How did U get into this expensive hobby?

My Father promised to buy me a stereo system for my 15th birthday, 1979. We went to the city, New York City that is, to a store called East 33rd Street stereo. I had my consumer reports magazine with me. I new that I would be the Akai receiver, the Akai tape deck, the Akai direct drive turntable, and the Cerwin Vega speakers.

The salesman was a very heavy man who was sweating through the day. He was able to hook up the receiver to the tape deck and play music through the Cerwin Vegas. I was very excited. He then said, "I have a great pair of speakers that I can give you for the same price". The other pair was this tiny pair of bookshelf speakers. He saw the look in my eye and he said, "Just listen".

It was amazing. Compared to the Cerwin Vegas these speakers sounded like music. I cannot tell you that at 15 I had a great ear. I can tell you that what I heard was realistic in comparison to what I had heard from the other speakers. The tiny bookshelf speakers were B&W DM110's. My friend Rich still uses them in his home system. I now own B&W 803's. That initial experience of realistic sound production started a miserable unsatisfying journey into this obsessive hobby. I would not have it any other way.

My father built a homemade Dynaco kit stereso system when I was a kid. I was hooked on what a good music would sound like from than on. I got a small portable stereo for college that wasn't very good but I had music. My first purchase when I got out of college and got a job was a used car the second was a nice stereo system. We were sitting on 2nd hand furniture but we had great sounding tunes. We have better furniture now but "The System" still costs a lot more! :)

As a teen (late 1970's) I read Stereo Review every month and picked out the "best" system components based on the highly reliable performance specifications and authoritative product reviews. At the time, I had a Sound Design all-in-one turntable/amp with 5" full range speakers (est. $129)!

I love music. Played a trumpet and baritone into college. Got by with a hand-me-down system from my father, a walkman and a good pair of Koss headphones. Insert fond memories here of Boston, Styx, Supertramp, Heart, Kansas, Yes .... oh, but I digress.

Later (out of college, but still broke) I had a $400 Sony 50wpc turntable/tape rack system; which was supplemented with a used early generation CD player. However, after hearing the clarity in my friend's very expensive Denon/Infinity system (est. cost $1,200) I decided I needed new speakers.

Purchased some $300/pr Advent Prodigy II's (considering this to be a great extravagance), and promptly found the wimpy Sony rack system couldn't drive.

While returning them, I happened upon a Dahlquist dealer introducing the new DQ-12's (3-way open baffle construction similar to Vandersteen 2's). I really liked them. He left those pre-production versions at the store and the store was dumping them as demos prior to the new products arriving. I bought a stack of Adcom electronics to go with them. I also got to know the salesperson (he had some great gear), and then subscribed to Stereophile.

Shortly after that I was completely addicted. Like many others at this site it seems continuing happiness requires a regular component upgrade. Currently it's the Audio Alchemy, BAT, McCormack, Thiel, Velodyne level.

But after reading the other thread about "what's the best system you've every built" I have a feeling this is going to go on for some time (wife groans here).

Thanks for the fun question (and memories).

My mother was going to buy me a stereo as a graduation present when I graduated college. I would have been content with just about anything, except I wnted to be able to tape my records so as to preserve them. One of my instructors insisted that 8-tracks were a dying breed and cassettes would be the way to go in the near future. This was in 1974. Since we couldn't find an all-in-one stereo with a cassette, I got a bottom of the line Pioneer receiver, BSR tt, XAM speakers and a JVC cassette deck from E.J. Korvette's. the rest is history

My father bought me an H.H. Scott all in one turntable/reciever for Christmas 1970,(I was 16). He gave me the Magnavox speakers he was using in his bedroom. 1973 I bought a used pair of mint Rectilinear 3's. The Scott would not drive them, I upgraded to a Marantz 2270 Reciever and a used turntable (Pioneer I think), soon replaced by a Technics. Bought some Advents to replace the Rec 3's and on and on through various recievers, integrateds, separates, speakers and other electronics.
My wife and I both worked for record stores/companies at different times in our life, we had probably 1500 records at the beginning of 1990's. For some reason I decided to sell them and my turntable to go all digital. Well after a few years of "Perfect Sound" I decided that I missed analog. 1996 bought a Rega Planar 3 and started collecting vinyl again, have about 500 records again and am having a blast finding new and used vinyl treasures. I am hopelessly hooked on the whole hobby, software and hardware.

It,s All About the Music!
Cheers,
Dan