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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 1 response by maxsound2000

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maxsound2000
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I guess it would have to be many, many years ago when my family was over at a friend's house and we were listening to some music. I think it was around '70 or '71. I don't remember what the music was or what equipment they had, but I do remember are the headphones and listening to stereo for the first time. "WOW! This is neat. Different sounds in each ear with drums and vocals coming from the top of my head. How can this happen?" I was memorized by it. My brothers wanted to listen, but I did not want to give up the headphones. When I did I took them back as soon as I could. Mom and Dad had to drag us away from the stereo in order to go home.

Within a few days I tried to make my own headphones with two small transitor radio speakers. Crude, but they worked. Only problem was it wasn't stereo. By Christmas I had a small Montgomery Ward's stereo with cassette and Santa gave me a pair of headphones.

I will never forget that first experience and have enjoyed every minute of it since.
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