What made you love the SOUND of music, good Hifi.

What made you love the SOUND of music, good Hifi.

Author
Discussion

StuntmanMike

Original Poster:

11,671 posts

150 months

Friday 20th March 2015
quotequote all
I have met many people who love music but couldn't give a toss about sound quality, including musicians, perhaps that's a bit strong but I'm sure you know what I mean.

What inspired you to spent loads of money on quirky British ( mostly ) kit, what drives you to use vinyl instead of a hard drive.

What I really want to know is, was there a system that blew you away, made you looks at normal stereos and think no thanks.

Mine was my Dad's 70s set up,
Armstrong 626 Receiver,
Thorens TD 166 mk11 Turntable.
Celestion Ditton 44 Speakers.

Listening to my Dad's Beatles albums as a kid was something else.

Over to you.

Parabola

1,848 posts

196 months

Friday 20th March 2015
quotequote all
Listening to Daft Punk's Discovery album at a friends house after a night out clubbing.

System was a big stack of Arcam kit. Can't remember the speakers.
Absolutely blew me away - didn't realise home listening could sound so good!

AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Friday 20th March 2015
quotequote all
For me it was going to my uncles's house in Edinburgh in the 70's.

He was a successful surgeon but never had any kids so he had plenty of disposable. He always had an interesting car (P5B, R 16GTX, early 320i), he did things that were unusual for the time such as driving to the South of France and he loved playing classical music on the first set of separates I'd ever seen. Of course the sound quality was so much better that the Fergueson music centres and so on that everyone else seemed to have at the time.

He definitely sewed some seeds there.

DavidJG

3,507 posts

131 months

Friday 20th March 2015
quotequote all
Listening to a Meridian system one of my mates had a few years ago now (DSP 5500s) made me realise how bad my old 90s system was. Then I started visiting shops and auditioning kit. One set of Martin Logans and some Meridian source/ amplification duly purchased. It's still utterly brilliant to listen to - haven't found anything better yet. One small problem though - Mrs DJG thinks it's all too big and needs to be down sized!!

StuntmanMike

Original Poster:

11,671 posts

150 months

Saturday 21st March 2015
quotequote all
DavidJG said:
Listening to a Meridian system one of my mates had a few years ago now (DSP 5500s) made me realise how bad my old 90s system was. Then I started visiting shops and auditioning kit. One set of Martin Logans and some Meridian source/ amplification duly purchased. It's still utterly brilliant to listen to - haven't found anything better yet. One small problem though - Mrs DJG thinks it's all too big and needs to be down sized!!
My wife is exactly the same, what is it about women and stereos.

sticks090460

1,074 posts

157 months

Saturday 21st March 2015
quotequote all
Bloke in the house I shared when first moved to London who had a Linn t/t and amp and some Mission speakers. Played "Spirits in The Material World" by The Police. Instead of being a thumpy mess of sound there was suddenly amazing clarity. That listen has cost me quite a lot of money over the years.

StuntmanMike

Original Poster:

11,671 posts

150 months

Saturday 21st March 2015
quotequote all
As someone who has played the drums for 30 years, it is criminal not to listen to Stuart Copeland on anything less.thumbup

Crackie

6,386 posts

241 months

Saturday 21st March 2015
quotequote all
Epiphany moment for me was at the Harrogate Hi-Fi show in 1978 listening to Another brick in the Wall Pt1. I can't remember the amp(s) but the speakers were Mission 770s with Linn LP12 / Grace707 front end.

castex

4,935 posts

272 months

Saturday 21st March 2015
quotequote all
Linn Sondek, lots of square boxes that said Quad and a pair of Electrostats - massive great vertical pillows made of wire - woke me up to hifi at 14. This was at a friend's dad's house, and my own parents' B&O setups never cut the mustard after that.
Some years later I managed to recreate some of that magic with recourse to Micromega, Naim and Shahinian.

ianrb

1,529 posts

139 months

Sunday 22nd March 2015
quotequote all
Crackie said:
Epiphany moment for me was at the Harrogate Hi-Fi show in 1978 listening to Another brick in the Wall Pt1. I can't remember the amp(s) but the speakers were Mission 770s with Linn LP12 / Grace707 front end.
+1

Can't remember if it was 1978, but I do remember the LP12 & Another Brick in the Wall at Harrogate.


