So what got YOU interested?

[CarlSeibert]

I knew of that record in the 80s, but I never had a copy. Now that the memory is reawakened, I'll keep an eye open for it when I go to the record store.

[swt61]

I was a weird teenager (not that that's any surprise). 

Edited January 29, 2015 by swt61

[crappyjones123]

Growing up in India, I never really liked Hindi/Bollywood music. The stuff I did enjoy (sufi music by the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) was considered "too adult (whatever that meant)" for me. I was always a night owl - had a weekly purchase of 4 AA batteries for my flashlight because my sister wouldn't let me read past her bed time so I would pull over the covers and use a flashlight to continue reading. Eventually I got to the point where I needed to stay up to do homework so I was allowed a table lamp. Around this time, my dad got me a Sony Walkman for playing cassettes as a birthday present and my weekly quote of 4 AA batteries went up to 8. Man I loved that thing. Over the next few weeks, I ruined the few tapes we had from listening to them over and over again and happened upon the FM feature. 99% of the stations were playing songs from the 70s and 80s which all sounded like crap to me and then out of nowhere I heard a very slow rhythmic acoustic guitar. Nothing Else Matters by Metallica started my journey into metal and english music in general. I never got pocket money or an allowance as a kid. I was told as long as I had straight A's, I could get whatever I wanted - all I had to do was ask. The requests for basketballs from America and badminton racquets from Singapore changed to cassettes. We had a shitty little Sanyo tape player but I couldn't listen to it at night once my sister was asleep and the walkman sounded infinitely better. The next birthday, I received a 12 pack of rechargeable batteries because I was going through quite a few batteries between the walkman and the flashlight. I listened to the cassettes during the evenings and the one radio station that played non Hindi music from 9pm until I went to bed as that was the only time it ever played english songs. I had a habit of listening to one cassette while reading a novel and I'd only move onto another cassette when I had finished the novel. Till date when I hear a song from the past, I remember exactly what I was reading over 15 years ago - whether I was under my covers during a school night reading when I should have been asleep or if I was sitting under a tree during the summer reading without a care in the world. Last summer, I decided to revisit some of Michael Crichton's novels that I had enjoyed as a kid and immediately the songs started playing in my head. It was a great feeling as it took me back to a time when I thought I was actually being chased by a velociraptor in the middle of Jurassic Park. Back when I thought some day I really would save the world from an island full of dinosaurs. To be 9 again..

 

When I moved to America at 16, I asked for a portable CD player and was amazed at the ability of this nifty Sony software to fit some 500 songs onto one CD compared to the 10-12 I was used to. At the time I didn't know that it was achieving this by compressing the shit out of the songs but I wasn't as concerned with the quality of what I was hearing. Fast forward a few years and I started looking for a better pair of headphones for gaming which led me to Head - Fi. A year of looking at insane people who had spent more than $150 on a pair of headphones, I purchased a pair of Sennheiser HD 595s and a Little Dot MKV amp. The combo was years beyond anything I had ever heard before. A couple of years later, I found out about CanJam in Florida and it seemed like an absurdly good opportunity right in my backyard. Still remember getting 2 flat tires on my way there. I had never had a job (always had been in school full time) so I didn't have any money to be able to afford a room at the meet and my parent's weren't too keen on letting me go either. Al and Gene, in their infinite generosity, offered the couch in their room and even kicked out Steveio when he passed out on the spot that had been promised to me. At the meet, I listened to blues live for the first time. The Eric Culberson Blues Band also happened to be the first live show and it made two things clear - live music was waaaaaaaay louder than I could handle and I really liked blues music. At the meet, I didn't hear a familiar song but it was a great introduction to all the music that I didn't know was out there. 

 

After the meet I went through a few years of gear farming where I bought and sold multiple pairs of HD650s in hopes of finding something better only to realize that I hated every single alternative I tried. Once the 650s were settled upon, I started cycling through amps and only really stopped only I built the bottle head crack and paired it with the inexpensive emotiva dac, that I was done with the gear acquisition syndrome for a while. At least until the Jh16s were announced. Since then things have been fairly calm in terms of gear and a lot more time has been spent trying to find new music and relistening to the music I grew up with. Somewhere along the way I was invited to HC and now I am here, amongst you fine people. 

