What made you become an 'audiophile'.

Cool.

 

Does reading stereo review as a teenager qualify and being interested in audio fidelity ?

 

The internet is what really made me an audiophile - I assume an audiophile is someone who tries to get the best sound using carefully selected equipment. If so I've only been an audiophile for around ten of my fifty years of music listening.

Before that I just listened without making too much of an effort, accepting 'Best Buy' recommendations and local availability when I wanted to change things, which was roughly every ten years since I started work in 1970, and when money was available. By the 1990s I was living in a flat (apartment) and so as not to annoy the neighbours I used mostly headphones.

Two things caused me to change my attitude: I heard a very special headphone system which was far superior to my own. Secondly, I decided to try to listen to speakers again.

From hearing that headphone set up I bought the same CD Transport, DAC , Power Conditioner and cables. Getting a better headphone system is relatively easy. Buy good gear that works together and connect it up. That's all.

The challenge came to try and get that sound with speakers. Impossible I was told, and my experience seemed to show the truth of that. But I kept trying. My current speakers were suggested by a dealer but I hadn't heard them and couldn't because none were in the UK to listen to. I took a gamble on buying them after reading about them on the internet. I followed recommendations for an amp for these speakers, also not available here for audition. (I'd tried all sorts of speakers and amps from my dealer, none of which were satisfactory). The gamble paid off and I still have them after eight years. However I still had much to learn.

It was the internet that taught me the importance of different ways of listening. The internet taught me speaker and listener positioning. It was the internet that showed me about room treatment after a suggestion by a dealer. I also discovered digital equalisers on the internet. I'm now exploring isolation. Most of the last two years have been spent working with these four things to get where I am now; which is that I think my speaker system produces more detail then my headphones and I'm really enjoying listening.

The big improvements recently have been different and better speaker cables which are still burning in, and some of the isolation feet I've added so far. I'm nearly there. I think.......

 

I was a musician before becoming an audiophile. I had set up studio with a Sony TC-255 open reel, but had nothing but a pair of Lafayette headphones to monitor the band tapes.. or my bandmate's 1969 Fender Deluxe Reverb. My father had an RCA SHF-4 that had a balky record changer, at that time 11 years old, so I built a pair of mahogany speakers in woodshop, using the tube amp and drivers. At that point I was not yet an audiophile, but was interested in sound.. mostly the sound of our band.

My car stereo was the final requisite, the very first Craig power amp at a whopping 12.5 watts per channel. This was 1974, in 1969 GTO, with an 8 track player mounted in the glove box. I almost always had a passenger who took care of the music.

A friend at work admired the sound system, then asked me what I had at home. It was an Electra 8 track all in one unit with speakers. He invited me to his house after work. He played "Who's Next", side 2 on his Sansui system. That's when I got hooked!

At that point I became an audiophile, the point I saved my paychecks to purchase my first Pioneer system, and bought and read Stereo Review!

 

I think most of my friends growing up in the 70's were interested in quality home audio. We talked stereos as much as we talked cars really. I think it dropped off in 80's with the advent of the boom box and Walkman.

 

That's funny. What I did was take a collection of junk speakers from TV's and radios and mounted them in a big toy box. Stuffing was an old feather pillow. I cut a hole in the box as a "port". It sounded exactly like you'd think it would sound, like a pile of squirrel droppings. But I sure was proud of it. Then I tried to make a speaker out of building blocks and aluminum foil. Surprise, it didn't work.

Funny electrical story: When I was about four, my dad told me that the electricity that came out of the wall was "alternating current". I figured, well, if it's alternating back and forth between the two prongs of the plug, my projector would run twice as fast if I wired the prongs together. Then it would get all the electricity at the same time!

*BOOOOOOMF*

Okay, so I was wrong.

 

I grew up in the 60's. If you didn't get a decent stereo system in those days you simply weren't a player. Lots of us had the basic Marantz, Pioneer, Sansui or Kenwood receiver based systems with Garrard, Dual, Pioneer turntables and JBL, Advent, AR speakers. Most stereo shops sold good, better, best type of systems depending on your budget.

