Summer of 1970. I was 18 and had just graduated from high school. A friend from school (John) asked me to bring some LSD so several of us could trip. His family had a college student (Todd) staying over for the summer doing indoor painting. So we all took acid and we all ended up in Todd’s room listening to his hi if system: Kenwood integrated amp (with meters), Thorens TD125/Shure cartridge and Large Advents. Two LP’s really stood out: Its A Beautiful Day and Electric Ladyland. White Bird and 1983, Moon Turn The Tides and Burning Of The Midnight Lamp sounded amazing! This experience set me on the road to better hi if sound!
How Did Your First Audiophile Experience Impact Your Audio Journey?
I am going to be somewhat liberal when choosing my first truly "Audiophile" experience. In college I had a friend that had a pair of Definitive Technology BP2000 speakers that were by far the best speaker that I had every heard, but his style was mostly just blasting music which didn't appeal to me or demonstrate their true SQ.
My first true "audiophile" experience was visiting a local HiFi shop that appeared to be an almost tacky car audio place from the outside, but I had been told to ask about the basement. The only thing that I remember was some Vienna Acoustics speakers that blew my mind.
When I was ready to dip a toe into the audiophile pool several years later, I went back to the shop and it had shifted it's focus to be exclusively home audio with Focal being their brand of choice. Their main room gave me opportunity to audition Focal speakers from the $750 bookshelf to the $180,000 Grande Utopia's. What was cool looking back was that I was able to hear the most affordable speakers at their best because they were being powered by the huge Krell mono blocks that were there for the Grande Utopia speakers. My favorite setup was Diablo Utopia speakers with a JL Audio Gotham subwoofer. The sound that came out of a large bookshelf was mind bending to me. As it turns out, Krell has continued to be a consistent amplifier that pulls me in whenever I'm around a system with them in it. I also have continued to love the Focal sound and have never once thought about needing to upgrade mine even though I've heard objectively better speakers and know that there's a lot out there that are superior.
The thing that I look back on and laugh about from my auditioning and buying process was the pain that I must have put the salesman through listening to one of my Josh Groban CDs that I later discovered is a painfully poor recording. Ironically, there was one song in particular that was used to make the final decision for which model to get.
I don't know how much my tastes are a result of being blown away with Focal speakers and Krell amplifiers being my first significant experience in the audiophile world or if I happened to be very fortunate by it also aligning to my taste.
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By 1976 I had my first good corporate job at a publishing company. I had funds to spend on my first high end system: AGI 511 preamp, GAS Son of Ampzilla, Empire 698 TT/Dynavector 20B homc cartridge and Infinity Monitor 1A speakers (Walsh tweeters). IC's were Dishwasher Gold Ens, speaker cable was Polk Cobra. As the esteemed Jackie Gleason said "And away we go!" |
@jasonbourne52 - My dad actually has a pair of Large Advents and is just giving/selling his pair of Small Advents to a friend. Both pairs on in mint condition (other than drivers needing to be re-foamed) and he still had the original boxes for the Small Advents at least. I was home a few weeks ago and thought the Large Advents sounded great considering the quality of the receiver that was driving them. I’ve never really listened to them critically even though he’s had them my entire life. On another note, I’m kind of disappointed in you because any audiophile journey that begins with taking acid should include a strong belief in cables! |
- 42 posts total