 

Sitting on a comfy couch with my feet up (can't lay down flat because of a massive groin sprain), sipping on some good chocolate milk listening to Ritchie Havens live at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Cheers

[Craig Sawyers]

This community amazes me.  The USSR and now India!

[n_maher]

HC, the headphone melting pot.

 

Me - love of music started at a young age.  I remember listening to (but not enjoying) classical music with my mom from the meager stereo that we had in the house.  That progressed to me saving up my summer job $$ when I was 11 or 12 and buying the first CD player that we had in the house.  It only got more nuts from there.  The first real system I had was an Onkyo Integrated amp and CD changer coupled to a pair of pretty huge Infinity floor standers.  I had that system from 16-20 and then things got really nuts.  I had a friend that was a pawn shop junkie and we used to tour the seacoast shops trolling for good deals.  He found the first, which meant that he wanted to offload his Nakamichi pre-amp/amp setup which I happily adopted.  I added a few more bits like dual 12" passive subs in custom cabinets  driven by a huge, rack mountable Yamaha pro 2ch amp and Boston Acoustics main channels.  I eventually added a second set of main speakers, why who knows, and then swapped the Nak stuff for an NAD integrated and 3-CD changer.  I had that rig for a few years but eventually was swayed over to the dark side of home theater. 

 

The best HT rig I had was a Pioneer Elite receiver, fed by a unremarkable or at least nothing-worth-remembering DVD player with Paradigm speakers on the front three and a little pair of Boston Acoustics in the rear and an Infinity sub.  I think I had that setup for the better part of 8 years or so.   I still have the Paradigm stuff in the house, but the Elite was sold and replaced with an Outlaw receiver (1050) to help Ian shed some gear and I currently have no spot for rear channels.  If all goes to plan this year we'll put an addition on the house which will finally allow me my first shot in 10 years to upgrade and expand the gear.

 

Where do headphones fit in?  In 2002 I moved into an apartment and couldn't really use the HT rig much.  I wanted to listen to tunes.  I got a pair of Sennheisers for Xmas (from Ian no less), discovered Headroom's website, bought a pair of ER4Ps, then found Head-Fi and as someone who always loved to tinker with stuff got a little more involved in the DIY side of things than I ever thought possible.

[Craig Sawyers]

More background, after Magnets Bulbs and Batteries.  I got interested in audio at about age 15 or so, having been given a record player at age 13 (with vinyl-clashing autochanger) and was not that satisfied with it.  Not having much money, I walked into J G Windows music and hifi store in Newcastle on Tyne (UK) and asked if they had any Saturday jobs. Still there, and doing the same sort of stuff http://www.jgwindows.com/pages/Contact-Newcastle.html. It turned out yes they did have a place for a Saturday lad, so I got my very first paid job in 1972 (oddly enough the same year that NAD - New Acoustic Dimension started in business),  My job was selling hifi gear, which I was not too shabby at.  But the really big advantage was that I could buy anything in the shop at cost price - so a third off.  Hifi gear, records, televisions, musical instruments.  It was at that time I bought my Thorens TD150 (still have it, 42 years on) and SME 3009 pickup arm (still have it). Bought lots of records, from Classical to heavy metal and everything between.  I built my own amp and speakers.

 

That rig went through my entire university life with me and did not miss a beat.  But in my first year, I was in digs (ie living in someone elses house for money) and thought I'd better get a pair of headphones, and found a pair of Koss PRO4AA second hand in a local shop (now in Southampton).  They were very good, with fluid filled ear pads - but they were crushingly heavy and it felt like you head was in a vice.  Eventually I upgraded to a (second hand) pair of Koss ESP6 electrostatics.  They were a real revelation in clarity, but boy oh boy were they heavy.  The HV and step up transformers were in the earcups, and fluid filled ear pads again - you needed total dedication to wear them.

 

I went through several different loudspeaker/amp combinations, going active at one stage with the first of Linkwitz's designs, but using transmission line bass units - this in 1978-ish.

