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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2017 7:52:56 GMT
Many people I've come across have picked up a hifi habit from their father. Others have found it an extension of a love of music. It made me curious to ask everyone here how they got into hifi. I'm not sure how mine came about exactly. My dad loved traditional Scottish music and my earliest memories are of me asking for records to be put on the radiogram to dance to My dad worked in fleet air arm during the war, servicing planes on an aircraft carrier. He got into cars when he was demobbed but he also loved electronics and dabbled with fixing TVs in his spare time. I shared a bedroom with a brother who was 9 years older and into Prog. From an early age I recall loving the bass from speakers even though the music was crap. After months of pleading, I was bought an electric guitar and amp for my 6th? Christmas but I couldn't manage chords with little fingers and I am also tone deaf and devoid of talent, so that didn't last. I was buying music though. David Bowie albums got me started before collecting Elvis Presley. I remember my brother moving out and getting married just after my dad died (I was 9 or 10) and we moved house. I bougt a Pye Black Box for my new and larger bedroom which was fab, although I upgraded to sparates when I was 13 and into Elvis Costello amongst others. I sold my Elvis collection and raided my savings to follow a punk band round the country aged 13 or 14. I got bored with that after about a month and came home. It dampened my enthusiasm for music and hifi. When I left school I had another 2-3 years of not really following music. After working in a trendy clothes store, I got a job with Richer Sounds and spent all my wages on hifi. I moved to York and discovered The Sound Org, which let me explore the sort of sounds I really like. From that point I've been hooked. I then worked in a hifi shop for a bit before deciding to get a proper education. Even as a skint student, I kept dabbling with hifi, although I did have a further 6 year "holiday" when I became hooked on video games. I got back into it when I picked up an Arcam Alpha amp at a boot sale for £6 and wired the TV through it. My journey into hifi seems largely my own doing although I did have some early exposure to recorded music. What about others? What were your influences? Anyone come from a family who didn't have any music/hifi interests?
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Post by zippy on Jan 9, 2017 9:08:54 GMT
My childhood was a cultural desert. We had a TV (mostly my Dad's domain) and one radio but I can't remember any time when it was used for music. I wanted to learn to play the piano but that was vetoed. It was not until my teens that I heard 'stereo' at my friends houses and was hooked at that point both by the music and the technicalities. Since I couldn't afford to buy equipment to start with I built a stereo system out of parts from an old jumble sale radiogram. It's been a constant urge to improve ever since.
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Post by John on Jan 9, 2017 17:08:01 GMT
Since my teens I been into music. At school a few of us were really into music but most were not. In my 20s and 30s this continued I was mostly going to the Marquee a few nights a week and then the West end picking up the latest import at Shades. They were a few people like me, and my friends tended to relie on me to introduce them to music. Hifi was something I thought was for the rich I never really heard a decent system so my rationale was it be a waste of money. Most of my friends were the same and probably still are. My component Trio system broke down and decided to try a proper HIFI set up. The next 5 years was really frustrating I could never really get happy with the sound, but I could also hear the improvements. Therefore for me getting into this hobby was ue to how frustrated I was. I started reading loads and listening to different systems and gradually I started to become happier with the sound. I believe on the intial HIFI purchase if I got it right I never would of got into this hobby.
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Post by Slinger on Jan 9, 2017 17:19:22 GMT
I'm a fraud as far as hi-fi forums are concerned. Never had the bug, never will. All I've ever wanted was a system that would play my music and was as good as I could afford. Bought it. See no reason to change it. It makes me happy. If something gets worn out I'll replace it with the best I can afford at that time. Best does not mean most expensive or esoteric. Music matters, end of!
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Post by MartinT on Jan 9, 2017 17:56:57 GMT
I was raised in a non-musical family except that the radio was mostly running the 'Light' programme, which became Radio 2, so I heard a lot of the 1960s hits. My Dad didn't like music at all but he bought a Dansette music centre and Readers Digest boxed classical sets - goodness knows why! I was the only one to play those records so Beethoven became my first love. I modified his metal detector headphones for stereo and listened for hours on end. The Dansette eventually failed and I replaced the internal power amp with my own push-pull class B design, I must have been around 14 at the time. I was also playing with crystal sets, listening to Radios Luxembourg and Caroline in very lo-fi mono. Capital Radio and stereo came quite a bit later.
To me, the love of electronics and music has always co-existed quite naturally.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2017 18:46:59 GMT
I got the illness when i was 13/14 thru a school mate, His dad was into Hi-Fi.
