have them now although the speakers have undergone a lot of changes over the years, mainly thanks to the patience of David Lyth.
It didn’t take me long to realize that a lot of the stuff that was flavor of the month Hi Fi was basically overpriced and I eventually stopped buying and started building
I have a couple of more affluent mates from my engineering and Uni days who are still very much into their Hi Fi and music who went into the recording industry after the decline of engineering and our earlier band promoting experiences who I keep in touch with. We swap and compare fairly regularly so i get to hear some of the more esoteric kit.
I haven’t spent a fortune on Hi Fi but I’ve had a few interesting bits and pieces over the years.

Strangely I still have the Quantum amps which still put many higher priced amps to shame and I’ve remained a Volt fan having heard nothing that comes close at the price. The Thorens and a couple of arms and assorted cartridges got sold a couple of months ago (crazy what people will pay for a machine that drags a needle along a wobbly groove in a bit of plastic ). The Quantum kit will go next.

I’m computer based now and very happy with it in general.

[topoxforddoc]

My forays into hi-fi started in the 1978, when I started to listen in earnest to music regularly on my parents' Dynatron Radiogram. My Grandparents bought my parents a new system in 1979 (Technics SL-BD20 TT, SU7300 amp and Celestion 15XRs).
At that time, I started looking around at hi-fi more and ended up in a saturday job in my local hi-fi shop in Canterbury. There I was educated by my boss in the subtle vocabulary from Jewish communities in Boston and the East Coast - his name was Ken Kessler.
I took my wages in kit rather than cash and so I started the upgrade path - first up was a Thorens TD160B, with an old Hadcock 228 that had been sitting in the window unsold for years. Next was a Decca cartridge to replace the VMS20E and later the Decca was sent to the Garrott Brothers for one of their legendary rebuilds (I still have it and use it now).
From there, I was smitten by valves/tubes, turntables, Nakamichi and the such like (real surprise that when you work with KK). All Linn/Naim users were labelled as schmucks and that's how I still see it today. I ended up buying KK's Quad IIs (still in use after a rebuild by GT Audio in the 1990s) and then other stuff that customers brought in for PX, such as an original Logic DM101 (on which went an Audio Technica AT1100 and Micro Seiki LC80W - critics faves in the early 80s).
The TD160 was then sold and I migrated to my first TD124 in a SME plinth (with the Hadccock and Decca). This went and was replaced by another TD124 in a custom plinth, still with the Hadcock and Decca.
My valves went into hiding temporarily as I travelled around the country as a junior doctor every 6-12 months and so I diverged into a Meridian 101 and M3s (much easier to carry in the boot of my Fiat Uno). These were my regular fare until I became a consultant in the late 90s, when my Quads came out to play. My venerable TD124 was sold only 6 years ago when I got a great deal on a Platine Verdier, equipped with a Schroeder Model 2/Allaerts MC1B and yes, you've guessed my original Hadcock and Decca is now on it too. My Quads are still playing today, although the 22 has long gone and been replaced by a TRON pre-amp. The M3s went and in came a large pair of Avantgarde Duos. My vinyl collection has settled in a permanent home and my wet Moth RCM now allows me to re-acquaint myself with LPs from the golden age of vinyl.
Occasionally I take out my receipt from the Garrott Brothers with their comments on my Decca rebuild back in 1981 - it brings back many happy memories and also much sadness at their tragic passing.

Charlie
www.charlie-chan.co.uk

[Batty]

Growing up in the 60s music around the house came from various pieces of funiture called radiograms and a smallish radio set in the kitchen for Mum to listen to her 'modern rubbish' that was frowned upon by Dad. Mum listened to Petula Clark and Sandie Shaw, Dad listend to Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. In 1973 at the age of 15 I saved enough for a Philips mono cassette player, and all my paper round money was saved up for tapes, I remember I had some Eric Clapton, Beatles and Led Zeppelin tapes and later recorded Tubular Bells off my mates record player, we had to be very quiet as we used an external mic, but you could still hear me whisper 'It's pissing down' while I was looking out the window, at the end of side 1. I don't thike Mike would have approved.
I then moved on to an ITT self contained record player with removable speakers for stereo reproduction and joined the army as an electronics apprentice where I was exposed to all sorts of music I had never heard before, this was the end of '74.
Within 6 months my collection had the likes of Roxy Music and Rick Wakeman alongside of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Part of the apprenticeship was to build our own 2.5 watt stereo receiver, we did the lot, from making PCBs to the string and toothpick tuning indicator. I seem to remember the tuner was of a Mullard design, speakers were 15 ohm elliptical full range items of dubious manufacture mounted to a piece of wood (open baffle). My then girlfriend had a Sony music centre in her lounge and this went way louder than my 2.5 watts, so with the aid of my cousin, a qualified Electronics engineer, 2.5 watts became around 15. My first taste of upgraditis and watt envy.

Music tastes were still on the Rock side, but was being watered down with Elton John and Hall & Oates, some Bob Marley crept in there too. The Equipment was changing too, I now had an Amstrad TP12D TT with a Goldring G800 and later an MP11, Amplification was 35Watts of Amstrad power, speakers were by Goodmans (sadly not LS3/5a though).

Prog Rock and Blues now were the sounds and some disco for the wife, trips overseas brought music from Indonesia, Turkey and Europe into the fold.

I now find myself able to listen to just about any music and appreciate it for what it has to offer, all except 'both kinds - country and western'.

Here endeth my missive.

[Pete The Cat]

1978. A choice between my bike, and having something more than our family Marconiphone integrated record player / amp / speaker.

I was convinced that Queen or The Jam could sound bigger and better. Yep, I had new wave and old rock, away from the cities you could still get away with liking both.

My father sourced me an Eagle turntable from an electrical wholesaler, and I got a Glanz cartridge from Laskys, my bike didn't fetch much after all. I borrowed Bryan 15 watt amp (made in Hale, Cheshire I'll have you know). For the first six months I made do with some Pioneer car speakers. Then the journey continued...

Pete