An Audiophile's journey


Well, How do I begin? First of all you english teachers out there just don't read this and we'll both be the better off for it. English grammer and spelling is something that I'm not well educated in. I will tell you that I'm a business owner and at 45 years old I don't hit a lick anymore so, all you proper spelling and grammer people just eat your heart out! Now let's get to what I have to say. I've been an audiophile since I was a kid in the 70s. My parents used to punish me by sending me to my room. It was grounding me for being bad. I was bad a lot! My Realistic receiver, BSR turntable, Technics cassette deck was my best friend. Oh, I forgot to mention my Advent loudspeakers. Anyway, I went all these years with solid state gear. When I finally got old enough to not be punished anymore(at least by my parents anyway) I got some Martin Logan SL3 speakers and a Krell amp. I just thought I had arrived! Bring it on everybody! Several years went by. I ventured into trying a tube amp on my SL3s. WOW! What revelation! It was a Rogue M120 Monos. I remember thinking why can such an outdated technolgy be so right in my rig. Then as time went by I got involved in this new website called Audiogon. Audiogon made it possible to buy and sell stuff at a minimal loss if you didn't like it. WOW! What an Idea. Poor dealers! This was late 90s early 2000. Those were the good old days. There were just a few of us excanging ideas and information. It was like an audiophile AA! I bought and have tried so many pieces of gear that I've forgotten more than others know! Then the SET revoltution came. Man, I fell hard. I've since went back and forth several times from SETs to solid state or push/pull tube amps always trying to find that nirvanna or fountain of youth of audio. Fastfoward through the great Bill Clinton years, I tried my hand at being an in home dealer and found that dealing with audiophiles was worse than babysitting children. So, that didn't last long. I still have some connections but, recently I've been blown away! A couple years ago I had a friend that got some popular UCD digtital amps to try and I thought they had great potential. But, still weren't my SET horn combo. Now this SET horn combo was a biamped system with a digital amp on the bottom (600Hz and below) and a SET amp on the top. It was, what I thought, the magical audio reproduction machine. Then a friend got a Spectron Audio Musician III SE MK II amp for his Aerials. He was blown away. He kept after me to hear his rig. Well, to make a long story longer I gave in and listened. I'm as fimiliar with his rig as I am my own. We decided to hear it in my rig. I didn't habe speakers suitable for this monster of an amp. So, I got some Dali Helcon 400 MkII for audition and we went at it. Well, to say that history was made is an understatment. I've since been selling all tube gear and living in audio heaven. I can't beleive that there is not the first tube in my rig now. My take on this is that solid state manufacturers were resting on there laurels during the late 80s and 90s. That why a 300B SET amp came along and all the people were freaked out by the great sound an 8 watt amp could produce. That great midrange! It's what brought audio out of the dark ages. Solid state has gotten on the ball since then. Digital has come a long way and is now sitting in the catbird seat. Sorry for the ramblings this Monday afternoon but, just had somethings on my chest.
philefreak
PhileFreak,

Actually, your English is very good..!..LoL..I agree with you on the supremacy of tube amplification. I've been on a similar journey (i think we all have, one way or another) and would not tolerate SS anymore except for a couple of brands etc..Digital amps have failed to impress me, not even remotely close to good tube amps provided you have matching speakers with a tube set-up. At one point in time, I had SL-3's and Ascent's driven by SS electronics but still I would always go back to tubes. Anyway, if you yearn for the best of both worlds I suggest you try an Atmasphere amp with a matching loudspeaker. You will not be disappointed!..:-)

Best,
AG
Great story although a little long. Yeah I first heard my first Hi Fi back in the 60's. I was about 10 and could not for the life of me figure where the band was hiding. Didnt care what the stuff was but I sure liked it. So did my parents but they didnt get as good of a system. I do remember a rca tube amp with a gerrard turntable. Then I got married. I didnt have a waf I had a wsychamfsf (Wife Says You Cant Have Any Money For A Stereo) factor. Bummer.. Over the years I was allowed a Denon Int amp a Yahama cd player and cyrus 782 speakers. I was very happy with that. 3 years ago I got divorced. Upgraditst hit. Did a lot of comparisions at dealers with what I wanted to replace with my existing equipt at the time. I noticed components got better but not by all that much especially for the money. I have almost completely upgraded everything and the combination of all the new equipt sound completely different and once again (for me at least) I sometimes wonder where all the musicians are. Guess what I'm trying to say is you get 'used' to a way that music sounds. Single upgrades cost me up to 10 times the cost of the old equipt (18-20 years ago) but only seemed to get 5-10% better sound. It all adds up but where do you stop. Damn I need to win a big lottery to keep playing this game and if I dont I'm extremely happy with what I have now. Although for a few bucks more I know I can 'change' the sound and hopefully for the better.
Great story.....udder dan da spelin an gram'r. I had some Realistic and BSR stuff back in the '70's as well. Never had any complaints about it at the time, although if I heard it compared to what I have now it would probably be lacking in a few things. Interesting comment about being around Audiogon in the late 90's after it first started. I was there too under a different username. There were a regular group of usernames who I enjoyed reading and sometimes jousting with. I dropped out of the scene once the unmoderated site became overrun with flamers and other trash. When I returned after the site was purged and the forums became moderated, I looked for a lot of those old usernames but they had disappeared. Perhaps they are around under different names like myself. Based on your experience, would are to recommend a low powered SET amp to someone who's thinking of giving it a try? I haven't heard tubes since the '60's. They're still pretty good are they?
You are absolutely right Philefreak, switching (or digital) amplification has come of age, and we are seeing a rapidly growing interest/acceptance in class D amplification, with brands like Rowland, Spectron, and Nuforce leading the way. . . I am not going back to low efficiency furnaces, SS or tubed alike. G.