 

But my move to high-end came at an audio show in London (the Heathrow Penta show) in maybe 1985.  I walked into the Meridian room - and Meridian at that time were importers of Mark Levinson.  So they had their CD player into a dual mono ML with external power supply, into ML class A monoblocks and Quad ESL63's on stands.  They were playing Brothers in Arms, something I knew very well.  It sounded like a completely different piece of music!  At the time I was using the first generation Philips CD player, the TD150 etc into a Quad 34 pre and 405 power amp and a pair of KEF speakers - but the Meridian room totally and utterly demolished it sonically.  I just HAD to have something that came close.

 

So I've been though Krell, Audio Research, Magnaplanar, Martin Logan, Podium, Quad ESL57 over the years, and have now settled on homebrew power amps (8 channels) and active LX521's - by Linwitz.  And there it is going to stay apart from inevitable tweaks for a good long time (knock on wood!).

[MexicanDragon]

Love this thread.

I think I got into things because I've played music on and off since I was 7 (piano) and then switched to saxophone (12). I remember having a Sony shelf system with a CD carousel and dual tape deck. It's one of the ones that looked like a stack of real components and real bookshelf speakers instead of the crazy nonsense they got into later. It was great for the bedroom, and I'd have music going in my room all the time, even when I slept. For the go, I remember back in 1990, I had a Sony WM-FX33 walkman. It had a 2 band equalizer and radio, and I loved it. I remember listening with the stock headphones in the backseat of my parents' car. It sounded good when I was 9, but I wanted more, of course. Fast forward to the mid 90s and I $$$ saved up from birthdays/Xmas. I remember going to Service Merchandise and getting either a Sony D-365 or D-465 (whichever one was 200$, b/c 200$ was bonkers in the mid 90s for a 14 or 15 year old, and my mom thought I was crazy.) I wound up getting some Koss Porta Pro Jrs for 20$ (price matched a mistake somewhere else) from Camelot Music, and my mind was blown. I was hearing stuff out of albums I'd never heard before and that's when I realized I was into headphones. I remember the CD player was supposed to get 10-12 hours of battery life off 2xAA, but I would buy the Energizer Lithium AAs which wound up getting 20 hours (was already into throwing $$$ at the problems as a teenager.)

I moved on to an Aiwa CD/MiniDisc/tape shelf system that got me into my early 20s where I got into home theatre with a Kenwood 5.1 HTIB which was highly rated at the time. A car audio buddy of mine help me set it up (tape measures, protractors, everything) and that system wound up being better for movies than anything other than demo rooms. i haven't had a 5.1 setup in almost 10 years, and I'm mostly just headphones at work now, but I still love this stuff. I wound up going through "60$ DVD players that compete with 2000$ CD players" phase, and now through some good trades and some goodwill finds, I have some Rega Jura speakers, Wharfedale Diamond 2 bookshelf speakers, a NAD receiver, a Luxman integrated amp, a Marantz tape deck, a Cambridge Audio 640Cv2, and some other stuff. Most of it sits unused, sadly, but Tidal at work is keeping me spinning bits for hours a day, 5 days a week.

Hmmm... now I want to hit up some thrift shops for an old Walkman.

**BRENT**

[Dusty Chalk]

I've always loved music, but the equipment to make it was always just a tool to hear the music until recently.  Bought a sample CD (Uwe Schmidt) that included a warning against blowing one's woofers -- I paid no heed, and blew my woofers.  Went to a store to hear some speakers I wanted to hear.  They sounded like they had a live band playing inside, so I stayed outside.  When they finished I heard what was obviously a much larger audience than could possibly fit in the small store.  Immediately bought said system (less the source -- a turntable -- since I was CD based).

[MexicanDragon]

^ What is this system?

**BRENT**

[Dusty Chalk]

It was a Jolida integrated (JD102B) and Spendor S3/5? speakers -- my first audiophile system.  I added my own subwoofer, because I was too cheap to buy theirs (I think theirs was a Bag End Infrasub, mine was a Sunfire Sub Jr., which worked just fine when it was between the CD player and the integrated, plus tiny room).  But honestly, I think it was just that my old system had deteriorated so radically, and it was such a large step to a full-frequency-bandwidth system.  Plus, the recording was fantastic -- I think it was some straight-to-two-channel jazz thing.  Plus, tubes.

