What component(s), systems or experience either led you on the path you follow today or had a profound effect on how you listen or pursue audio / musical replay?

Not to discount or lessen the fortune of having some great friends introduce me back when ('72) to early gear like Advent and Marantz I would say My first profound experience / component was the Dynaco st-70 ('89). That was my introduction to tubes IMS. I was stunned, and a bit pissed I had gone without, when I suddenly heard familiar voices float INTO my room and spin around my skull.

The next "big thing" was my introduction to SET IMS (February '02). Sure, I'd heard SETs before but frankly was left unimpressed with dealer auditions that gave me little cause to part with 4k. Instead I muttled along (happily) with my garden variety space heater / interpretors of redbook data. And while not throwing myself completely off the edge of PP reality, not having attached an "appropreiate speaker" to my SET, I find myself "muttling along" in some sort of "SET meets Dynamic limbo"; one that does not leave me wanting if I could only not open / read ALL the testimonials from the SET+horn disciples expounding their virtues and the folly of my fibble attempts to experience salvation in the pagan manner I've chosen.


MikE

Mike,

If you're horny for horns you could'a just said so. ;)

Rob
'Horns on tubes clearly rule, and rule clearly!'

Here's a post that pretty much summerizes what I'm looking for, least on paper or in his desciption. I need to find out if this is how I would interpret those or similar speakers.

MikE

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=hug&n=33298&highlight=ode+to+altec&r=&session=

I had a similar experiance as you MikE. About 2 years ago I was stumbling along with my old 5 disk CD changer and a solid scrape AVR. It played well enough and that was that. Well my older brother (51) came back into our lives from California. He was into the recording industry and helped build and run this studio
http://www.parkhillmusic.com/studio.htm

Well the owner of the studio died and many things changed so my brother bailed out and came back home to us all after many years of being gone.

When he came back he would always tell myself and my younger brother how he prefered analog and that it was a more real, full sound. We used to laugh at him and say things like "what a clueless dinasour, ya can't beat the quiet CD sound". Anyway, he brought back a whole bunch of fun stuff with him. Amps, guitars tons of electronic parts and tubes. So he drops this this bone stock Dynaco ST 70 in my lap and said, "here play with this". I thought why not. I toss it onto the pre outs of my AVR and let it fly. As I sat in the listening position my eyes opened wide and my mouth fell open. What was that sound!? Geeee this is different I thought. Smoother, female voices didn't have that fuzz sound to them. Well needless to say, from there I was hooked. If that sounded so much better what else would? So I started ordering new tubes and upgrade parts for the Dynaco. It got better and better. Next to go was the boring source and get into a good working turntable of which I have posted here all about.

For music I couldn't go without tubes and my turntable. My Aria 5R 95db MTM design speakers with the Raven Ribbon tweets do a great job of reproduction and I am in no hurry to upgrade anythign else. I just sit and listen.... :guitar:

Back in my young days in my teens I used to do a lot of electronics experimenting and this included building a number of tube amplifiers, both for hi-fi and guitar. This was in the last half of the 60's into the 70's and tubes were commonplace and solid state was still in a painful learning process. I think SS reached a state of maturity in the early to mid 70's with the advent of many high quality advances in semiconductor chips. I was working as an inside sales rep at an OEM semiconductor dealer towards the end of this period and became aware of many advancements in that state-of-the-art from companies like National Semiconductor, Signetics, Motorola etc. National was very advanced at the time.

The decision to use tubes to drive the horn top of my home made bi-amped system (Altec 511-B) in 1975 was a no brainer. Where I needed more power and the demands on amplifier clarity were reduced in the land below 500 Hz I chose SS. That was the right decision then and is still a fine option today. Now the same tube amp I built in 1975 to power just my top horns at a watt or two I'm using for all my power over the full audio spectrum with more efficient speakers.

Rob

In 1969 I read a paper by Amar Bose who said that 19 feet from the performing stage at Boston Symphony Hall, only 11 percent of the sound was direct and 89 percent was reflected. Having heard a lot of live music in many venues including concert halls, I knew then and there that any sound system which couldn't reproduce the missing 89 percent would never satisfy me no matter how well the other 11 percent was done. I knew his speakers couldn't do it so I went off in my own direction and haven't looked back since. No matter how good you think your equipment is, go to a live concert and when you come home and compare what you heard to what your stereo equipment does, you will cry. And I don't care how much money you spent for it or who designed it. And the bigger the difference between the acoustics of the place where you heard the live concert and your home listening room, the greater the difference between the two sounds will be.

