Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

[60CycleHumm]

What was that one song that just made you go WOW! and sucked you into spending thousands on your newfound lifelong hobby?

Mine was "School" by Supertramp. The system was two pairs of Dahlquits DQ-10's (stacked and mirrored) powered by GAS Ampzillas. The system also had a Dahlquist subwoofer. I remember it like it was yesterday and still use "School" as one of my references.

[lasse]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

What was that one song that just made you go WOW! and sucked you into spending thousands on your newfound lifelong hobby?

Mine was "School" by Supertramp. The system was two pairs of Dahlquits DQ-10's (stacked and mirrored) powered by GAS Ampzillas. The system also had a Dahlquist subwoofer. I remember it like it was yesterday and still use "School" as one of references.

Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss directed by Zubin Metah on Decca.

[60CycleHumm]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

ummmm... I'll have to look at up.

[gleite311]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

For me it wasn't a song, rather it was a couple of movies. I remember back in the mid 90's going with one of my college roommates to visit his brother-in-law Kurt. He had a couple of Vandersteen speakers (I think they were the 2c) as front channels with a M&K 12" isobaric sub. We watched Terminator 2 and Last of the Mohicans on that system and I was completely blown away at how good the sound was without being in a movie theater. Kurt later built a pair of Lynn Olsen's Ariel speakers, which opened up my eyes to the possibilities of DIY. The rest is history!

[dustinbagby]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

Dire Straits Money for Nothing on Jeff Bs critical listening towers. Not sure there is a write up on them or any info since they are sort of a one off set up. One of the best sounding systems to date that I've heard

[maynardg]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

Late 70's. In a small hall. Classical piano recorded in stereo live onto a Revox reel-to-reel. It was then immediately played back via Audio Research tube electronics through Magneplanar Tympani 1D speakers. I have not heard such realism to this day. The playback absolutely sounded like live piano. Amazing.

[Tin_Ears]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

I was a kid... over 40 years ago. The amp was an old Dynaco tube model that can't have been more than 30 WPC. I can't remember what preamp nor what speakers. As a whole the system probably sucked but it sounded pretty good to me way back then. I can't remember what music either. So... all I can remember is Dynaco tube amp.

[tmhutson]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

I started piano lessons at age 6. My grandma had an organ that all the kids liked to play with. She also had an old tube amp'd magnavox stereo. She had a typical old lady record collection. I would listen to Herb Alpert (I knew how to turn on the FM stereo, but couldn't play records). It was funny sounding to me, but I liked it for it's old sounding oddness. Lawrence Welk, for the win! I still have those records! When she went to assisted living when I was older, she gave me the stereo and the organ.

My Dad had a little Sony rack style system with a little 5 band eq I didn't know how to adjust.
My sister and I liked Blondie, and I also liked a few songs off the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (Hey, I was like 5 when that came out!). We had a neighbor that worked for a record company, and we got quite a few records for free or cheap. I guess that influenced me more than I realized, looking back now. My sister was 2 years older, so she was able to use the stereo before me, and she had money to buy records. I listened to her stuff. Some was ok, some was lame (Leif Garret? Hell no!)
I got the stereo in highschool and replaced the passive radiators and woofers on the speakers due to rot. The receiver sucked and I replaced it with a nice entry level yamaha I had saved up for. Only one of my friends had a better system at the time. His dad bought some expensive stuff.


I got my Dad's stereo about the time CD was become more popular and more affordable, and filling the "record" stores, but the selection was still crap. To be honest, I think I bought maybe a couple cassettes. I have owned almost all cd's since I first started buying music. I still remember to this day, going to buy my first CD player. I still have some of my early CD's. I started buying a lot when I had more money starting in the mid 80's. There was not one particular song. But there was a college station I could pick up, and they played lots of punk rock. I also liked KMOJ radio on the "rap" nights. Old school stuff back in the very early 80's.
So, punk rock and hip hop was my thing when I started listening more "critically"...
It was more about the theme, than the quality, obviously.

But, I think it might have been in highschool when I took an electronics class as a freshman that I learned more about speakers, and built a small pair of speakers that influenced my DIY side.
The teacher had a nice receiver, eq and a pair of big "Venturi" speakers.

