Is your now then?

My first "job" was working and the Pacific National Exhibition in my hometown of Vancouver, Canada. I was paid $1.17 / hour to clean up after the farm animals. I used the money ($200.00) I made to buy a pair of big German speakers. To me they were everything I was missing in my life listening to AM radio.    

I have been on this journey ever since.

First stereo was in 82, an AKAI system (turntable, tuner, dual casette, equalizer) with "Hitachi" speakers, it was a complete package and if I recall around 1100$. 

Mid sixties - friends dad had a Garrard 301, 3 X 16 inch SME arms, ortofon cartridges, Leak amplification and Wharfedales built into the room corners - 5-6 feet high.  He used to play our Dylan and Stones albums for us kids when we brought them around.  And I was off......

Have from time to time heard systems (my current one being no exception) which have to be better and surely outperformed that primal system.   One of the other systems was a million dollar set up, with several being in excess of a couple hundred grand.  Not a single one has given me the same chills!   It was the sheer musicality, I think, which I am still searching for.  But then, what do I know.

It was my fathers system… Dyna Kit Pre-amp and Amp. Very large (brand??) Speakers, an AR belt driven turntable and a Revox reel to reel.

All the switches, volume bass and treble made noise.

Simon and Garfunkel had just released Sounds of Silence and to this day, I miss the sound the crumpled tape made right at the beginning of the first track.

I must have been about 6 or 7 years old and remember spraying something on all the pots and replacing tubes on that old amp with my dad. Gosh…he would love what I’m listening to now. He’s been gone a very long time.

I’ve been hooked ever since.

The system I took to college was that Kenwood amp with the big knob and a pair of JBL L100’s. I remember that amp kept blowing the tweeters until I put a fuse on the speaker cables. I went thru those fuses like candy…!

That would have been 1978 when I heard the HQD system for the first time. (Hartley, Quad, Decca) Not only is my current system better sounding but it is way more reliable. We blew Decca ribbons and Quads all over the place. I am not a romantic and have no attachment to the past. There is absolutely nothing mythical about it. Technology soldiers on. I am after the best sound not romantically colored sound. There was this one system centered on Pyramid Metronome speakers and Threshold electronics that is my Pantheon of all time great systems. It was the first system that I ever heard image correctly. If it hadn't been for that system I wouldn't know how far you can take it, what to shoot for.