Shahinian Obelisks come close. The direct and reflected sound is great and I have actually used them in a ballroom in between sets of a jazz trio and afterwards for big band ballroom dancing. They did a very good job.

What changed me? Same answer, the Shahinian Obelisks. I was actually looking for a pair of Klipsch Heresys (early ones) like I lost to my X. (all my Xs live in Texas) I spent more $$ than I had planned on but having good speakers that luckily later on worked well with Single Ended tube amps as well as the PP I had been using has made such a difference. The Shahinians have been the constant throughout at least 30 different configurations of amps, recievers, pres,tuners,CD players etc over the last 6 years.

I would have to say that the purchase of my Magnapan 1.5 speakers represented the most fundamental change in my listening habits. I find these speakers so revealing, and so capable of providing a stable, convincing image that I can "listen back" to the performance. I have been known to listen to classical music with score in hand; the Maggie's provide the ability to hear exactly what the score says one might hear.

I also find the Maggie's non-fatiguing, which is to say, I don't get tired of listening to them. My exploration of music, and my desire to spend time with music (no matter what else I might have on my plate), has been significant enhanced by the Maggie's.

I must also say that reviving my old turntable (an Onkyo) with a Sumiko Blue Point cartridge providing me with a revelation regarding what analogue can do. I've since moved to a VPI HW19JR, Origin Live arm, and Shure V15xMR, but I've never forgotten how real music sounded again, after years of CDs. I still do listen to CDs now, but I am more acutely aware of their limits.

Other components at different times have brought me closer to music, but the Maggie's have the most impact.

One is told that musicians favor Magnapan speakers. That me be a bit of advertising hyperbole, but I've spent a lot of time with music in my life, and I've been privileged to hear a lot of great music live. For me the Magnapan speakers represent the investment from which I've drawn the great sense of realism, and that brought me back to really listening to recorded music.

I made the move to tubes probably 15 years ago but the change that really moved audio to another level for me was the adoption of SET and finally, Altecs.

I was on the "high-end" roller coaster of expensive gear, caught up in lusting after what's best this month and what does Stereophile/Absolute Sound say I should buy next. I hated CD but thought it must just be that I don't have good enough stuff - everybody says it's so great. It got so bad, I wasn't enjoying music anymore - my system mostly stayed off and I only really enjoyed live music. Maybe it was something like high-end burn out.

Then I had to visit a local tube repair guy to fix my big dollar (for me) tube amp. This guy was real strange and a COMPLETE departure from the usual mega-buck, Jag driving, high rent audio dealer. Sure he could fix my amp, for lots of high-end audio dollars because it's an expensive piece with lots of tubes - "you know what you're in for son - you pay to play in this league". Then I noticed the amazing sound of Billie Holiday singing in his repair shop. Of coarse it was an audio system but I'd never heard one pull off the illusion of real like that - no matter what the price.

To my complete shock, it was a reasonably priced SET based system that totally ignored the magazine approved lists. Vinyl front end with low dollar Denon MC, a tube head amp, an Audio Note 300B SET amp and Lowther PM2A's in Medallion cabinets. All hooked up with next to free magnet wire. All just sitting on his workbench in what you would call a real bad listening room. I sat on a barstool in front of that thing mesmerized for hours. To say it changed my view on audio is an understatement.

I started down the SET road and loved listening to music again. Used sort of conventional monitor speakers that didn't have the magic of the Lowthers but I just couldn't get comfortable with the wimpy bass all small single driver speakers have - at least all the ones I've heard. Then I found a great deal on a pair of Altec 604-8G's. This was the missing piece. Now I had some of the magic of the Lowthers with real, dynamic bass. No more searching for speakers. I'm done. I now listen to mostly vinyl but SACD actually gets me there sometimes too. Don't bother with CD at home.

I listen to music all the time now and love it. Still try to get out to see live music when I can but the stereo doesn't sound like a limp impersonation any more. SET & Altecs let me enjoy music at home again.

Billf

The demise of my old system changed me. My Fisher reflects the attitude of my audio pursuit now. I just heard some Stax Omega II cans and it redifined what I'm looking for in audio sound. Forums like this and others certainly helped to change my perspective too. I was happy being a clueless hifi wannabee until I logged into some forums. The expertise of others has helped me grow as a listener.
md