What has been a favourite moment in Audio?

Unbelievably hilarious!  Wish I could have been there.

Now I am left to wonder how in the hell that is even possible.  Forgot to screw the tweeter in place.  Curious minds want to know!

The rep came from the Twin Cities and the store is in western South Dakota. We thought maybe the tweeter was loosened up in the drive or not tightened up at the factory. He unboxed them at our store. He would leave product at our store to demo. He came in the next morning and boxed them back up again and took them back. We would give him a hard time about it whenever he would  start a hard pitch on some "new thing" he had. He got a raft of sh*t about for years.

Hearing my first Audio Note UK system at RMAF abour 2005 or 2006? "this system sounds like music"....what a concept....

Another favorite RMAF story...Demo in the conf. room of a new SACD recording...The expensive French made SACD player would not play any of the discs the presenter had on hand to play. After 15-20 minutes of trying the guy says;

"Well what do you expect for a $30,000 player? You want it to actually work?" Massive laughter fills the room. A few minutes later he returns with a Japanese made disc player I think it was an Esoteric..."This one is ONLY 18K but it's made in Japan and works"  or something like that...Great memory...

Definitely the day I first visited the new high end shop in the Bay Area, Audio Arts In Livermore California. It was owned and operated by Walter Davies, later gaining notoriety for his LAST record care products. It was the spring of 1973, and the day I visited was the same day Bill Johnson of Audio Research Corporation had arrived to install a complete ARC system in the shop. Bill was a pilot, and flew to every new shop he took on as a dealer, bringing all the gear in his small plane.

I watched and listened as Bill and Walter conversed on all things hi-fi, getting myself a hell of a free education. Here was the system I heard that day:

- A Thorens TD-125 Mk.2, with a Decca Blue pickup mounted on a prototype ARC tone arm (which never made it into production. I remember it looking somewhat like a modernized version of the Grado Labs Micro Control Tonearm from the 1960’s).

- An ARC SP-3 pre-amp.

- An ARC PC-1 passive crossover (1000Hz, 6dB/octave high and low pass).

- A Dual 51 power amp (for the midrange/tweeter panels of the Tympani T-I’s).

- A Dual 75 power amp (for the woofer panels).

- A pair of Magneplanar Tympani T-I loudspeakers (which ARC was then distributing).

Walter’s listening room was about the best I’ve ever heard, easily big enough for the huge Tympani’s, with excellent acoustics.

I had already heard the Infinity Servo-Statics (powered by early SAE electronics), but that didn’t prepare me for the sound of the Decca/ARC/Tympani system. Walter put on the Boult/New Philharmonia Orchestra with Chorus recording of Holst’s The Planets (EMI ASD 2301). At one point in the playing of "Mars" (iirc), after a loud climax the sound of a tympani and triangle may be faintly heard, and on this system they sounded about 30’ past the wall behind the speakers, and elevated above the rest of the orchestra, just as Symphony Orchestras are arranged on stage. Depth and height, a new experience for me! Next he played Gordon Lightfoot’s recording of "Me And Bobby McGee" (a MUCH better version than that of Janis, imo of course), on his fantastic If You Could Read My Mind album (Reprise 6392). As the song played, I could see Gordon’s acoustic guitar right there in front of me, and his voice about five feet off the floor, just as it should be. Bill said, Hey, that IS a great sounding recording. Walter gave him the LP.

Well, I just had to have a system like this for myself, and a few months later did. Waiting for the ARC arm, I was using the Decca arm. And so began my dislike for unipivots. Sold it and got myself an SME 3009 Improved.