what's your best audio system experience?

It's 1992. I have a crusty JVC receiver that needs to be smacked to get both channels working and Bose 901 circa 1973 on the floor and everything fed  by a Sony Discman. I'm 13 at the time and don't know any better and think it rocks.

I wander into a local dealer looking as skint as I really am but they don't ignore me. They show me the dem room and hook up an second hand, recapped A&R Cambridge A60 and suggest that at GBP60 it may be in my price range. I buy it.

The world is never the same again.

They even gave me a job the following year and I worked part, then full time in the trade on and off until 2000.

rjstaines posted:

Many, many sleeps ago, there was a dealer called Uxbridge Audio  (in Uxbridge) (in Middlesex).

They were a linn dealer, amongst other brands, and they played me an Arkiv cartridge with Dark Side of the Moon  through, probably, Kabers.  I bough the Arkiv - £1,000 at the time... I'd only recently paid £12,000 for the 3bed semi I lived in.

It's no wonder I shall have nothing to leave the kids, except a nice audio system    (the house is still mortgaged)

I remember that dealer! Close to the Uxbridge Station. That was my first experience of a proper hifi... Loved it. And then I saw the prices 

My own set up!

My best audio experience was when I was undertaking an undergraduate internship with the BBC in 1986 in London. One week I was assigned to a couple of sound engineers who were commissioning some new recording studios. I remember sitting at the master desk being blown away by the intensity and power of some test recordings being played in the studio.. Then I was utterly suprised to see some of the recordings were being played on cassette using the studio player, I think it was a Nakamichi... in turned out one of the engineers was a tape guru.. he gave me the challenge.. bring him the cheapest new C60 cassette I had and he would get it to sound as impressive as this... surely not possible I thought, but a gave him a cheap Philips ( I think) C60 and a couple of days later, we were back in that studio.. and I was presented with the sound of The Communards 'Don't leave me this way' ( or at least I'm fairly sure it was)  .. It sounded breathtaking and so intense and clear in that studio.. and yes it was playing from that cheap C60 which he had specifically optmized the Nakamichi to record to and play from..... This made a big impression on me and also taught me a little bit on how we perceive the quality of audio.. they were good times...

Simon

my own set up since I got the 250 DR

feeling_zen posted:

It's 1992. I have a crusty JVC receiver that needs to be smacked to get both channels working and Bose 901 circa 1973 on the floor and everything fed  by a Sony Discman. I'm 13 at the time and don't know any better and think it rocks.

I wander into a local dealer looking as skint as I really am but they don't ignore me. They show me the dem room and hook up an second hand, recapped A&R Cambridge A60 and suggest that at GBP60 it may be in my price range. I buy it.

The world is never the same again.

They even gave me a job the following year and I worked part, then full time in the trade on and off until 2000.

 

Sounds like a brilliant dealer to me

6 years ago I wandered into the local Naim dealer with John Eliot Gardiners "Dixit Dominus" with the Monteverdi Choir. The system they were demostrating was the cd 555 with the 552 preamp and 500 power amp. The speakers were the new Ovator 400s. The system beautifully captured the acoustics of the venue, and the great precision of the choir and the incisive playing of the baroque players . I felt that I was there in the concert hall. Utterly stunning. A transformative experience.

Plenty of audio experiences stick in the memory.  There was the first time I heard a Linn Sondek (the system was Sondek, Quantum pre+power and Heybrook HB2s) playing Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm on the day of release, or off my head with the Sisters of Mercy spinning on my housemates Rega turntable, or perhaps just chilling out with friends at school on a wet saturday night mulling over the meaning of every track on David Bowie's Hunky Dory being spun by my Technics deck and my roommates Vector Research receiver and Pioneer speakers. Or playing back for the first time a bunch of pre-recorded reels I inherited, and realising just how incredible they could sound - David Crosby's If Only I Could Remember My Name at 7 1/2 ips played over and over for three days..  

As for pure audio 'wow', there was the Mark Levinson ESL system I heard one afternoon in Boston, or my first taste of proper JBLs - a pair of 4343s fresh from a refurb after removal from the old Deutsch Schallplatten studio in Berlin. The most recent was the first time I heard the prototype Statement amp a few years back.  

For all that, it's so hard to pick a "best"; maybe it was yesterday, or perhaps it will be tomorrow.  Hopefully the best is still to come...

London Olympia hi-fi show early 70s a little know company called Naim had a set up with Gale speakers playing Elton John lp, looked very plain almost meccano in build but sounded different to anything else, had to have this , the rest is history . still got the Naim brochure from the show to this day .  

My first experience of real HiFi, 1985 Sound Organisation in York.

LP12/Ittok/Karma, Naim 32.5/hicap/250, Linn Sara speakers. Totally blown away and have never been able to replicate that sound. That was the start of this slippery slope.

Iron Cobra posted:

My first experience of real HiFi, 1985 Sound Organisation in York.

LP12/Ittok/Karma, Naim 32.5/hicap/250, Linn Sara speakers. Totally blown away and have never been able to replicate that sound. That was the start of this slippery slope.

