Decisive moments your your audio journey


Have you had any truly decisive moments in your time in this hobby? 
 

I would have to point back to the first time I ever heard Magnepans, it was a “whoa what was that moment?” moment. That was in the 1980’s. It was the first time I ever truly heard reproduced music that got the midrange right, without it being squished 

128x128zavato

Plus 3 for the Snell Type A’s, playing the 1812 Overture, blew me away! Then the DQ-10’s, then the Accoust Model 3’s which I swapped for a pair of Model X’s that I still have today.

JD

Fist time I heard Acoustat 1s. And when I decided to go to separates in '82-ish. 

@ghdprentice 

Season tickets to the symphony. 7th row center seats… repeated exposure to live acoustic music…

+1 I completely agree with your comment. Nothing changes your perspective like live acoustic music in a performance hall. The other experience I've had similar to this (goosebumps) was hearing a choir perform Christmas music in the London Brompton Oratory. 

I read so many times that elevating speaker cables has positive effect on sound, Never read once someone who heard the effect saying he liked it before vs after. (Of course, there are naysayers but I am excluding them) So I did elevate my cables and possibly heard some improvement. I had been listening that way for several months. Recently I bought a power cord, a big spending for me, for my amp and after enough burn-in it became very nice, justifying my spending. Yet something always bothered me, not sure why though. The sound was well-organized, well-behaved, everything in the right place. Just couple of days ago on a whim I removed the elevation and laid the cables on the wooden floor as previously. Suddenly the sound came alive. Everything became more exciting, the scale (not the volume) increased, more energy, a little gruffness (good thing) added. I’ve been listening to various music since then non-stop and yet to hear one I am not excited about. Therefore I am now fully convinced what I’ve been suspecting: you might hear the difference with a change, but from then on it depends on your taste whether to prefer it or not. I ain’t touching anything from now on. My journey is complete.

On placebo effect I’ve seen mentioned many times and just recently on the other thread: the person who took the fake medicine got better, so what is wrong with that? I built my system for my enjoyment, not my friends or whoever. So if I like something added and think the cost is alright who are you naysayers saying I am delusional? Btw, shouldn’t placebo effect work both ways? If you don’t believe it it won’t work for you?

I suppose mine started in 1967-68. I went to a Dick Clark rock show at the Stock Yards in Chicago. I was blown away by the stage speakers. Huge bass speakers with huge horns on top. They were JBL. I wrote a letter to JBL asking if they knew what they were. I was impressed they actually responded. I don’t remember what they were now but that started me on my JBL journey. In 1969 I bought a pair of JBL Dorian S12 from Allied Electronics on south Western Avenue. When I moved to Las Vegas I had to sell many pairs of JBL. 
Sold L25,L36,L40,L120,L300,AquariusIV(2),S1,4408
Kept L65,L100,L222,Dorian S12,B380