DanoS4

863 posts

193 months

Sunday 22nd March 2015
quotequote all
working in a commercial recording studio did it for me......

and then realising that the kit isn't the be-all. Acoustics and room design are just as important

Seeker UK

1,442 posts

157 months

Sunday 22nd March 2015
quotequote all
The first proper hifi I heard was at university back in '87. One of the lecturers had a room in college and had a bit of an 'open house' for students. He had a NAD CD player feeding a NAD 3020 used as preamp for a Quad 405 into a pair of Quad ESL 57s. The 2 tracks I remember most was "La Habanera" by Yello from "One Second" and "OGY" from "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen.

It set me off on many years of HiFi buying and upgrades until I got a system that gave me the sound quality I remembered from Uni. Sadly, Mrs Seeker and a cat that likes to sharpen his claws on the furniture prevented me going down the Quad ESL route, so I went Meridian.

phil_cardiff

7,042 posts

207 months

Monday 23rd March 2015
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Visited my wife's uncle who played some music on his stereo after I said it looked like an impressive system. It looked and sounded incredible.

When I went home I threw my £99 Matsui in the bin and wept for all detail I'd missed over the years listening to music.

Ok...I didn't weep but did chuck my stereo out and start looking for seperates.

red997

1,304 posts

208 months

Monday 23rd March 2015
quotequote all
combination of a few things for me;
played classical guitar since the age of 9 (35 years!), lead guitar in a few bands as a spotty teenager, so was exposed to live sound quite early on, and couple that with an inherrant love of electronics, wanted to try and capture that feeling.
Inherited a small amount of money from a relative (I was aged 15-16 ish), so decided to by some proper hifi - in came a pair of Mission 700 LE speakers, stands, rotel integrated amp and a Denon CD player.
Loved it.
give or take a fair few bits of kit change of the years I'm putting up with fully active Linn Isobariks, a raft of Rotel Power amps, pre amp, DACs, Meridian CD and some other bits and bobs.
Oh and I am blessed - I mentioned about changing the 'Briks for something smaller - the Mrs said no, she likes them !
(didn't tell her what I was thinking of swapping them for though ....smile
Still cant beat the power of live sounds though;
If I want to damage my hearing, I have an AFD-100 Marshall Head and a 4x12 Cab. Good job it's got power scaling - else I would be deaf !

StuntmanMike

Original Poster:

11,671 posts

150 months

Monday 23rd March 2015
quotequote all
Some great posts, some truly great kit on here as well .bow

Baz Tench

5,648 posts

189 months

Monday 23rd March 2015
quotequote all
I think it was my mates older brother in 1983, with his set up in his bedroom. I just remember big speakers, a slanted analogue graphic equaliser, chunky old valve amp and kraftwerk's 'Computer World' being thumped out.

It looked and sounded fantastic to my 14 year old eyes and ears.

StuntmanMike

Original Poster:

11,671 posts

150 months

Tuesday 24th March 2015
quotequote all
Off to see 'computer world' on YouTube because I can't remember it.
My brother was also first buying a separates system, I can't really remember it but the amp was a Nad 3130.
I remember he blew his student grant on it.

Sadly

GT2CS

657 posts

168 months

Tuesday 24th March 2015
quotequote all
Stax LNS earspeakers. Jaw dropping experience. Still blow me away.

Planet Blatark-9

332 posts

199 months

Tuesday 31st March 2015
quotequote all
StuntmanMike said:
I have met many people who love music but couldn't give a toss about sound quality, including musicians, perhaps that's a bit strong but I'm sure you know what I mean.

What inspired you to spent loads of money on quirky British ( mostly ) kit, what drives you to use vinyl instead of a hard drive.

What I really want to know is, was there a system that blew you away, made you looks at normal stereos and think no thanks.

Mine was my Dad's 70s set up,
Armstrong 626 Receiver,
Thorens TD 166 mk11 Turntable.
Celestion Ditton 44 Speakers.

Listening to my Dad's Beatles albums as a kid was something else.

Over to you.
How weird.... my Dad has had those speakers for decades, he still has them, i grew up with them... and I have always loved them!!

They were certainly a bench mark... - going on from that, it was a couple of state of the art setups in cars at cruises which also spurred me on.... and also an amazing demo in Rayleigh hi-fi of some M&K stuff.... always loved music






AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Friday 3rd April 2015
quotequote all
Seeker UK said:
The 2 tracks I remember most was "La Habanera" by Yello from "One Second" and "OGY" from "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen.
.
Lots of the Hifi shops I mooched around in Edinburgh in the early 80's had Nightfly as a reference album. Amazing production/recording.