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the gateway product that turned you into an audiophile

@foggyus91 suggested/pushed/encouraged me to start a thread about this. It was related to Darko's post about 12 audiophile misconceptions. One was that we are all about music - vs gear. I think that subject has been chewed up already a 100 times. I am not sure anyone has anything new to say. 

However, that made me think about the day I turned into an audiophile.

It was when I bought my first "gateway" product that was affordable but audiophile quality and led me to explore more and tweak and switch and experiment and never be fully content but always be smiling when I turned the power on. It's been about the sound and not the music and that's fine. But I realize now that those Monitor Audio speakers I bought from craigslist were my gateway drug  devil

Were you always an audiophile or was there such a moment and a piece of hardware that made the difference?

 

(Lastly, I am very uneasy and on the fence about this forum and starting a thread - for my last correspondence with the moderators. What I learned should bother anyone who cares about fairness or even the appearance of it. I can't discuss it because it will get removed - I tried, my comment lived for less than 5 minutes, )

 

gano
avanti1960
1,744 posts
 

when i bought my first turntable as a teenager that came with a ceramic cartridge and spherical stylus, then upgraded to an empire moving magnet cartridge with shibata stylus after much research.   wow what a difference !  

jfd11
121 posts
 

I loved music and had an average receiver/turntable/speaker rig. Nothing special. I was only making @$1.25 hr so...

I did enjoy recording FM music on my Sony 7" Reel to reel but playback and finding tracks was a pain. So, I started buying used lp's. What bothered me about them was the surface noise. I was reading my copy of Audio magazine when I saw an ad for the SAE 5000 Impulse Noise Reduction unit. Supposed to remove clicks and pops from playback. As luck would have it the audio store in town was an SAE dealer. I won't get into how it worked or didn't but it was good enough for me to cough up the $ to buy it. It started me down the path. I have no regrets except for wishing I kept some of my "stuff". 

mapman's avatar
mapman
23,588 posts
 

In 1972, A $200 Sanyo phono/radio/cassette/speakers integrated stereo I was gifted at age 13.   That was a big step up from the portable tape players and radios I owned prior as a kid.

5 years later I was working at Lafayette Radio selling the good stuff and graduated to a 40 watt Criterion (Lafayette brand) integrated amp, turntable and speakers with HEIL Air Motion Transformer tweets. 

Then to infinity and beyond..

mooncrikit's avatar
mooncrikit
68 posts
 

My migration to the "other" side originated in a pair of Bud Fried R speakers sourced by a Transcriptor T.T. with Grace 707 arm with a Denon 103C cartridge powered by a Threshold 400A class A amp back in 1977ish...Preamp was a Luxman...Moved up from these to a Threshold 800A, then a pair of Dayton Wright XG8 MKIII electrostats and a Dayton Wright SPA preamp...Dave Grusin "Discovery" was the "demo" disc of choice back then...

vetsc5
115 posts
 

Hello foggyus91,

Great subject to start a thread.  To answer your question my "gateway" into the audiophile universe was a Dynakit ST70 kit that I received as a Christmas gift back in the 60's.  As many know, David Hafler, one of the pioneers of "hi-fi",was the founder of DynaCo.  Although my dad and one of my uncles were hi-fi buffs it was the Dynakit ST70 that got my audiophile juices flowing.  Thanks for your question as it brings back some great memories. 

Enjoy the music.

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