I moved to downtown Minneapolis when I was 17, but kept commuting to the school I use to go to in the suburbs. Turns out, I moved like 3 blocks from the electronics store where my teacher bought all his electronics for class. :D I was in heaven. I told him where I had moved to and how close I was to the store, and he told me cool things in the store to look out for.
They had a section just for drivers and speaker kits. That is when I got more into speakers. Even my sister's boyfriend at the time went with me once to see what I was up to, and he also bought some stuff and built an awesome little pair of cheap bookshelf speakers.

I guess I am saying there was not really one system, or one song.
More of a series of events, people, places and things that continued to feed my need for sound and music. So much so, my first full time job was at an electronics retailer.

[gdmoore28]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

I've had an interest since I was a child, especially after seeing the Beatles on the Sullivan show in '64. That appearance started my real interest in music and sparked my interest in sound quality.

But the incident(s) that instigated my interest in building speakers occurred in the mid seventies in my music class in college. The auditorium had a custom-built lectern that had a 15" speaker and a horn, a small tube amp, and a turntable (all mono). I was blown away by the way that lectern filled that hall with beautiful sound. And I've been curious since then on how that turntable managed to track sitting atop a speaker!

GeeDeeEmm

[mattsk8]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

Music started for me around 3rd or 4th grade. Not sure why but that's when it clicked.

Ironically, loud stereos scared me when I was a kid. I remember my dad had a Pontiac Sunbird back in about 1985 (I was 10) and he put a Kenwood CD player, Kenwood amp, and a pair of Kenwood 6x9s in it. First time he cranked it I remember hating it because it was too loud.

A few years later he had a conversion van and put the CD player, 4 pairs of 6x9s, a pair of Rockford Fosgate 12" subs, and was constantly upgrading. That's when audio really started to peak my interest. He always had some pretty nice home audio gear as well so I was watching that too.

As far as a certain song, that's tough. I would probably say Dire Straits, Money For Nothing would be at the top. Maybe as a kid, John Cougar's Pink Houses as well.

[Adam_G]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

Well my dad let me borrow his old Bose 501 speakers and a crap kenwood receiver, and it was up to that point the most impressive system I had heard. Then I went to a concert in Pittsburgh at Stage AE, and decided that I wanted to push my limits a little further, so I picked up a Polk PSW505, which helped take the low end off of the bose and free up a somewhat better sound in the mids, but still wasn't quite where I wanted to be. I swam through craigslist adds until I picked up a pair of Sansui 3-way speakers, sealed, I don't remember the exact model now, and that blew the bose away as far as SQ. That set it off, and I started buying up and repairing gear off of CL, and have since built my own subs, and now a pair of stereo speakers using the 6.5" buyouts from PE. It's been a fun ride so far, and there's a long way for me to go. All of this is within 3 years!

I'm one of those weirdos that started with a stereo in the house and THEN went to their car and upgraded! Running a Titanic 10" Mk3 in the trunk, JBL 5x7 up front and 6x9 in the back, kenwood headunit. Good stuff.

[donkt88]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

Years ago, when I was in my late teens, as I was walking through the sound room at our local Hi Fi store, and heard something that stopped me dead in my tracks. I don't remember the music so much as the speakers. They were the original B & W 801F's.
A few years later when I had saved some money, I went back to the same showroom with a gal that had golden ears. Sat her down and had the dealer play some music through the different speaker in the room, when it got to the 801's, she started to cry. I asked her if they were that bad, and she said no, they are that good.
We left with the speakers, and that started me on my journey to audio perfection. I do have to constantly remind myself though, that the secrete to carrying on, is to not get carried away.

[moron#99]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

The brand new Pink Floyd album Dark Side of Moon on a pair of JBL studio monitors. Specifically, the clocks at the beginning of "Time". At that moment it became inadequate to have flat frequency response and nothing else.

[cjd]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

Song? Nothing, or everything.

I grew up immersed in live acoustic performances (classical, a little jazz, from chamber group to choir to orchestra)

My parents did A/V gigs for a while, and the journey through that (many visits to a rather good shop, many rentals, many venues, taught me that there were good components and bad components, and if everything was right you could almost believe you were in a real performance.

To this day I've never met a system that didn't betray itself, but some have come very very close - enough that I lose sight of the system. I suspect some of this comes from the fact the acoustics of the room I'm in never match up with what I'm hearing, so it's clear it's a different space to me.

C

[DannyG]

Re: Song and System that hooked you into "Hi Fi"?

First album and first system-The apple album Beatle's-Marantz and JBL's