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

[twelvebears]

Something Marco wrote in another thread set me to thinking:

Howard Jones, The Thompson Twins... Now we're talking my kinda music from my era!

Feck yer 70s rock and prog rock bollocks

I'm very much an 80s boy at heart - all the other stuff I listen to is just 'froth'

Enjoy your new deck, Steve - it sounds like a cracker!

Marco.

Everyone says hello when they arrive, and a quick run-through of what they own and listen to now. but I think some of the really interesting stories are about what's got us to this point; where did the hi-fi and music thing start for everyone and where has it taken them along the way, because mine started about 24 years ago and it's not over yet.

I think it would be interesting to hear people's musical autobiographies, if people have got the time and inclination to share...

I'm working on mine at the moment and I'll post once I'm finished.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Everyone says hello when they arrive, and a quick run-through of what they own and listen to now. but I think some of the really interesting stories are about what's got us to this point; where did the hi-fi and music thing start for everyone and where has it taken them along the way, because mine started about 24 years ago and it's not over yet.

I think it would be interesting to hear people's musical autobiographies, if people have got the time and inclination to share...

Great idea - Standing by!!

[alb]

Here's the tale of how i became interested in audio.
It's not a diary of upgrades, because i can't remember half of them. I'll leave that to those who can.

1972, this 14 year old country boy wandered across the road to his nearest neighbour. The neighbour- a retired engineer- was always taking something apart or just messing with something interesting. Fascinating stuff for a young lad.
On this occasion he was lifting some furniture from the house, and he announced that he was making room for a stereo system. I wasn't entirely sure what he meant, but one of my mates had a modern record player, like a suitcase with speakers in the lid, so I guessed it was something similar.

Apparently he had to travel some fifty odd miles to Bolton, in order to collect whatever it was. That was the nearest proper HiFi dealer. He asked me if I wanted to go along for the ride, but then quickly changed his mind, saying there might not be enough room in the car.
I felt disappointed. Not enough room in the car! What the hell was he buying that would fill a Morris Marina Coupe?
He gave me a copy of Popular Hifi to look at. I took it home and must have read the thing from cover to cover several times, slowly realising there was something going on that I knew nothing about.

I mentioned this to my Father, who then announced that his friend at work had just bought one.
Dad had no real interest in playing music, or the money to buy a system with. However, he thought such things were a better investment than the rubbish I had previously wasted money on. He was referring to Scalextric sets and other teen toys I had accumulated, but seldom used.
He suggested I sell some stuff to raise the cash for some stereo bits and pieces. Other than that, I would have to wait till Christmas. Remember the good old days, when folks didn't get everything they wanted straight away.

Meanwhile across the road, my neighbour had been to Bolton and returned with his stereo. I got the invite that night to go and see it.
There was a new shelf unit with a turntable, amplifier and tuner. He pointed out some new and rather large items of furniture that were apparently speakers. I remember the backs came off quite easily, and inside there were two drive units one of which had Richard Allan written on it. What he had was a Thorens/Leak/Richard Allen system.
He didn't have much in the way of LPs to play on it, but we sat in awe as we listened to trains going from side to side along with other sound effects.

Later I went home to find out from my Popular HiFi, just how much this would have cost. It was way beyond my reach, so I started looking for something I could afford.

Soon after I got invited to see the system belonging to my dads friend. I recognised the turntable as another Thorens, but the amp was a strange looking thing with orange dials and buttons. I could see no speakers anywhere, until he showed me some large flat panels about twelve inches from the wall. I've no idea what they were but the hidden drive units pointed toward the back wall at an angle.
He had made them himself, and they seemed much better than the Richard Allans. I had to listen to an hour of classical music, which wasn't what I had in mind, but it was clear that these systems were an obvious step up in sound quality. At least from the stereogram and suitcase type things.

Well the Scalextric got sold, along with some other stuff and I raised sufficient cash to buy the cheapest available turntable and amplifier. (Garrard 2025TC and Amstrad 8000). I couldn't afford to buy any speakers, but my dad who was impressed by my fundraising efforts, offered to pay for some Elac full range drive units from Wilmslow Audio, if I built some boxes.
Well it wasn't really HIFI, but better than anything my mates had.