For me, I still keep it simple and have added a CDP to my system but I simply wanted to hear the music that was coming out in those years as good as I could within my budget. I still do but not at the extremes that audio has moved to. So no exotic systems or fussing around for me. I do consider myself a true audiophile though.

 

Enjoying music to the point where I wanted to have a dedicated area for my passion, and to set aside time to actually sit down and appreciate the albums I've accumulated over the years.

You simply cannot do that while you're running around with your phone and earbuds. My music room is my sanctuary from all that.

 

Yes, dedicated listening is the activity, vs passive listening while doing something else. Music appreciation lights up the brain, it is not just simple relaxation.

 

all you need is a Steve Hoffman Music Forum hat!

 

My roommate in '73 had a Thorens 'table>Sansui tuner/amp>Altec 12" coax monitors in custom horn cabinets á la Tannoy. When he moved out, going back to my "suitcase" Philips record player seemed a slight bringdown …

 

Audiophiles are born, not made, imo.

 

Yeah, I've pretty much given up on that. I'd rather have my sanity. I'm content with the mimicing of the sound of real instruments. That's all I expect even from the ultra high end systems.

 

I don't know. I don't even know if I truly am an audiophile. I leave the judgment for others. What I can say is that I love music. I actually love it so much that it's interesting to me to understand how it was made. And I guess that includes some of the production aspects of it. The artist is not the whole story there are other people that make the music we love great. That includes people that for instance design speakers so that we may enjoy these things in the comfort of our own home conveniently. I guess what I'm saying is that lots of people have a hand in the whole business of sound reproduction from start to finish. And I think that is a worthy cause. If an audiophile is someone that appreciates that and gives a nod to it then I guess that's what made me an audiophile.

 

Per xactly. I couldn't care less about the whole obsessing over the live thing either. That's what concerts are for!! Much more relevant is how do things sound overall? The sum of the parts.

 

When I was 14 a friend of mine's dad had a classic AR integrated amp and a pair of AR3s with an AR turntable which we would try out when dad was at work. My friend started saving up and later bought a HK Citation 16 paired with a pair of AR9s when they came out. I was hooked. This was around '74 ~ '78.

 

I agree, and no system is absolutely perfect, even the ones in the 6 and 7 figures.

 

The Jadis Eurythmie II full range horns did that. I heard them at the hifi expo at the Javitts center back in the 90's. I became aware of turning my head in the direction an instrument seemed to be coming from. No other speaker system has ever caused me to respond with a head turn. The imposing horns vanished in an ocean of three dimensional sound. To quality this experience, I have auditioned some very highly regarded speakers which reproduce convincing three dimensional sound, Acoustat 2+2, Apogee Duetta Signature II, Magneplanar MGII, and the very outstanding original Ohm Walsh F, many others!

 

Well, that's cool, especially at a show where the acoustics are usually not the greatest. I see most of those speakers are panels; ribbon, magnetic, and electrostatic. Do you feel that panel speakers are more realistic than cone and dome speakers?

 

I always liked music and electronics was a hobby. The one fed on the other. Now they're both monsters.

 

I really don't remember what made me an "audiophile."
And I'm not really sure that I am. The first and last time I referred to myself as one backfired when a friend didn't like the way Zep sounded on my system. He wanted booming bass. He didn't really know what an audiophile was, and, I think, found the term pretentious.
All I can remember is that from age 3 I was obsessed with music and records were the only source available to me.
Records sounded better - or worse - on other systems and that fascinated me.
Record shop owners would steer me to the best sounding pressings.

The Beatles, for one, were recommended on the original UK pressings.
One salesman (at Macy's!) was accepting returns of Steely Dan's Gaucho promising a customer to get one of the "good one's."

A friend told me that my US copy of Cat Stevens' Izitso didn't sound as good as the UK pressing.

