Is your now then?

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.

I worked for Federal Express ,I delivered to a apartment in Manhattan,  standing outside the door I heard music , the maid open the door , and  the sound just beautiful ,like I never experience before. One day a gentleman answered the door ,And invited me in ,  It was Victor Goldstein , That’s were it all started 30 years ago.