Which components knocked you out on first listen?

just iscovered horns i listened to yeasterday were the $36,000 Carfrae Big Hornes. Stunning!

Early 1990's....Sound by Singer in downtown NYC...... Wilson/Watt Puppy model 5's with CAT pre-amp and VAC monobloc amps...........Rebecca Pidgeon singing "Rose in Spanish Harlem"........I can still remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.

Some components will knock you out on the first listen but that is not nearly as good as the component that keeps knocking you out time after time after time...

In my case, my first inital listen to those "knock-me-out" components lasted most of the afternoon. I was so impressed that I came back many times to have more of those "knock-me-out listening sessions. Thank goodness that the dealer liked me or he probably would have asked me to leave sooner for being a tire-kicker. If I wasn't so broke at the time, I would have bought the entire system in a heart beat. I used to have wonderful dreams about those listening sessions for many years thereafter, and even today, 30 years later, I still have fond memories of those times on occasion.

when first heard viva audio products I shocked with realism and I was in the same company with the musicians.
I have and had many big audio "high-end" machines but viva audio lifted my system to new ground for me.