Decisive moments your your audio journey

On a busy in store weekend in the mid 80’s I was picking up my rebuilt Quad 57’s and the store owner was demonstrating them with a Spectral amp. The sound stopped the entire store, went quiet. Two customers pulling the trigger on loudspeakers stopped their purchase! 

When I opened my shop in 1974, I had Audio Research and Magneplaners there.  After listening to them, I then put every other speaker we sold (about 16 different high-end brands) on the same electronics and some others (McIntosh, Phase Linear, Crown, etc.)

I learned that ALL boxes and horns and electrostat's distorted the recorded music.  Only the Maggies did not.

And, while the other electronics were OK, they were not as accurate as those from Audio Research, even on boxes and electrostat's.

Eye-opening time that helped me continue to educate myself so I could bring the best possible (most accurate) products to our customers.

Not much has changed, although some boxes are getting better, and some electronics are much improved.  Still, Maggies are the most accurate when set up properly with the best electronics.

Cheers!

Great post, OP. Enjoyed reading these interesting stories. 
 

Like everyone on here, it’s an incremental journey. There have been seminal experiences and some good rigs thru the years. But the latest increment was, on a whim, buying a pair of ESL63’s three years ago.  Had to sign up on AGon to buy them. Got them home, hooked them up, and my jaw dropped. I never imagined recorded music could sound like this.  

1) The first time I heard electrostatic speakers: they were KLH 9's.  I was still in college. 

2) The first time I heard a Direct to Disc record: it was Lincoln Mayorga " The missing Link."  At the time I believed all records were very high quality.  As soon as I heard that Sheffield Lab recording, I knew that most of my records were crap. 

In 2002 I and a friend of mine a couple time a week visiting different audiophiles homes and listened different systems.
On day we visited a man who had a strange system with Lowther PM4 in Oris 150 horns and 15 inch EV mid-bass woofers plus subwoofer. Lowethers were driven by Bottlehead 2a3 SET monoblocks. When we listened this setup we can believe what such sound is possible. All other systems we had listened before sounded like toy boomboxes compared to this system.
We were like a medieval knights who suddenly saw modern combat aircrafts and tanks.
Since then the direction I choose in audio is high sensitive speakers with SET amplification.