Someone told me that the RCA Music Service pressing of Alan Parsons' I Robot fixed the glitch at the beginning of the US pressing.

Then I bought a copy of The Absolute Sound, read the review of a Jadis amp, and was hooked.

 

When I was 16 I bought a Low wattage Marantz Integrated stereo amp and a BSR Turntable. I inherited a van when I was 19. I put a waterbed in the back and a nice sunroof. I put in a floor mount Craig AM-FM 8 track and a decent pair of Jensen speakers. A real love van.
One of the guys that I worked with made me an offer that I couldn't refuse. He offered me his stereo for my van. It was a huge pioneer integrated amp with 260 watts per channel RMS and a pair of JBL L300's. They weighed 146 pounds each, with smoked glass tops. You could hear God walking around in Heaven when You turned it up to 5.
I put on the Moody Blues, and I could pick out every violin. Awesome.
I moved out to Oregon, and had to sell it to start my life living on the Oregon Coast as a caretaker for a Bazillionaire. His dining room stereo had a pair of, of all things, a pair of JBL L300's. It was the interview for the job minding his 6000 square foot castle overlooking the gorgeous rock formations out past the beach.
I said, "I had to sell my L300's to move out here".
He must have been impressed that I even knew what they were, and that I obviously could care for them. He said,"You can listen to mine whenever I'm gone". I got the job.
The best two years of my life followed that moment. The great room had Mcintosh 275's with 4 HUGE Magnaplanar's. I loved polishing the woodwork in that room. He retired from his job that took him all over the world giving speeches to upper management types on how to succeed.
He no longer required my services, so we said goodbye over 3 or 4 glasses of fine scotch. That was the last time that I saw him, but I had quite a taste of the good life. His wife gave me a kiss on the cheek. She smelled better than any lady that I was ever that close to. The good life must be really good.
I don't have anywhere near the system that I had 38 years ago, but I know what a good system sounds like, so my music is very enjoyable with the system that I've put together. I sure could use a few pairs of Magnaplanars though.

 

One thing that has happened to me since becoming one (by reading this forum) is that I can more easily discern a good mastering from a bad one. Even with these cheap speakers that came with my computer, and listening to Mp3 samples, I can tell the difference.

 

Yes, I have never considered myself a fan of dipole panel speakers, but obviously made an impression. The advantages are many, and a few disadvantages since after all, there's no such thing as the perfect speaker. But I think they have approached nearly the ideal audio nirvana for me.

As imaging goes, I have observed that narrow dispersion recreates a more stable and convincing halographic image. Wide dispersion creates a 3D spacious effect. The room becomes part of the re-created image. This is a generality with quite a few exceptions I would say. Most speakers fall somewhere in the middle. The panel electrostatics as a rule have a small sweet spot. When set up well, and the correct distance from the back wall, and correct seated position, there's nothing like them. Being a large panel. the listening experience takes on a new dimension as the energy field of the upper bass and lower mids are felt as much as they are heard. I describe this as being "embraced by a field of energized air", and this does evoke an emotional response.

Disadvantages, panel speakers are poor reproducers of bass below 40 cycles, they require enormous amounts of power, and are not very well suited for more than one listener at a time. Off axis response falls off sharply, not very good sounding at all outside the sweet spot.

The Jadis horns were very directional on the vertical plane and moderately directional on the horizontal plane. This was a group demo, so not all listeners were ideally on center. I was seated slightly off center and STILL they imaged like nothing I had heard before (nor after)

The Duetta Signature II's are perhaps my favorite. I owned a pair of Acoustat 1+1's and loved them.
The Ohm Walsh F sounded big and spacious, good but not great imaging, wonderful natural sound without any coloration, fast and detailed high freqs, a hi hat sounded like a hi hat. The Walsh design is an amazing piece of engineering. The vertical cone is time aligned for all frequencies, the entire bandwidth arrives at the ears at the same time.