[aardvark baguette]

I think it was sometime in 4th grade when I heard my friend's older brother playing White Zombie and I remember being extremely drawn to it.  Walkmen and discmen were my most valued possessions from then on.  I remember Weezer's blue album and Gin Blossom's New Miserable Experience being the first CDs I ever bought.  I remember my dad confiscating them, along with Pearl Jam's Vs. and Ace of Base, proclaiming I was only going to listen to christian music from then on.  That's when I swore my allegiance to heavy metal and led me to heavier, darker music. Tops is still the hearing Vulgar Display of Power on my walkman on a middle school field trip that a friend lent to me.  That buzz lasted years and years.

 

Ipod mini was where the audio quality actually started getting good in college.  HD650s > assorted 2nd tier bullshit headphones > better dacs/amps > Endgame ATC speakers.  

Nothing has come close to ATC, though they all had some admirable qualities obviously.  For me its about maximizing whatever releases I like, and progear seems to be the best way to do it with the minimum snake oil bullshit along the way.  I never cared about soldering techniques, I want to hear the music put to tape during the recording, and they usually used a similar progear chain so that makes sense to my simplistic, uncomprehending mind.  I guess I'd rather hate a recording for what it is than love it for what it isn't. Music is human action and I want to be part of the conversation.

[MexicanDragon]

Heh. I have a picture/list of when I was in 7th grade. "Ace of Base" was my "favorite band" at the time. This just brought back a fond memory. The same teacher (my science teacher, Eddie Mooneyham, but we called him simply "Eddie" or "Moneyham") once referred to my skin tone as a "built-in tan." I still use that line to this day.

**BRENT**

[Craig Sawyers]

It was a Jolida integrated (JD102B) and Spendor S3/5? speakers -- my first audiophile system.  I added my own subwoofer, because I was too cheap to buy theirs (I think theirs was a Bag End Infrasub, mine was a Sunfire Sub Jr., which worked just fine when it was between the CD player and the integrated, plus tiny room).  But honestly, I think it was just that my old system had deteriorated so radically, and it was such a large step to a full-frequency-bandwidth system.  Plus, the recording was fantastic -- I think it was some straight-to-two-channel jazz thing.  Plus, tubes.

That would have been the LS3/5A Dusty.  A BBC design by Harwood (his design paper attached), and made under license by a few manufacturers such as Spendor, using KEF drive units.

 

Bewlideringly still made, using newly manufactured B110 and T27 drivers from here  http://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/ls3-5a/ls3-5a-walnut-15ohm.html.  Not cheap as you can see.

 

Or you can buy a kit form version http://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/ls3-5a/ls3-5a-b110-t27-cabinet-kit-complete.html

 

It is still a speaker to be reckoned with.  But to get real bass from it you definitely have to cross it over to a sub - but the tiny original box is surprisingly good.

 

Craig

1976-29.pdf

[GrindingThud]

As a kid in New England, once a year everyone would put "large stuff" at the edge of the road by their driveway for the town to pick up and bring to the dump. We'd run around before the town would do pickup and rummage through everything and grab what we thought was the good stuff. Tubes, speakers, and tube amps were my favorites. I'd pull every tube out of everything I could find. What makes me sad now is how many desireable tubes we popped with BB guns. For a long time as a kid I had the coolest Leslie 251 organ amplifiers and cabinet speaker.....they had the schematic on the side and I learned how to solder while fixing them up. Why my parents put up with it, I'll never know.

[Dusty Chalk]

That would have been the LS3/5A Dusty.  A BBC design by Harwood (his design paper attached), and made under license by a few manufacturers such as Spendor, using KEF drive units.

 

Bewlideringly still made, using newly manufactured B110 and T27 drivers from here  http://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/ls3-5a/ls3-5a-walnut-15ohm.html.  Not cheap as you can see.

 

Or you can buy a kit form version http://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/ls3-5a/ls3-5a-b110-t27-cabinet-kit-complete.html

 

It is still a speaker to be reckoned with.  But to get real bass from it you definitely have to cross it over to a sub - but the tiny original box is surprisingly good.

