what made you take up this hobby?

[highfihoney]

is there a defining moment that you knew that audio/hifi was the hobby that you wanted to pursue,if so what & when was it.

for as long as i can remember ive been fascinated with all things audio related, even as young boy i prefered to listen to music & experiment with different systems over television but it was not until i visited my first hifi salon at about 10 years old that the bug really hit me.

i remember walking into the dimly light hifi shop & seeing all the crazy looking speaker systems & the tube gear with all the tubes light up,it was kinda scary,like being in a mad scientists laboratory but i was hooked,the owner was super nice & let me hear the different systems & even let me come in whenever i wanted to dream of all the things to come.

it wasnt long before i was saving my papar route money to buy my first set of quality used speakers,the owner wouldnt let me buy them without talking to my father first but once i had the blessing it was all over,my first jbl system was born & i was a happy kid.


when did you know that you wanted better sound ?

 

[furrycute]

For me, at first was curiosity with electronics. Then I found out I have really good hearing, I enjoy good sound. Then I found out I enjoy audio more than video. Then I discovered credit cards, and the rest as they say is history...





P.S. My dad always foots my credit card bills.

 

[hifiman]

As a kid I had a cheap turntable and a few records to play. When I got a car I wanted a decent stereo (though I had no clue what that was). I had next to nothing for money and went to those small shops filled with $10 speakers and $30 head units. And of course no customer service and absolutely no return policy. This was back in the day of the 300 watt graphic equalizer/amplifiers, which of course were also about $30. I blew out speakers every other month it seemed.

At about this time I found that I couldn't stand all the tape hiss I was hearing on cassettes. Records were completely annoying with all the pops and clicks. I ingnored those new-fangled CDs because the equipment and CDs were too far out of my budget to even consider. One day at Leo's Stereo I walked by as a salesman was giving a car CD demo. I was amazed at how clear it sounded. From that point forward I rarely listened to cassettes or records. I saved for a cheap Radioshack brand CD player for my home. Of course my system was the worst, but I didn't know it. I had those really big Fisher speakers with the 15" woofer and the 2 ounce magnet.

Years later I heard my brother's system in his shop I was amazed at how loud and clear a quality system could sound. It took many more years, but eventually I've got something I'm happy with.

 

[Mr. Lamb Fries]

I remember hearing my brothers stereo located on the third floor. Two songs come to mind that dragged me into music.

Billy Thorpe-Children of the Sun
Gary Moore- Remake of "Shapes of Things" Live

that was some time ago, but I will never forget those two songs and the impact they had on me!

 

[furrycute]

It always amazes me how good a decent stereo setup can sound. But this hobby does cost an arm and a leg...

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I was happy with table radios and boomboxes till my early 20's. Then I got a $400 HTiB, and everything was groovy until I became a member of Hometheaterforum.com. There I was subjected to hundreds of SVS threads.....

*First came the SVS upgrade, then my HTiB speakers sounded weak
*The came the Paradigm upgrade
*Then the seperate 2-channel system
*iPod reaches critical mass
*new & improved headphones! (I never liked the 'buds, I'd been using $9 Sony fontopia's).

So now I've got my 3 systems (5.1, stereo, portable), and all three are in a constant state of flux. Lets hope I never get suckered into car audio.

 

[CaliHwyPatrol]

I built my first surround sound when I was 13. I took my computer speakers, my dad's stereo, and the speakers from my tv (L/R and Sub) and put them all around me and watched The Matrix. It was 8 speakers and 2 subs total, and I was hooked after that.

~Chuck

 

[Sheep]

I saw a long throw subwoofer and I said to myself "Oh yes, she will be mine"

SheepStar

 

[mulester7]

.....I was hooked on music from before I can even remember being taken to concerts with my Daddy onstage singing in various Gospel Quartets....I had record players as a very young kid, and then an onslaught of audio equipment began at age 10 up until now....I also was very active in music by participation, playing the trombone from grade 6 thru 5 years of college, also was in various productions put on by the music dept at college participating vocally, and was a voice major along with being a PE major....yeah, vocal music and PE, what a combo for a double-major, huh?....after college I was involved in a couple of quartets and did some traveling with them and cherish those memories....then I was involved in Church music and the music ministry for about five years....shoot, even my pets are well versed in music and love it.....

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mulester77/detail?.dir=/8456&.dnm=dbffre2.jpg&.src=ph

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

First and foremost, the love of music. That started when I was 8 or 9 yrs old. Roller skating in the 80's had a lot to do with it. Pro audio amps and dozens of 12" drivers pounding music into our brians while we flew around the rink - boy did that die out to inline skating .

My buddies all got into it. We all got boom boxes together, then our first receivers, speakers, turntables, decks, cd players, eq's. We'd all go to the hifi shops and drool over the Soundcraftsman and Lexicon amps, the Klipschorns, the SDA-SRS towers, the Dragon decks, the gold Carver amps, Ohm Walsh speakers, and on and on.

