What was yours, and where was it, and what was playing?


Mine:
at my relatives' house, in their living room:

NAD 2600A power amp
NAD 1700 pre-tuner
Sony CDP-X55ES cdp
Sony tape deck
Denon turntable (i think DP-34F)

with HUGE Bozak speakers custom built into the wall.

IIRC, Styx' Grand Illusion was playing.


that was the first good system I ever heard. I thought it was amazing, with a cabinet filled with stereo components with tons of buttons, knobs, and switchs. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen!

not sure exactly what was playing... it was a mid-70's rig that my older brother brought home from his time in the Army. it featured Bose 901's, but i dont remember the rest of the hardware, only that it literally blew me away. when i got my first system (when i went into the service) i got my first taste of what refinement sounds like.

My dad was/is an audiophile.

So, in the seventies and my early years (can't remember the exact units)...

Audio Research tube pre and amp
Don't know the turntable
And IMF TLS-80 speakers (which I can have if I can get them from west coast to east coast, anybody driving a UHaul?)

In the eighties....he switched to....
Audio Reasearch SP-10 Pre
Conrad Johnson amp
Sota turntable
External DAC
Mirage M-1 speakers

I was tainted forever, even before I knew what bad sound was.

There was a guy who lived in the dorms my first year in college (1970) that was blind. He had several small portable tape recorders that he could tape his class lectures, and also get tapes from the library of books on tape. His blindness was caused by some sort of accident that paid for his audio equipment. I don't know what all he had or what brands the pieces were, but the dorm rooms were built for two people, but his only held him and his equipment. He had stuff I didn't even know what it was. All I can say is whenever we had any kind of party, he supplied the audio. His system could be heard CLEARLY halfway across the campus!!!

Don't know what he had, but it was SWEET!

the man has excellent taste in hardware.

As I was selling stereo euipment for Lafayette Radio all the way back to the mid 60's, and didn't own a system of my own until long after I started selling equipment, I would have to say it was the "best" that Lafayette had to offer at the time (circia 1966-7). That would have been

Marantz SS preamp (I'm drawing a mental blank here on the model #)
Marantz 60 watt/channel SS power amp
Marantz straight-line tracking turntable (SLT-1, I believe)
KLH-12 speaker systems

WE had the tube version of the preamp, and tube amplifiers, but I preferred the sound of the solid state gear when connected to the KLH-12's, as it was a bit tighter and better defined.

It would have been many decades later before I was able to own a system myself of such high quality, but this was my benchmark back then.

I also thought that the Lafayette LR-1500TA receiver, with a pair of KLH-6 speakers, an AR turntable with a Shure V/15 Type II and a Tandberg 64X tape deck comprised quite a good system for the money, and it's what I owned myself for many years.

Best ever to come to my ears was from R2R as source;
I think it was Nagra T but there are better ones than that one out there Like Lyrec, 3M or Sony APR-5003

Mark Levinson No 380s Preamp.........I know of no SS preamp doing a better job and I think it is wisely chosen to mix SS Pre and TubePower or vice versa to get the hybrid balance.

Audio Research .....hmmmm..... I think it was VT 130 as power amp ...........but not completely sure about the model name and anyway there are slightly better tube power amps out there too like some OTL ones.

This ended in Wilson Alexandria loudspeakers and I truly don't believe anything out there does better than these.
At least I never heard anything better among those way above thousands of high quality speakers I've heard.

Good apetite to you all.

"dolph"

The first true audio system that comes to mind and remember quite well was a setup from a friend of mine. He received some vinyl records from America , stuff like Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran...we were in a rockabilly phase at that time and what i remember was like: uau, i never heard a sound like this before.
It was in mid 80's and the system i remember was the amp and the speakers.
The amp was a Musical Fidelity, probably a B1 and the speakers were from Kef.

I remember in the way back home i was thinking to myself that i must have another amp and a new set of speakers. Few months later i bought a Rotel TT, a Nad 3020 (i still have it) and a set of Wharfedale 505.2 speakers...and i felt great!

I was 18 years old and walked into a "high end" store for the first time. It was a Linn/Naim system. An Lp12 and a little Nait amp hooked up to these tiny Linn speakers and the sound was awe inspiring. I have been addicted ever sense.

That's one helluva system he had...

I can't recall the first hi-fi system 100%, but I'm recalling what I think was a complete silver yamaha system (and most likely jbl l100s or Pioneer HPM100s) at my uncle's, a modular system at my godfather's (B&O?), and a few others on the way.

I remember how much i loved going to the mall as a kid, as there was the cool hi-fi store there. I remember how wild it was, to see "the next wave" of hi-fi: a small, spinning disc, this one in a vertical alignment with view window, rotating faster than a 45, and all shiny and rainbow-shimmering...

When I was in college I stopped from time to time at a high end store in Tacoma, Washington. Advanced Audio. One day the owner, let me listen to a system he had been putting togehter in the main sound room. It consisted of:

MacClaren amp and pre-amp
Linn LP 12/Ittok/Trioka combination
Martin Logan CLS speakers.

Beautiful sound, and it has set a blueprint for what I think a high end audio system ought to sound like.

When I was much younger, say a freshman in high school. A friend of mine and I would frequent the Speakerlab store in Tacoma. We would wander around and drool over the Super 7's, S70'sand the S80's. These were big floorstanders, multi driver design, which often used leaf tweeters. I wonder how my memory of their sound would hold up today, but these speakers are hard to come by. Speakerlab offerings do show up regularly on Craigslist, but not the ones I am looking for. Also I am a bit leary of gambling several hundred dollars on something I remember sounding good. I listen to my hi-fi for the perfomrance aspect, and have little interest in collecting things that will sit around and look pretty. Still those were cherished memories, and Speakerlab will always be one of those companies that peak my interest.

Regards
Mister Pig

I'm sure he would appreciate the compliments...

He is still running the later, although he has had to replace the tweets several times. He has been considering new speakers. But with the economic downturn and retirement funds disappearing...he may be rethinking that.

I got the Mirage bug as well...I am running the whole OM series in my home theater.
OM 5 mains, OM 7 sides, OM 9 rears, OM C2 center....incredible sound depth for film.

Although, I can not afford his "taste" in pre amp and amps...I am using Outlaws.

I guess a good question, what is the best bang for the buck system you have heard? If that hasn't been started already.

AK

I remember when I was around 13, I had the opportunity to listen to a high powered marantz system "in the mid 70's" with a 4 bose 901's, and pink floyd dark side of the moon was playing,

well some wacky tabacky and beer was floating around soooooo. anyway, my impressions were severely enhanced and it was such a cool sound, or so I thought.

elroy

A student doctor who worked part-time with us lab-rats, invited some of us over one night to hear his stereo. This was back in the late seventies. I don't remember the turntable, but the amp was an Ampzilla, and the speakers were huge SABA units from Germany. He was so busy trying to impress us with tales about how good SABA gear was, and then I brought to his attention that a channel was out on his Ampzilla. Breakers or something. To this day, I don't remember if his system sounded good or not, just that it was loud.

Laz