 

i can't imagine that after 31 years you still knew how the sound was back than! Most modern gear are simply better than the oldies!

For me the first really mind blowing HIFI system consisted of Linn LP12/Grace arm/Supex cartridge/Nac 32.5 preamp/crossover/ 2x NAP250/active Linn Sara speakers.

Harry posted:

HDX/555PS/552/500/SL2.

"Oh. So that's what music really sounds like. Well I never..."

Unforgettable.

We'll be listening to a Statement soon. That might reset it.

I can honestly say I prefer PB's system to NDS/Statement/Focals.

The Strat (Fender) posted:

I can honestly say I prefer PB's system to NDS/Statement/Focals.

What system is that? Was there Sellotape all over the platter?

My guess is that my experiences cannot rival most of yours as I have not been to any HiFi shows. I have auditioned some $250K USD Wilson-Audio systems, but I actually wouldn't put it into my "wow" category. What does come to mind? An nDAC+SN2 combo driving a pair of Avalon Idea speakers (edging out the PMC Fact.8 on the same day). Also the same combo driving a pair of Dali Epicon8 speakers. 

Cabasse La Sphère custom quad amplified system (based on driver time alignment and room equalisation DSP) - at an audio show in a large room setup, a few years ago. Most striking was the illusion of the 'solidity' of the soundscape - the addition of 'solid' matter and color into the 'hologram' and the total absence of any 'etch or hardness' to the sound. There is a Stereophile review available on the net (Michael Fremer, 2008) .

Lets see:

30 years ago, london hifi dealer near wigmore hall: linn naim system (3x250, isobariks) playing jazz. Blew me sideways

25 years ago: system at Martin Colloms' house: huge Krells, Apogee Scintilla speakers. Such clarity, such dynamics, such "touch it and feel" sound

25 years ago: system at Julian Vereker's house: 6x135, DBL active. Made the hairs stand up. System I have today. Still stunning

Recently: Statement into Magico S5's at Martin's house in Hampstead: never, ever heard anything like it. The clarity of midrange of the Quad ESL without the plastic quack. The drive and depth of the DBL, but with another octave and a half. Dynamics of DBL. Imaging of the best custom silver-wired SL600s. Nothing has ever come close

Not sure if this counts, but my best audio system experience comes from the club Berghain in Berlin: a Funktion One 6.1 custom setup that is just earth shattering and lets me get lost completely in the physical experience of music.

Nothing I have ever heard can compare to this experience.

1981 Lord of the Rings BBC radio, my dads system, Leak tuner? taped on to revox open reel, played through his ancient quad amps and DM70's.  made my skin crawl - in a a good way!

For music, I would say the Nautilus set up i heard at Grahams a couple of years back, Linn server?, 4 x 500's, 552 - The Eagles live!  that was a front row ticket.  I left with my new to me NAP 300 quite humbled ha!! dealers eh!

Kudos Titan 808 demo event at Cymbiosis with Linn LP12 - and recently at weekend with NDX 555PS 282 250DR - demo

Nagual posted:

1981 Lord of the Rings BBC radio, my dads system, Leak tuner? taped on to revox open reel, played through his ancient quad amps and DM70's.  made my skin crawl - in a a good way!

 

That was a cracking radio series.. I remember as a family we (my brothers and my parents) all listened together to the radio ... a somewhat unusual event even in 1981. We recorded onto cassette but it sounded woeful by modern standards.. Our cassette player wasn't upto much..

Simon

Great thread.  

For me a few experiences stand out.

1969: Infinity Servo-Static hybrid speaker system. 

1973: Audio Research SP-3, D-75, Magnepan 1U, Denon turntable

1974: Marantz 10B

Late 70's: Audio Reasearch SP?, D250(?), Magnepan Tympani IV

Late 80's: My own Audio Research SP-10, VT100, Quad ESL 63, Sota Star and Lp-12, Theta digital.

Long drought period

2014: Naim Statement , Focal Grand Utopia(?)- WOW!!!

p. posted:

Not sure if this counts, but my best audio system experience comes from the club Berghain in Berlin: a Funktion One 6.1 custom setup that is just earth shattering and lets me get lost completely in the physical experience of music.

Nothing I have ever heard can compare to this experience.

A well set up Funktion One system is fabulous. Never thought that kind of clarity was achievable on such a large scale.  Would be interesting to hear how the B&W 'Sound System' compares. 

rjstaines posted:

Allante93 posted:

James L posted:

Last night...at home!

Nice System!

Do you think XP5 XS on your CD5 XS & XPS on your Ndac would be wasted cash?

Wasted cash?  YES... the CD5XS doesn't connect to an XP5XS !  (It needs a flat-, hi-, super- cap power supply.)

XPS on nDAC on the other hand.... amazing 

 

Sorry Allante, just being pickey !

I always thought it was overkill! Thanks for the info! 

For me it's none of the dealer demos or show demos because you're never fully comfortable/up to speed on the specific acoustics for each individual location.

So for me it was having the opportunity to trial the Statement preamp for 3 weeks, at home.  The detail, clarity, soundstage and emotion just blew me away.  Which is why 5 months' later I ended up with one of my own!