The next thirty odd years is a saga of box swapping and mistakes and speaker building, just like most other people, so I won't even bother trying to remember what I bought or in which order.

[DSJR]

Great story that. My Hacker record player had a 2025TC, fitted with Acos GP96 cartridge. Why they didn't fit the far better 104 escapes me, unless the 104 came much later. I also tried the Sonotone 3559/Garrard KS41C and these were great too in this player.

I've had music in my life ever since I could breathe. The Deccalian 88 with Collaro Conquest changer was in constant use, as was the Bush table radio we had, tuned to the "light" programme, which played a mixture of puff, as well as some of the "hit-parade" tunes of the late fifties/early sixties.

I like all sorts of music and can now play T Rex and Slade alongside Led Zep, Yes and ELP. it just depends on mood. Alongside "Meddle" by PF and Led Zep IV, I also bought "Bridge over Troubled Water" and Beethoven's 6th and enjoy them all to this day.

[twelvebears]

Well frankly, given both the music and hi-fi kit I was exposed to has a kid, it's amazing that I have any love or appreciation of either!

Although I was born in 1971, and therefore in an ideal position to be weaned on some of the classic rock, pop and Motown acts of the 60's and 70's, I had two slight disadvantages:

1. Money was pretty tight growing up, and so neither buying music, nor the kit to play it on featured very high on my
parent's list of priorities.

2. Even though I'm an only child, both my parents where in their 40's when I was born (much to everyone's surprise,
especially theirs!) and as a result, their generation and particular taste in music left something to be desired.

Typical listening would often include:

James Last

Perry Como

Great Western Themes (actually not that bad)

Shirley Bassey

Joe Loss

Various awful K-Tel compilation albums

However, despite the above, an interest developed because of two important things:

I became aware that music existed outside the home, not all of which made you want to kill yourself because some old cardigan-wearing American was singing about trees, ribbons and what he wanted to do with a hatchet, hammer and bucket of bloody nails!

I inherited a fundamentally interest in how and why things worked, and was therefore very interested in all things hi-fi, which at the time meant turntables, tape decks and stuff with lights and buttons.

The next big big step, and one which really ignited everything that came after, was a very important present from my Godparents (same age group, same awful choice of music, slightly more money) for Xmas 1982.... A wonderful, wonderful Sony Walkman, Specifically one of these, a WM-5 and my first album.

This was, a fantastic piece of kit, and cutting edge at the time, with awesome sound quality (to my young ears) and build which made all my friend's players (mostly cheap Sanyo units) look and sound like total cack.

Given the aforementioned dire taste in music, you be wondering what horrible, horrible selection was given along with this life-changing present. Well here, for some reason, the music gods intervened and by some miracle, I got the genuinely excellent Oxygene and listened to it over and over again. My love of music was given another big boost by my own first purchase, which is one that am proud to have as 'my first album'. A reasonably successful second album, released just before Xmas that year by a well know and sadly, recently deceased American chap. (see I knew they didn't all wear cardigans!!).

It was at this point that the hi-fi bit kicked in.

As mentioned, the WM-5 was actually a damn fine piece of kit, and it became immediately obviously to be that the sounds it was delivering to my grateful ears when playing the same tape as my Dad's woeful Pye music centre, differed so much as to be almost beyond belief! What had happened to Mr Jackson?!! Why was Mr Van Halen playing his mind-bending guitar solo from under a duvet?!! This would never do, something had to change and fast!

Fortunately this was back in 1983, when the internet was a research project, Amazon was somewhere with trees, and small independent hi-fi shops could still be profitable and be places of magic and wonder to a newly music-obsessed 11 year old, and just across the road from my street was S.M. Electronics, licensed to sell wondrous, early 80s separates from the likes of Marantz, Pioneer, Sony and Toshiba!

Now this would have been unbearable and pointless torture, given the VAST gap between the price tags and the combined sum of my pocket and paper-round money, were it not for the even more 80s phenomenon of S.M. Electronics very own hi-fi repair shop 3 doors up. Where because of a very kind, understanding and trusting owner, a deal was struck which saw me buying various bits of repaired but uncollected hi-fi with weekly instalments.

