A moment when you realized better sound was possible.

It was easy to hear differences between speakers and rooms and speaker positioning in rooms. It was really hard at first to hear differences between different sources, amps, speaker cables, etc.

Not only for me. Its common. One time at Definitive this guy drove all the way up from Portland to audition two DACs. I stood right there the whole time, heard the same thing he heard, thought to myself, "There’s no difference!" Then the guy says, "Maybe it was the long drive but I’m not hearing any difference." Aha! See!?!

Yet still there was this nagging frustration. How can there be this whole industry built up around something that doesn’t exist? It really bugged me. For months.

I had this XLO Test CD and on it are a couple tracks intended as examples of really good recordings, to sort of show off your system after you get it all tuned up I guess. Anyway one track Michael Ruff Poor Boy is a wonderful Sheffield recording and I really like the music.

So one day after listening to something at Definitive and wondering why anyone would pay all that money when my JBLs are just as good I come home and put on the Michael Ruff track.

All of a sudden it hits me, THIS IS THE SOUND! Something connects and I realize the difference between all my other CDs and this Sheffield recording, is just like the difference between the DACs and CDs and all the other stuff.

I didn’t have any words for it yet, not at that point. But, eureka! I have heard it! And boy, the better sound that is possible, let me tell you! But that was the moment. The moment that started it all. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

I went to my best buddy's tiny apartment in Berkeley.  It was during our college days.  I already had a considerable collection of LPs and I had what I thought was a decent stereo.  My dad was an audiophile, too, and we'd gone to several HiFi shows over the years. 


Anyway, my buddy had a tiny pair of B&O speakers bought from a Paris Audio.  I was shocked with the clarity and with how accurate the tone quality was.  As soon as I got back to L.A. I went to the town's Paris Audio.  The B&O's were there but I was much more impressed with the KEF Corellis, also on hand.  They made me realize that the B&O's had a distinct "cupped" tonality.  I got the Corellis as soon as I could get up the bucks.  Thus did my audiophile adventures progress.

When I was about 13 or 14, my dad bought me one of those "suitcase" style stereos with the swing-down turntable and swing-out speakers. At the time, I thought it was OK.

When I paid a visit to a friend of mine in college in 1970, his roommate had an old McIntosh tube integrated. I don't remember what he had for a turntable or speakers, but we listened to Larry Coryell's album, Lady Coryell.

I was absolutely blown away and knew I had to have a McIntosh, but they were WAY too expensive. Sometime later, another buddy of mine told me about a used Fisher X-101-ST that he had seen for sale at an audio repair shop in Akron and, by the way, did I want to buy his dad's Garrard Type A.

So, I bought them both, but now I couldn't afford speakers. Somewhere I got ahold of a pair of 12" EV Wolverines without cabinets. So, I cut some holes in a big pair of corrugated boxes and I had a good start on my first decent stereo system.

I did end up building some speaker cabinets using EV's plans and used that system on into the 80's. I still have the Fisher.