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How Did Your First Audiophile Experience Impact Your Audio Journey?

I am going to be somewhat liberal when choosing my first truly "Audiophile" experience.  In college I had a friend that had a pair of Definitive Technology BP2000 speakers that were by far the best speaker that I had every heard, but his style was mostly just blasting music which didn't appeal to me or demonstrate their true SQ.

My first true "audiophile" experience was visiting a local HiFi shop that appeared to be an almost tacky car audio place from the outside, but I had been told to ask about the basement.  The only thing that I remember was some Vienna Acoustics speakers that blew my mind.

When I was ready to dip a toe into the audiophile pool several years later, I went back to the shop and it had shifted it's focus to be exclusively home audio with Focal being their brand of choice.  Their main room gave me opportunity to audition  Focal speakers from the $750 bookshelf to the $180,000 Grande Utopia's.  What was cool looking back was that I was able to hear the most affordable speakers at their best because they were being powered by the huge Krell mono blocks that were there for the Grande Utopia speakers.  My favorite setup was Diablo Utopia speakers with a JL Audio Gotham subwoofer.  The sound that came out of a large bookshelf was mind bending to me.  As it turns out, Krell has continued to be a consistent amplifier that pulls me in whenever I'm around a system with them in it.  I also have continued to love the Focal sound and have never once thought about needing to upgrade mine even though I've heard objectively better speakers and know that there's a lot out there that are superior.

The thing that I look back on and laugh about from my auditioning and buying process was the pain that I must have put the salesman through listening to one of my Josh Groban CDs that I later discovered is a painfully poor recording.  Ironically, there was one song in particular that was used to make the final decision for which model to get.

I don't know how much my tastes are a result of being blown away with Focal speakers and Krell amplifiers being my first significant experience in the audiophile world or if I happened to be very fortunate by it also aligning to my taste.

- robot

mceljo
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,555 posts
 

"Paragraphic Frequalizer"...

I had a wine customer walk in one day looking for a really good Cabaret Sauvignon.

I asked "like the Liza Minnelli movie" and he replied "exactly". 

I replied "we have a few in various price ranges, but they are all good wines".

I showed him a few cab's in the $5-$50 price range noting that I drank a $10 one @ home (2nd label for a killer CA Vineyard and this was in the early 90's - 1990 vintage had just arrived).

At that point my wife walked up to ask me a non-work question (we worked in the same store for 6 months, or so, before I, as a new hire, was promoted and transferred due to us being married).

He asked "was that your wife" and I replied "yes, she's great isn't she" and he asked "does she drink it" to which I replied "no, she doesn't drink alcohol, but she married me".

He purchased the $10 bottle with a smile on his face.

 

DeKay

roxy54's avatar
roxy54
7,977 posts
 

Huh?

fredrichs's avatar
fredrichs
2 posts
 

I was in first grade and had collected three clock radios. I would plug them in , tune to KQRS and wait for “ Roundabout” by YES. Surround sound baby.I would alway become fixated on ant audio system I came across. I would make my rounds to Audio King, Sony Sound Center…. One day I came across Audio Perfection, a stand alone brick building in South Minneapolis. I walked in and was breathless as I was surrounded by STUFF and an opposing figure that was ignoring me. I wondered around for a bit not seeing anything I recognized ie. Fisher, Scott, Aiaw…then a tap on my shoulder by the opposing man (I thought I was going to be asked to leave) and he asked if I would like to listen to a system? He slowly walked to this room, Sat me in a nice chair in front of this rack of STUFF and said listen. The sound was captivating, I hated classical music but not anymore.

Mr. Opposing leaned in and said he could hear a fly fart a mile away, as I looked up I noticed he was blind. The curse was then upon me, four years later with with cash in my pocket ( then in Mr. Ominous pocket) I had a real system.

mg16's avatar
mg16
117 posts
 

Pink Floyd Umma Gumma and orange sunshine acid for me.  Made quite an impression on me, even to this day.

mg16

slbjbb
43 posts
 

My first audiophile experience was a dealer with Macintosh equipment driving Dahlquist speakers. They put on Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon and I was hooked for life. I think some of the numbers of audiophiles coming from that time period has to do with the incredible music that was recorded and released on an almost weekly basis. It almost begged for great reproduction capability

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