Memories........What made you catch the Audio Bug?


I remember back in high school, my ''industrial arts'' teacher was an avid audiophile and music lover. We are going back to '73 now. I remember one day being very different from any other. Upon entering class for our usual 40 minutes of the usual wood-cutting and bird-cage building routine,(some of us were luckier, getting ,'design' classes instead) we found our teacher,Ed, busy at setting up an LP on a Thorens turntable. Alongside, some strange, industrial-looking brown and orange boxes (QUAD) and a cloth-wrapped box with the initals B&W on them. He informed us that, today, we would discover something new, ''high-Fidelity'' as he called it.

We all sat in awe as our teacher put the SGT Peppers Lonely Hearts on full blast, to the amazement of everyone in the room. Wow! What was THAT? The equipment, the sound, the MUSIC was unlike anything most of us had ever seen or heard. I remember thinking to myself, now this is how the Beatles really sound like? I just could not beleive it.

I remember that we had no quality music equipement in our home back then, as with most other kids.

It was just amazing. Word got around that 'something special was happening, in industrial art's class. Turned out the topic of the week was 'high-fidelity' discovery I guess, as every other class in turn got the same treatment all week long.

The Following year, our teacher somehow managed to get the school board to approve a special ''equipement'' expenditure, officially probably a vacuum system, or new circular saw, or band saw, whatever. The class built a special wooden closet complete with locks, to accept the new ''equipement''. When it finally arrived, holy smokes, a McIntosh amplifier and preamp, with Thorens turntable !

We ended up ''founding'' an audiophile club at school, and would have students spend their lunch hour seating in a closed room in complete darkness, listening to a complete album...against a 10 cent fee that we would keep to buy records !

If you are reading this ED, these 30 years old memories are as fresh in my mind as yesterday. Thank you so very much for sharing your passion with us, and opening our eyes to so many horizons, music being just one of them.

Just wondering how others in this forum got the audio bug also?
sonicbeauty
Mine started in the 70's when I would sneak my Frampton Comes Alive album onto my dad's fisher system insted of my fold out record player.
in a word- reel to reel tape recorders; i.e.-
sony/concord/ampex/scully/rogers/teac-tascam/magnacord/crown/revox-studer/stella/nagra/otari...
As most my age, I grew up with some sort of radio, but we also had a 'hi-fi" in the basement and as kids we could spin all the discs we wanted, my Dad had quite a few, I never thought until now where these LP's are today. Furthermore, my Dad purchased a Jukebox that was adapted to not need money and us kids spent many hours playing records and shooting pool in the basement.

In high school a good friend had a stereo and this also played a part in my audiophile adventure.

(I just called my Dad and asked about those LP's, he said they are sitting in his barn. I will be interested to see what is there.)
My dad had a Telefunken hi-fi set and a fairly decent collection of LPs...we listened to Brubeck, Miles, Pete Fountain, Chet Baker, Satchmo, Ellington, and even lesser names like Acker Bilk and Bert Kaempfert. My sisters got portable record players early on and I inherited an old Silvertone upright console when I was about thirteen. The first LP I ever bought, about 1958, was a Christmas gift for my folks called 'Cool Swedish Jazz'. I'm sure they were surprised (and hopefully pleased) by the gift but I don't remember the recording at all. The earliest record I can remember buying for myself was Dave 'Baby' Cortez' 45, Happy Organ...I was hooked.