That carried on to our vehicles, to see how much power we could sink into our trunks. We all had Alpine decks, amps, and subs. Fosgate was the runner up 20 years ago, along with Fugitsu 10 head units. Back then you used to bolt the subs firing directly into the back seat on a single piece of wood. Crazy install, but it worked and didn't take up the trunk.

I used to think back then in 20 years I'd have this $50,000 home audio system, and that all the money I made could go to the hobby. Yep, married and still dreaming of that 50,000 system.

 

[mike c]

I am purely an HT nut. how it came to be was ...

I was window shopping and I was "foolish" enough to walk into a JBL store. I was wowed with the "surround" effects and walked out with a 500USD HTIB. add another 500USD receiver and I was in bliss.

Then I was foolish enough to walk into the same store just to "look around"
apparently I was not satisfied with the "surroundness" of my setup (there's too little effects in the rears) and I could now tell between a bookshelf and satellite speaker.

thus this crazy hobby begins ...

 

[mulester7]

.....mercy, Buck, did you ever bring back some memories there....all the way through jr high it was every Friday night at Jim's Roller Rink for me and my older Brother....the sound system was very good....the old building was stick-built wood, had very low 2x12 rafters probably 35 feet long, with support posts in the middle of the skating floor, but the support posts didn't matter since you skated in an oblong circle around the middle....anyhow, my Brother was a track sprinter and high jumper on the jr high team, had lifted weights religiously since the 5th grade, and had muscled legs like you wouldn't believe....one Friday night a little kid fell down right in front of him with my Brother skating at high speed....he jumped as high as he could to go over the kid, and would have done just fine, but took a low rafter right in the forehead, God as my witness....he turned a back-flip in mid-air and landed on his stomach....he wasn't out cold, but close, and had to be helped off the floor....I laughed for weeks....true story.....

 

[Amechwarrior]

The 1st Xbox is what got me into HT.
"hey, whats this S-video cable do...."
1 S-V cable later
"Well if S-V is that much better, why am I missing all that "surround sound" they keep talking about"
Then came about 3 months of research into the whole HT madness and out came a Onkyo HTIB, still think it was the best one I could get for $500.

I am generally new to the whole higher end HT scene but I tell people, from my experience, games are the most taxing on a system, is there anything that can push harder? Even the big action DVDs like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Gladiator or Star Wars leave me wanting more surround use. The action does not have to happen infront of you like a movie or music, you got to be able to hear everything going on all around you, and the console and the reciever are working on this in real time, with a 7.1 matrix from the consoles 5.1, you can have guys talking to your back if you turn around on them mid-sentence, hope you got good rears to keep up with all the explosions, yelling and bullets spinning around you.

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

is there a defining moment that you knew that audio/hifi was the hobby that you wanted to pursue,if so what & when was it.

I think I've been into the hobby since birth. LOL
As a child growing up, I was always around it because my father was a 2-channel hifi junky. From the time I was a small child, I always had a radio of one form or other, and my hobby grew as I got older from the stuff my parents bought me as a kid, to when I started working and spending my own money on components.

I dished out about $400 for my first CD player in 1984 when I was a soph in HS, and I was the first person I knew who owned one. Back in those days, the retail CD selection was terrible. By the time I graduated HS, I had over $2,000 wrapped up in my 2-channel system. When I graduated from college in '90, I put together my first 5 speaker pro-logic surround system together for for movies. My first bigscreen was a 48" Toshiba that I bought in 1995, and the evolution continued on from there. The journey never ends

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

I was happy with table radios and boomboxes till my early 20's. Then I got a $400 HTiB, and everything was groovy until I became a member of Hometheaterforum.com. There I was subjected to hundreds of SVS threads.....

*First came the SVS upgrade, then my HTiB speakers sounded weak

Yep, I've been infected by SVS too.

 

[furrycute]

Right now due to room size issues, I've exchanged my stereo setup for a headphone based system.

Eventually when I settle down I'll definitely purchase another high end stereo setup. There is just something magical about good sound.

 

[highfihoney]

Yep, I've been infected by SVS too.

man that pic is WAY COOL.

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

Honey,
Yep, the little guy is a cutie.

He's cured of throwing toys into the subwoofer ports, so that's a plus too.

Grrrrrrr

 

[thundergust]

I was using a Pioneer HTIB from Costco.
After I heard a pair of B&W 802N, I wanted better speakers.

 

[masak_aer]

It started when i was 12. I inherited Teac double-deck cassette player from my brother. It was my pride n joy. Then i got a birthday present a year later, Panasonic sterero cassette player with detachable speakers (can you imagine how cool it was in 1985? for me at least). Then i went broke until after college. Start this hobby again when i got my Sony HTIB for $100, and the saga continues...


PS: waiting on my Olevia LT37HVS to arrive.