The next few years, combined with increasingly well paid teenage jobs, my Mum's Brian Mills catalogue and the newly opened Richer Sounds, saw me build a fully fledged system with a Sony turntable, Panasonic cassette deck, Marantz amp and 3-way Sharp speakers (in real wood cabinets!), along with a decent selection of typically 80's music. I loved my system, and although I'm sure it actually sounded pretty bad, it sounded way better than the portable stereos my fellow teenage friends owned, and I was very happy until one day in 1986 when I happened to drop in at my friend Alex's house on the way home from school....

Depeche Mode

Black Celebration

A top-of-the-range Sony 'midi' system - 100 watts per channel!!

A CD PLAYER!!

It was the most amazing sound I'd ever heard, and the album was great too. To this day, the opening notes of the first track and the way the bass-line kicks in still brings the memory of that first time flooding back. So of course I rushed home, hell-bent on BEGGING my Mum to let buy the one (vaguely) affordable CD player from her Brian Mills catalogue. After just over a week, the AWESOME and massively expensive (to me - £299.99) Akai CD-A30 arrived!

Of course at this time, in the mid-80s,to a 15yr old on just double paper-round and pocket money, the weekly payments on the CD player (god knows what I actually ended up paying including interest, I shudder to think) meant that CDs were a major expense and required serious consideration. Back then, most discs were approx £15 WHICH IS £33.45 IN TODAYS MONEY!! Seriously, imagine EVERY album you bought now costing over £30!! No wonder I can still remember most of the tiles of my early collection:

Can't Slow Down - Lionel Richie
Human Racing - Nick Kershaw
Black Celebration - Depeche Mode
Word Up - Cameo
Genesis - Genesis
Greatest Hits - Queen
Suddenly - Billy Ocean
Graceland - Paul Simon
Thriller & Off The Wall - Michael Jackson

Anyway, that's it for now, the next part of the story will pick up a few years down the line when I have my first job and close friend who has joined me in reading Hi-Fi News & Record Review and Hi-Fi Choice from cover to cover each month, and who has also got a serious case of 'Upgradeitus'

[Beechwoods]

This is a fantastic thread! Great idea Steve!

[DSJR]

Such great and heart-warming stories. I really hope some of today's kids will get into better quality music better reproduced.

My first record player (thanks to Green Shield Stamps in my case) was a Dansette Popular



Sadly, the speaker was on the top, between the platter and the arm. The thing ran slightly slow and I tended to fiddle too much. The local repair shop almost refused to have it back after the third or fourth time.........

Once I'd turned 10, another local shop gave me some old record players to play with and I was off, nearly electrocuting myself as I went along (all those valves and high heater currents..). I learned all about the BSR "Monarch" changer units and the earlier Garrards pre the "Auto-Slim," which spawned the 2025TC and most of the legendary SP25 series.

My first "proper" HiFi consisted of a GL75/M75-EJ, Lustraphone LP100 amp and Audiomaster Image 2 speakers. In 1976 I discovered proper valves (Radford STA25 with pre and a full Quad valve setup with both tuners) and bought the BC1's, which I kept for a few years until I got into the "Dinn/Laim" thang, starting with an LP12/G707/ADC ZLM,NAC12/CB160 and 'briks.........

[twelvebears]

There was of course the time when, aged about 14 I electrocuted myself while removing the casing of an old Sony amp while it was still plugged in...

Yes I know it was stupid, it was an accident OK!

[Spectral Morn]

There was of course the time when, aged about 14 I electrocuted myself while removing the casing of an old Sony amp while it was still plugged in...

Yes I know it was stupid, it was an accident OK!

I think we have all done that at least once (some however only do it once), in my case it was a Pathos In-Power power amplifier. I was changing the fuse and despite the fact it was off, I had not unplugged it from the wall..........stupid. My wife wondered why I was rolling about the floor in agony.



Regards D S D L

[twelvebears]

Excellent! Well done Neil!

My was pretty spectatular. I was holding each side of the u-shaped metal casing with both hands and the shock caused both hands to grip the case so hard that the metal edge sliced straight into both hands at the same time.

There was blood

There was swearing

There was me looking like a complete tit at school having to explain my both my hands were in bandages.

However I haven't zapped myself since.