How did you get started in this hobby


As a college kid, my roommate had KLH speakers, the Beatles Sgt. Peppers came out and homegrown Flemington flash came on the scene. My eyes were opened along with my ears. I visited a local audio store Audiolab and another not too far away Soundex. The effect on my listening, I was stunned by what I was hearing and how the management just let me listen to all the gear knowing I was just window shopping. I'll never forget Soundex( out by Willow Grove Pa)  letting me listen to all their rooms at different price points and more than a few occasions.One room had $30,000 each in electronics and $100,000 speakers. Well, I could not afford even the entry-level stuff but again my horizon was broadened. So off I went to NYCity with my roommate in tow. I ran into an audio store while he waited in the car and asked the sales guy what I could buy with the meager dollars I had. I picked up a pair of AR speakers, and a Dual Turntable, my roommate had an old HH Scott that was in his father's food store that did not work. I got it fixed for free by the teacher of the electronics class in my High school where  I would occasionally substitute teach ( babysit) to get beer money for college Thursday night beer sessions at the Extension bar.

Much later a fellow employee who was an audiophile got me connected with his buddy an audio salesman who sold me his Snell c2 mk.2 speakers and another of his friends who was looking to sell his Adcom GFP 400 pre amp/tuner and GFA 555 amp along with thick monster cable. Adcom was just starting up around 1980 and was thirty minutes away in New Brunswick NJ. For a box of donuts, they went over my gear and made some changes to the amp and preamp. I remember their CD player had a tendency to jump if vibrated that was fixed as well all while I waited for  just for a box of doughnuts.  Woo that was my system for almost 40 years.  I wanted something different, I found out about Audiogon and bought within a week a Technics SU G 700  and Canton speakers about two years ago at tremendous savings from local audiophiles one in bucks county near New Hope Pa., and another in Freehold NJ. That's my story. from start to finish.

Based on what I've seen here I am not an audiophile but someone just interested in listening to good music with good gear at good savings and who is intrigued by the character ( good and bad) I see on here and the stellar systems they have.

scott22

With a radio shack realistic receiver/8 track and associated speakers my mother bought me when I was 12...I’m 55 now and it’s been all downhill from there....😄

In 1983, still in high school, went down to my local Tech HIFI store and purchased my Aiwa AD F770 3 head cassette deck, instead of buying my first car...the cassette deck was more important to me....I still have and use it today. Paid $500 for it back then....crazy.

Back in the mid seventies, I had a friend who had stereo equipment and camera & darkroom equipment. Through him I met the owner of a small stereo store in Collinsville, Illinois. Dixon became my pusher and led me through from Bozak to Dalhquest  to Acoustat and from Halfler to Ampzilla to Dynaco to Phase Linear and from Dual to Bang &Olfson to…

@curiousjim 

Thanks Jim.

My father's experiences map other people's grandfathers'. It is mind-boggling to think he was a teenager 100 years ago.  The changes he saw were mind-boggling.  He kept up with it into his 80s.  He left two diaries of his schooldays as a senior in the late 1920s which I treasure.

By good fortune he missed fighting in the two wars in Europe.  He was too young for WW1 and too old for WW2.