How did you get started?

My uncle gave me a Wollensak reel-to-reel for Christmas. I traded that for a Roberts reel-to-reel which had no internal amp or speakers. Bought a Marantz Model 26 receiver, no-name 3-way speakers, and a Garrard Zero-100 TT with a V-15 Type 2 cartridge. By this time I was 14 years old. Blew the speakers and yanked out the drivers and used the cabinets to build my first speaker project. Found out how to use a capacitor for a crossover. By the time I graduated HS, I was building speakers systems for all my friends. Mostly 3-ways that I removed their blown drivers and rebuilt them with better drivers, new crossovers, and re-tuned cabinets. Tales of a mis-spent youth. Now look at me. I'm known as the wierd-o with the record player, a 1-watt tube amp, and single driver speakers. I was buying some used LP's the other day, and a couple of young kids came up to me and said,"Hey, mister, what are those things? Are they records? I've never seen any before. Hey, Billy, come look at these records!" The world surely has changed. I'll bet they've never even heard "In-a-gadda-da-vida".

I was in 2nd grade, got a 8track boom box-not stereo back then, and wired and 2nd speaker to it for "stereo"

That was my cheapest system...unfortunately...I took a job in highschool helping keep clean a stereo store. That hooked me. My first real system, freshman in college, ARC sp6 preamp, ARC tube amp (d60 I think), Linn lp12 and maggies.

Still miss that set up sometimes. For the money...it was great!

In my senior your of high school (1976-77). A friend kept taking me with him into the Sound and Music Co-op in Northampton, Massachusetts. He already had the bug (he went on to become a radio jock); and I soon caught the bug myself. Could not afford anything until my freshmen year of college.

As a point of history, the Sound and Music Co-op evolved and later named changes became "Sound and Music"; "Northampton Audio"; and now "Spearit Sound". So Richard Moulding and I go back 26 years (EEK !!!).

TWL - I'll bet they never heard "Shady Lady" or "Slower than Guns" either. Some folks up here in NH/VT did when I pulled an old Iron Butterfly LP ("Metamorphosis") at the used vinyl store, and a huge grin broke over the proprietor's face. That day, they heard it again in the store while I browsed. What a hobby.

My dad started me out with an HH Scott solid-state receiver, TEAC cd-player, AIWA linear tracking TT and Boston Acoustics A60 bookshelves. Nice rig for a kid!

When I "caught" the audio bug again a few years ago, I realized finally that it was always there.

The Scott got "slider-fuzz" in the controls, I passed the TEAC on, I sold the TT, and I just refoamed the Bostons and still listen to them in my bedroom system with Antique Sound Labs Wave 8 tube amps.

Mwilson, I have every Iron Butterfly album. You should also check out the band "Captain Beyond". Several Iron Butterfly members joined that band after IB broke up. The Captain Beyond album with the 3D hologram cover is great, and "Sufficiently Breathless"(2nd album) is also very good. They are on the Capricorn label.
On the IB Metamorphosis album, "Soldier in our Town" is my favorite.