Memories........What made you catch the Audio Bug?


I remember back in high school, my ''industrial arts'' teacher was an avid audiophile and music lover. We are going back to '73 now. I remember one day being very different from any other. Upon entering class for our usual 40 minutes of the usual wood-cutting and bird-cage building routine,(some of us were luckier, getting ,'design' classes instead) we found our teacher,Ed, busy at setting up an LP on a Thorens turntable. Alongside, some strange, industrial-looking brown and orange boxes (QUAD) and a cloth-wrapped box with the initals B&W on them. He informed us that, today, we would discover something new, ''high-Fidelity'' as he called it.

We all sat in awe as our teacher put the SGT Peppers Lonely Hearts on full blast, to the amazement of everyone in the room. Wow! What was THAT? The equipment, the sound, the MUSIC was unlike anything most of us had ever seen or heard. I remember thinking to myself, now this is how the Beatles really sound like? I just could not beleive it.

I remember that we had no quality music equipement in our home back then, as with most other kids.

It was just amazing. Word got around that 'something special was happening, in industrial art's class. Turned out the topic of the week was 'high-fidelity' discovery I guess, as every other class in turn got the same treatment all week long.

The Following year, our teacher somehow managed to get the school board to approve a special ''equipement'' expenditure, officially probably a vacuum system, or new circular saw, or band saw, whatever. The class built a special wooden closet complete with locks, to accept the new ''equipement''. When it finally arrived, holy smokes, a McIntosh amplifier and preamp, with Thorens turntable !

We ended up ''founding'' an audiophile club at school, and would have students spend their lunch hour seating in a closed room in complete darkness, listening to a complete album...against a 10 cent fee that we would keep to buy records !

If you are reading this ED, these 30 years old memories are as fresh in my mind as yesterday. Thank you so very much for sharing your passion with us, and opening our eyes to so many horizons, music being just one of them.

Just wondering how others in this forum got the audio bug also?
sonicbeauty

Showing 2 responses by ashra

My Dad is responsible. One day in the early 1960s dad brought home 3 large boxes with the word Heathkit on them. One box contained small glass bottles along with screws and metal frames and other unknown goodies. He introduced me to the careful use of a thing called a soldering iron. He even let me melt something called solder onto a circuit. The best part was watching dad carefully and deliberately construct this thing. I could see by his expression that this was something really special and important and I learned to be patient while he was using the iron and to give him space. The other 2 boxes contained what looked like end tables on tall spindly legs.
When he had completed construction I knew I had witnessed sorcery. When it was first turned on I heard jazz coming through the end tables. All that for jazz?
It is now years later and when I discover an LP that I have a distant childhood memory of I anxiously play it for my father to learn about the artist and whether my dad saw them perform live and what other songs and LPs I should look for. Oh, Four Women by Nina Simone. I loved hearing that song when I was young, even though I never told my dad.
Yep!..music and audio equipment, itÂ’s all my dads fault.