What hooked you to audio?


I was 16 and my sister got married. All I had in my room was an AM radio, but when sis got married I grabbed her room because it was bigger.

She had a Panasonic stereo system- combo turntable and receiver, which she left. I had no records but I started to listen to FM- WPLJ in NY. Oh, I got hooked- Queen, Chicago, etc. I realized I needed a decent hifi. I bought records at Alexander's and Korvettes

A friend- a year older, already discovered hifi and through him I learned about what I thought was an incredible system- a Dual table, Marantz receiver, and KLH speakers.

Then I discovered Tech Hifi. Their catalogs were eye opening. Yes, the Dual was nice, but the Thorens seemed real nice. The Marantz seemed nice, but the Mac stuff seemed real nice. Likewise, the KLH's seemed nice, but those Ohms with the Walsh driver seemed real nice.

This was all in the 2nd half of the 70's.

My first good table was a Thorens. I have a pair of Ohm F's in my garage. I once owned a Marantz 22 something for a short period of time.

Some deep and lasting hook!
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HOT women standing in front of complicated looking gear in Playboy. Frankly, this is no joke. Fortunately, spinning an LP amplified by a Marantz 8B via lamp cord into JBL 2 way horns was an incredibly startling experience to everybody who heard the system for the first time.

At first they all laughed at the sight of the listening position lounger right up to that moment when the music began and the wonder of the stereo sound stage came to life for the first time in their Peanut Gallery brains. Unfortunately, as a surf rat turning hippie there was no confusing me with the suave Playboy member type in the magazine.
What hooked me? The music, the sound of the recordings, and realizing there was something better out there than low end consumer audio ie rack systems. A system that can extract much more out of the recording and present it in at least somewhat (depending on the reocrding) realistic manner.
The music was first, throughout early 60's. HiFi appreciation came in 1969 when I heard a system consisting of: AR XA Turntable, Dynaudio PAS-3 pre, Dynaudio ST-70 amp, AR 3a Speakers. It seemed magical.