Why did you purchase the equipment you have and what do you like most about it?

When I was in my 20's, and in love with music, I wanted a good stereo - like my older brother (his was Technics/Panasonic/Bose). I stumbled into a dealer in western Mass that became Music First. They were a Linn/Naim dealer, and had a bunch of "feeder" brands that eventually fed you to the Linn/Naim products. I started with a Rega Planar 2, with an NAD integrated and a pair of KEF speakers. Their policy hooked me - they would use 90% of the cost of your current stereo (if purchased from them) towards a new component(s). And so it began. The Rega/NAD/KEF became a Linn LP12/Naim Nait/Linn Kan set up. Which became a Linn/ Naim 42.5-SNAPS-110/Kan set up, and on and on. Getting a 90% return on each stage of my investment kept me saving for the next step. 

When that store closed, and I was more on my own, I started experimenting with different kids of components, and this was fueled by curiosity. The love and passion for music (aided and abetted by equally passionate friends), was an separate, but related stream.. They were tied to each other, at least somewhat - I really think being young, and having a decent sound system made me take chances on music I might not have paid any attention to had I been still using my used, all in one box setup. I was taking some risks on the music I engaged with, and I would take some risks with the equipment that rendered the music. I tried planar speakers, and tube amps, and open baffle and idler drive turntables and now I'm trying horns. The music is the constant, and the equipment is for playing around with. 

I am currently enjoying  Thorens 124/all Zesto tube electronics/Volti Razz horn speakers. And it is very enjoyable, indeed. But someday, in the next couple of years, I'll try out some omni speakers (Decware, Walsh, Gerhswin???) just because I am curious about them...

Late summer, 1977. Savings from first summer job purchase an MCS ( Technics or Panasonic rebadge)  receiver, speakers, and turntable from the J.C.Penney catalogue.  Elton John and the Doobies, Pink Floyd and Bowie.

Brick and mortar purchase of ESS 10" 2-way, Nikko integrated amp in 1980, and Onkyo turntable w Grado F3. Good God Magnum!  Police were occasionally called to my parent's home. Flipper and Dead Kennedys,  Residents and PIL. 

 Current system is very, very good. Vandersteen Quattro,  McCormack DNA-1 ( gold+ rebuild from Steve's shop )  image and slam in my tiny 12x12 treated room . I bought the heavily advertised VPI table from Upscale, with  Hana ML  and a Sutherland 20/20. Holy cow, end game satisfaction . I've purchased only LPs and CDs ( CD only releases DO happen ) for 5 years while the Mrs and I grind out this last 3.6 years to retirement. King Crimson and Steven Wilson, Throbbing Gristle and Rodger Waters ( and finally a new Gilmour original that ROCKS ).  I'm sure your cables are fine, as are mine.

There will be a new house, in about 4 years. With a new room and guidance from my beloved to buy new for this last system. My Quattros and my LS26 are 19 years old and slated for upgrade. Leaning towards new DeVore Gibbon X or Carbon Quattro, but excited by Vittori and other horn types, that might call for Quicksilver amplification.  Hana cartridge will need replacing, leaning towards a moving iron w replaceable stylus to reduce maintenance costs. 

The new house will have shelves and shelves and shelves for my records and CDs and books- I'm now self  bound  to 2 records/ mo for space constraints in this 950 ft2 condo. I pre-ordered Wilson's The Overview, shipping from England next week, leaving me a delicious trip to the record store this afternoon.

Enjoy the music!

I am limited in what I can afford, but I have enough training as both a licensed aircraft mechanic with experience wiring and installing avionics, graduate school physics up through a PhD, and years of building my own SET tube amplifiers and preamplifiers that I have the freedom to have the kind of preamps and amps I want for the cost of the parts and my own time building them. I wanted to try an 833A SET to give me the option of SET purity I could use on low sensitivity Magnepan 0.7 speakers with matching bass panels. The amplifiers have less than $2000 in the best parts money can buy and have advantages over the WAVAC 833A stereo pair of monoblocks that cost $480,000. I drive them with Lundahl coupling transformers and 45 globe triodes rather than 300B triodes that cost close to $1000 a pair for the rare vintage kind with the better coated cathodes that the 45's have. For my preamp, I use blow glass 27 indirectly heated triodes with Alps volume control that sounds better than stepped resistor volume control. Unlike the inferior electrolytic filter capacitors in the power supplies of vacuum tube amplifiers costing over $20,000, I use metalized polypropylene capacitors that are rated at 2400 volts for the 1000 Volts on the 833A triodes. It took me a few years to perfect this system, but it has been at least 5 years with good sound and no maintenance problems. 

The Magnepan speakers circumvent all the difficulties of cabinet speakers and the complicated notch filters needed for flat frequency response in cone speakers, the latter of which cost five or six figures to get right through engineering that, in effect is akin to wearing rubber gloves to write with a leaking fountain pen. (metaphor coined by the aeronautical engineer, Jack Northrop) The 0.7 speakers are the biggest speakers that can fit into my 26-foot diameter Futuro house and they have quasi-ribbon tweeters rather than true ribbons that are too fragile for my tolerance. 

For my digital sources, I use a DAC that has the latest Sabre chip, which, in the case of single ended output, outclasses a ladder DAC. 

My turntable is DIY acrylic with a vintage Grace tonearm and a pure tube phono preamp. 

I have a Magnum Dynalab tube FM tuner with a Signa Sleuth and a selector switch for choosing outdoor tower antennas pointing to distant classical music radio stations. 

@drbarney1 great post. Build with purpose. Research equipment and have make moves accordingly.  Exactly what I did with my stuff. Hans at Infigo used to work for the guys that invented the Ess Sabre chip.  

This is a fun topic. Thank you to everyone who shared their inspiration and outcome. As I read so many people talking about dealers, it reminded me of the used hi-fi shop where I went to buy a stereo for my first apartment (late 70s). I was asking about some consumer brand receiver. The young sales kid said, yeah that's fine. I followed up his noncommittal response with a what else is there? He pointed to a Tandberg they had repaired and said, this is a whole other level. And thus it began...