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Post by southall1998 on Jan 9, 2017 21:09:35 GMT
Well, I'm certainly NOT an audiophile, or some DAFT overly dedicated Hi-Fi enthusiast.
I must admit though. At times, I do enjoy listening to music through a decent headphone system.
My father's interest in Hi-Fi started way back in the early 1980's and continued to around 2010.
When I was a youngster. Sometimes I used to see my father arrive home along with a new Hi-Fi purchase. Sometimes, It was a pair of speakers. Other times, a CD Player, Tuner, Turntable etc!
Growing up. I often went out with my father to various Hi-Fi shops. Witnessing the old man buying kit, he rarely left the store empty-handed! Least purchases would be speaker cables/Interconnects.
One of his favourite store was ''Musical Images'' based in Hounslow, West London. I've been to that store branch many times as a child, growing up in the late 1990's. Was a nice store, they always sold the well known brands that you saw in the mags etc. The store's prices ranged from budget to damned expensive!! I still have a memory dating back to 1998. Of my father purchasing a pair of Mission 753 Freedom speakers there. I'm pretty sure that store also did part-exchange with your old Hi-Fi. To help buy new equipment etc.
Before I was born. My father often went to Uxbridge Audio. I've been there a few times in the early 2000's. Can recall remember seeing shedloads of Rega & Linn systems in their dem rooms.
So yeah, I've inherited this wacky disease from my father.
S.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2017 4:33:12 GMT
Well, I'm certainly NOT an audiophile, or some DAFT overly dedicated Hi-Fi enthusiast. Neither im i, Its an obsession regarding the vintage Aesthetics with me more than anything..
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richb
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Post by richb on Jan 10, 2017 8:00:22 GMT
Was always a bit obsessed with the parents old Sony music centre as a kid and by the age of 10 the portable radio ghetto blaster had found its way into my bedroom with Dad's 70s Sony headphones and I began recoding songs from the radio and making tapes of my own pretend radio shows.
Around the age of 11 a Matsui music centre with twin tape deck turned up for Christmas. This was played to death until I left school and began working.
As soon as I had an income I bought an Akai mini system and a mate who was much older than me invited me round to hear his kit. A rotel amp and enormous pair of Mordaunt Short floorstanders with his laserdisc player. My little Akai paled into insignificance next to this.
Around this time the same guy also introduced me to the joys of cannabis. Both my new hobbies were made for each other and a visit to the old Bill Hutchison hifi shop in Newcastle saw me come home with a pioneer amp, stable platter CD player, mission speakers and stands and a Sony tape deck. This system would suffice up to my mid 30s as I became distracted with building PCs and using rubbish surround systems for gaming and music. I eventually lost interest in ganja but the music and hifi habit stayed. The rest is history.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2017 8:22:04 GMT
Well, I'm certainly NOT an audiophile, or some DAFT overly dedicated Hi-Fi enthusiast. Neither im i, Its an obsession regarding the vintage Aesthetics with me more than anything.. Aesthetics play a big part with me too. Probably increasing as I get older. I HAVE to have a certain weight and speed to the sound though. Some (most?) of the stuff produced today just doesn't have the build quality to make me look twice. No way I'd give it house room tbh.
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Post by MartinT on Jan 10, 2017 8:51:44 GMT
Build quality is important to me aesthetically and also because it makes for greater reliability. I have had only one failure in about the last 15 years.
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Post by dsjr on Jan 10, 2017 9:07:27 GMT
I've been into this ever since I could toddle. Our (Collaro Conquest) auto-Deccalian 88 record player was in constant daily use and I got to know my Dads record collection by the pictures on the album sleeves. The Conquest has an interesting way of gauging record sizes in a stack (the arm raises up and moves to touch the record's edge) and this intrigued me...
here's one from the era of ours (the steady arm was re-styled)
In the mid 60's, I discovered a radio/TV shop in Hemel Hempstead (Tee Vee Sound as I remember) and couldn't understand why a Garrard 401 in the window didn't have a tonearm with it - there was a Decca arm in a box separate from it. After that, the rest is history.
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richb
Rank: Trio
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Post by richb on Jan 10, 2017 9:39:32 GMT
Also like so many others in the 90s I got into DJing and had a pair of decks. Had my fair share of bass gear, PA gear and mixers over the years too.
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Post by MartinT on Jan 10, 2017 10:46:55 GMT
The Conquest has an interesting way of gauging record sizes in a stack (the arm raises up and moves to touch the record's edge) Love that mechanism!
