Your greatest high end audio purchase!!!


My audiophile journey has extended to over 40 of adventurous sonic delight. Over the coarse of my over 40 year journey as an audiophile, like so my others, I cycled through a multitude of speakers, amps, cables, etc,. Now that I’m an old guy, I’ve pretty much settled on my "End-Game" audio system for the long haul, primarily because I simply love the way it sounds, and also because, at this juncture, I no longer have the will, nor do I have the desire to continue the crazy (but fun) merry-go-round of audio components in and out like I did in years past (my spouse and my wallet thank me). When I look back on all the high-speed audio gear that I’ve owned down through the years, and after giving it much insightful thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that, after everything was said and done, my beloved Revel Salon 2 speakers were my overall most pleasurable and greatest purchase of all. What was yours?

kennymacc

I hate to repeat from a recent post… but.

 

In 1978 I committed to a really great system and after reading popular stereo magazines (Stereo Review ((not a good source)) I bought the top rated Onkyo tape deck. It performed well, I thought. To get the very best out of it I had a technician align the heads for maximum performance. That destroyed the sound.. several iterations… never sounded good again.

 

I was in a high end store sharing my woes with a sales person and he said, “here, take this home and try it.” It was a first generation Nakamichi, wood around the outside, upright.. seven years old, weighed a ton. I was skeptical. I took it home, it was unbelievable. Comparing it to the original, in perfect working order Onkyo, the Onkyo sounded like a small plastic transistor radio vs real high fi equipment. It was a revelation, showed me what set apart audiophile (other than astronomical cost) from the rest and set me on my audiophile path for the next fifty years.

Interesting question, because my answer is not what I thought it would be.

When all is said and done, my choice would be the Sansui AU-9500 integrated I purchased back in the early 70's. The warm sound, the black faceplate and the sensual feel of the switches and knobs. They all combined to totally infatuate me at the time.

grislybutter: Unfortunately, I am not familiar with their subs, but those that you asked about are newer. Pretty much all of the AR stuff with a black finish came after the company was sold and are not anything like their earlier speakers in terms of quality or sound. (not even close)! Those subs may sound great, but like I said I have not heard them, and I would be very skeptical. I did try a pair of newer ARs once (black finish) and I was very disappointed. They ended up as a gift to one of my nephews. The fact that they now only make some crappy lamp shaped Bluetooth speakers is a good indication of how far they've sunk. See this link: Company:Acoustic Research - HandWiki