 

Craig

Spendor never named their designs based on the LS3/5A after the LS3/5A -- there was the S3/5, S3/5R, S3/5SE, etc., for some reason, they always dropped the L.  I have a feeling their variant was significantly different from the LS3/5A (perhaps they used more easily sourced drivers?) that they didn't feel comfortable calling it the LS3/5A.  Or perhaps it was pride -- the name evoked its heritage, but it was its own speaker.

 

Absolute Sound reviewed the first iteration (the one I bought, perhaps simply named the S3/5) and called it the best sub US$1K speaker on the market at the time.  This was why I was even at that store, so the fact that they were playing it just reinforced that opinion.

But yes, it was entirely a direct descendant of the LS3/5A, so my ears prick up any time I hear that as a reference.  I have a fantasy of designing an omnidirectional speaker based on the LS3/5A "sound".

 

KEF's current LS50 speakers pique my interest similarly.

[spritzer]

I have the S3/5SE's here and they are lovely speakers.    I read at some point that they are inspired by their BBC namesakes but the cabinets turned 90° and the baffle isn't screwed in place.  Also biwire from the age when that was all the rage. 

[Dusty Chalk]

They also did speakers against the big 3-way BBC design monitors (BC-1) that was pretty spectacular (SP-1).  Standmount, not floorstanders.  I just didn't have the room for those, was looking for a nice tight 2.1 system.

[Craig Sawyers]

As a kid in New England, once a year everyone would put "large stuff" at the edge of the road by their driveway for the town to pick up and bring to the dump. We'd run around before the town would do pickup and rummage through everything and grab what we thought was the good stuff. Tubes, speakers, and tube amps were my favorites. I'd pull every tube out of everything I could find. What makes me sad now is how many desireable tubes we popped with BB guns. For a long time as a kid I had the coolest Leslie 251 organ amplifiers and cabinet speaker.....they had the schematic on the side and I learned how to solder while fixing them up. Why my parents put up with it, I'll never know.

Yeah, me too.  My bedroom carpet was covered in soldering iron burns and solder splatters.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Craig Sawyers

[luvdunhill]

I guess I have never understood the "euphonic cabinet resonance" theory that Splendor, Harbeth, etc. employ. I am definitely the minority in this opinion, but give me massively damped cabinets Wilson style

[Dusty Chalk]

It's just two different approaches.  The "magical resonance" thing is almost universal in the luthier business.  Personally, I'm with you, which is why I prefer Parker guitars.  It's harder to quantize resonances and establish metrics as to exactly which ones work and which ones don't.

 

But also, it's not that black and white -- there are middle grounds, one can choose a certain amount of inertness and minimize resonances and then still work with them.  I personally think that's what Spendor does, because the S3/5 that I had for a while wasn't "loosey goosey".  It felt fairly stable.

 

And it's Spendor, not Splendor.  

[luvdunhill]

The difference is one is required to produce music and the other is usually considered counterproductive in reproducing music.

The box doesn't produce sound in a speaker, the drivers do. An instrument body is crucial in creating sound.

And, I have to admit I never noticed that spelling mistake! Oops!

[Dusty Chalk]

On the contrary, the holistic approach is to take the entire box into consideration, not just the driver.  But if you want to ignore the box, by all means, good luck with that.

 

It's like trying to make the room entirely dead vs. trying to integrate the speaker with the room for the best sound.  Anyone will tell you that an anechoic chamber makes for a horrible listening experience.

[luvdunhill]

Minimize the variables you can if you are a scientist. If you are an "artist", turn that variable into a marketing ploy.

Anechoic chambers suck for a different reason, a bit of a straw-man there.

All box resonances add is distortion, pure and simple. The influence the drivers in some form or fashion which is not encoded in the audio signal. Distortion in a _reproduction chain_ is the enemy of the good

[crappyjones123]

But what about the toobs??? Aren't they the good kind of distortion?

[luvdunhill]

But what about the toobs??? Aren't they the good kind of distortion?

Tube distortion in a properly designed amp is orders of magnitude below speaker distortion (frankly even a poorly designed amp). But I see where you are going with this, so "yes"

Why not just find a box at IKEA and put speaker in there? If you don't mind, I won't soil my sheets over your design, but I am sure the speaker could be voiced to sound very "audiophile".

Anyways in summary, I don't care how much my speakers weigh, who are you to judge? I love me some ... Er, nm.