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Post by pinkie on Jan 10, 2017 11:15:22 GMT
I've been into this ever since I could toddle. Our (Collaro Conquest) auto-Deccalian 88 record player was in constant daily use and I got to know my Dads record collection by the pictures on the album sleeves. The Conquest has an interesting way of gauging record sizes in a stack (the arm raises up and moves to touch the record's edge) and this intrigued me... here's one from the era of ours (the steady arm was re-styled) In the mid 60's, I discovered a radio/TV shop in Hemel Hempstead (Tee Vee Sound as I remember) and couldn't understand why a Garrard 401 in the window didn't have a tonearm with it - there was a Decca arm in a box separate from it. After that, the rest is history. My Dad's Bush radiogram had a similar mechanism. I think it could hold 6 or 8 records. First record I bought was called "Yo Te Dare" when in Majorca aged 6 (pronounced Yoh Tay Dar-ray - spanish for I will give to you). It was a juke box single with the big hole in the middle, so it couldn't go on the stacker but had to be played on its own with a bakelite adaptor. The radiogram had a beautiful shiny walnut (real solid walnut) cabinet and those glowing things people on these forums go daft about inside Proper record player!
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Post by malcolm on Jan 10, 2017 14:13:51 GMT
As a student in London I was a frequent visitor to the South Bank concert halls. One afternoon I happened to be in the Science museum and heard the original Quad 57 hanging from the ceiling by chains and playing piano music. I couldn't believe that it was possible to reproduce music in such a lifelike manner. On another occasion I was in EMG returning for the umpteenth time a faulty pressing of Britten's War Requiem. To save a bit of time they eventually let me check out a pressing upstairs in a large room with a large pair of Radford speakers. I particularly remember the clarity and scale.
Since then I have had a pair of Quad 57s along with a couple of pairs of 63s and Martin Logans and probably take decent sound reproduction for granted these days.
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Post by ant on Jan 10, 2017 14:28:24 GMT
I have a collaro conquest here awaiting restoration! Lovely thing it is too. I got the bug from me dad too, first ever system I had of any type was a technics slp s50 cd player, and 3020i and some jpw minimonitors Loved it to bits and it spiralled from there. I then bought a nad c340 with my first wages and got all the cast offs such as the linn index's he swapped for kef q55s, then the q55s. Then upgraded to a full musical fidelity x system, dug his old lp12 that he hated out from under the bed and moved out shortly after. Then went round all the houses and ended up where I am now. S'all good fun. Good job the missus is understanding, she bought me a yamaha pf800 turntable for my birthday once........
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Post by dsjr on Jan 10, 2017 14:33:25 GMT
The Conquest had many forms and colour schemes and a choice of three tonearms I believe. One had a detachable shell, but this I think had the offset angle better optimised for 10" 78's rather than LP's. There was also a semi-counterbalanced fixed head tonearm with proper half inch cartridge fixings. The 'Studio' model which replaced the Conquest had this tonearm, the motor was decoupled rather than solidly bolted to the deck plate and the controls became a dual-concentric rotary control on the front left. Magnavox in the US had bought the company I understand and as Collaro all but disappeared from the UK market, these decks were very popular in the US and the later models looked more modern a la Garrard/BSR MacDonald but lost the infinite record size ability (the tonearm lowering was slower and far more gentle as a result.. S'cuse the anal Aspergics here, I can't help it These mechs were quite simple, relying on a clutch assembly on the horizontal tonearm bearings. The very last early 70's Collaro models were well up to top Dual standards and looked really good, but decks like this were going out of fashion and I wish they'd done a single playing model in the style of the infamous Garrard SP25 or later Dual 505.
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Post by dsjr on Jan 10, 2017 14:41:15 GMT
My first proper 'HiFi' turntable was a Garrard AP76/G800 played into my Hacker GP42 record player. Bloody thing was an early 'Friday Afternoon' job and nothing like as good as the sample I keep now. When I became a Saturday Boy at KJ Watford, I bought a GL75/M75-EJ from a friend of mine (an 18th birthday present) and used it with a sweet toned Lustraphone LP100 amp and KJ-Audiomaster Image 2's, which were little like the awful review they got in the first HiFi Choice, the review team burning out the crossover in the high-power tests carried out before the listening tests - I saw the melted damage when they were returned to Watford HQ...
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Post by Slinger on Jan 10, 2017 15:43:53 GMT
My first turntable was a wind-up gramophone and a stack of 78 RPM shellac discs, including Stanley Holloway ( With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm), and Beniamino Gigli ( La Donna è Mobile) when I was probably about 7 or 8 years old If you can beat that then tell us all about the wonders of the wax cylinders you played as a boy.
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