Which components knocked you out on first listen?

Quad esl57's, Avantgarde Duos, and today i heard Monster horns (and i mean huge) with AER drivers driven by monster old tube set, Shindo pre and Linn deck with Koetsu cart. The first real ly jaw dropping bass i have ever heard - from a single 8" driver! It went way down seamlessly (now i really know what that means), with a power and delicate finness that i must replicate somehow in my 13'x13' lounge....

Since my post in '03 I have finally found speakers for my room which just exceed all of my expectations and I expect will end my quest, they so especially connect with my subjective expectations......Silverline Boleros, the speakers for audiophiles exhausted by the chase. :-)

System 1. Revel Ultima speakers (not Ultima 2) fed by Mark Levinson CDP, pre and amps, in a stereo shop in Santa Barbara, CA. I have heard a lot of other great speakers (e.g. Wilsons, big Magnepans, Quads, etc.) fed by extremely expensive electronics, but for some reason, this system in that room got it right.

System 2. Rega P5 turntable feeding a Prima Luna integrated tube amp played through Dynaudio Audience 52 SE speakers in a showroom in Austin, Texas. Not at all a high end rig, but just really sounded together and got my toes tapping. Caused me to get my old turntable out and fire it up again at home.

System 3. Musical Fidelity A3.5 CDP and Intergrated combo using modest Audioquest interconnects and speaker cables feeding Totem Arro speakers in a showroom in Portland, OR (I guess I get around a bit). Again, not a fabulously expensive system, and not even close to "full range", but man did it ever swing and throw sound around the room.

I guess I expect to be knocked out by really high end systems and more often than not end up unsatisfied. I do get a big kick when I find a set up below $5K total cost that really sounds like music (like Systems 2 and 3 above).

Most impressing was a comparison of two different rooms with the same equipment & speakers. One untreated and the other was carefully tuned with acoustic treatments and TacT room correction processor.
2. Value/performance speakers - Vandersteen Quatro and Opera-Consonance M-15 speakers (horns), expensive but worth a consideration - Wilson Audio Sophia Series 2.

3. CDP - Rega Apollo, Consonance Droplet and Prima Luna 8.
4. Sonos wireless system for convenience and ease of use.

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