How did U get into this expensive hobby?

Grateful Dead productions about 2 years ago began to release live recordings that have been stored in an air conditioned state of the art vault in San Rafael, CA. Being a long time groover of the Grateful Dead and a collector of tapes this was significant to me. My old system, a Marantz receiver (that was my Dad's)an entry level Nakamichi cassette deck, and a pair of some Radioshack bookshelf speakers had finally worn out their welcome. I was in need of a new system which would get the most out of these release's that would become famously known as "Dick's Pick's" For those of you who don't know Dick Latvala was the archivist responsible for all of the recordings kept in the vault. Unfortunately Dick passed away about a year ago, but his spirit lives on in each and every release. Dick's Pick's volume 20 was just released this week. Most of the selections (known as "pick's" by vol#) are 3 cd's. GD productions sells direct at aprox 18.50 a pick. This blows away all the comercial labels. Each pick is lovingly choosen from amongst hundreds of live show's. Oh yea, back to why I got into this hobby. If you havn't guessed, it was to get the absolute most out of each and every release. I can say that I have done that. I could have a system with more bass and a CD player with HDCD. All picks since vol 13 or 14 are HDCD encoded. But this will be addressed down the road when I upgrade my CD player. If you have ever been interested in learning about the GD, check out the website www.dead.net. Click on the icon "Dick's Pick's" This is probably the only and the greatest collection of live concerts brought to distribution by in band in the history of the world. I urge you to investigate. Cheers

As a six year old, my father gave me an old broken down Philco radio for my bedroom. It sounded crummy, but played. After saving for months, I ran to the local electronics supply store and bought a fancy new "whizzer cone" speaker with a big fat magnet for (if I can still remember) $3.95. Tore the Philco apart, learned how to solder on it (with a little help from Dad), and upgraded the speaker. Cleaned the scratchy volume pot. Even put in new, thicker speaker wires from an old lamp (long before Ray Kimber was around). Ran a goofy looking wire antenna out the window and down the side of the house. Thought it was the cat's meow. Learned to enjoy music and the artistry of the human voice for the first time on that old box. Never turned back on the love of high fidelity audio, music, radio theory, and the value of thoughtful mods.

My grandfather was a nut, back in 1960 he bought a fisher tube amp and pre?i think on the pre,anyways i rememmber growing up listening to the music being played all the time and he thought it was swo great| awhile probaly 25 yrs. my father told me that when my grandmother finally found out how much it cost,she nearlly died. I dont rememmber the amount but quite expensive for the time.
Anyways since being a child i have been exposed to good quality music,i dont know if i should than k my grandfather or not since this hobby has we all know is #$@%^*& expensive.
Ten years ago at the age of 29 i got my first system, cary slm 70s,denon 3560 mod. by stan warren and after several years of research and 5 prototypes i had a pair of speakers and have been hooked.

Skip Weshnner, Barbara Keith and Tracy Nelson. Skip (whose wife, Ronnie Gilbert was one of the Weavers)had a radio at midnight on KFAC, LA classical station in the old days. Skip didnt play classical music much unless it was an audiophile recording. He played a lot of folk music. I'll never forget hearing Barbara Keith for the first time. He would always say she made the best album by a "distaff' singer in the last 10 years (her first eponymous lp on Verve, which I have, but you cant get), and then she made a better one. The song he played was The Road I Took to You from her second eponymous albums (on Warner, reissued recently as a Japanese cd, you can get it from Amazon, but I think its out of phase).

Skip's show was sponsored by LA high-end dealers, including one that was near me, Dimensions in Stereo in Torrance. I lived in that store, even though I couldnt afford to buy anything from them when I was in college. After I moved back to LA from Texas in my late 20s, I bought a Connoisseur turntable from them and they repaired my wife's KLH Model 5 speakers.

Tracy Nelson comes in because for many many years, my goal for my audio system was to have her "appear" in my room (or, even better now that I'm more knowledgeable, transport me to wherever she was when she made the recording). I share my love for Trixie with a close friend who would always remind me that her records just didnt sound like she did in person. We get pretty close now.

My brother gave me his Linn Intek Amp, CDP and Linn Helix speakers back in 1994 when he upgraded...the rest is history.