Decisive moments your your audio journey


Have you had any truly decisive moments in your time in this hobby? 
 

I would have to point back to the first time I ever heard Magnepans, it was a “whoa what was that moment?” moment. That was in the 1980’s. It was the first time I ever truly heard reproduced music that got the midrange right, without it being squished 

128x128zavato

Led Zeppelin on my 8 Track in my chevy Bel Air 1968. holy Crap! Oops that dates me.

Yes, the first time I heard my dad's Ampex tape machine. He put on an Oscar Peterson tape and it was a wet dream. This was 1964. I was 8 years old and I had had my own Zenith Portable for 4 years. From then on all I wanted to listen to was that Ampex. This was playing through an H.H. Scott  preamp, driving a stereo 70, driving Bozak B302A loudspeakers. These sonically were the best sounding speaker in the entire line. It was perfectly balanced and cast a really good image. The Zenith got very little attention after that. I was determine to get my own system and tape machine. It took 10 years and it was a Revox A77 with Dolby. This played into a used Marantz 7C preamp, driving a used Fuzz Linear 700, driving Klipsh Heresy loudspeakers. The Turntable was a used Thorens TD 124II with an ADC Pritched  tonearm (wooden) and too many cartridges to remember. Nobody taught me about economics. Had I invested 1/2 the money I had pissed away on HiFi gear I would be very rich right now. 

About 8 years ago I bought my daughter one of those all in one record players, one that comes with little speakers that plug into it. Cheap thing, maybe $100. As I listened to her playing records I realized that it actually sounded much better than my phone, computer, and car. I said to myself, "This is good but there must be better". Thus my journey started. 

For me it was in 1999 when a dealer brought a pair of Soundvalves mono amps to my home to demo. That was my first exposure to tubes and I was gobsmacked. I had a pair of Von Schweikert VR4s at the time and I had never heard them sound so good. Fast forward to today and 30 or so tube amps have been through the system. Guess I’m a tube guy for life.