So, what exactly made you the audiophile that you are?

I studied music but it was impossible to go frequently to concerts or to practice much myself caused by having lovely kids and a busy IT job (which I like more than a career in music).

The Naim stuff makes that I still can have my daily shot ....

Listening to David Bowie’s Space Oddity through a mates parents Stereo headphones and thinking “I want more of this” . There was no going back!

That's a great question! I remember there was a "road to Damascus" moment for me. It was in 1989, I owned one of those "music centres" which combined record player, tape and radio and I popped into a recently-opened shop to buy a record cleaning brush and walked out with a Rega Planar 1, Yamaha tape deck, Creek Amp and a pair of Mordaunt-Short MS10's.

Whilst I was queuing up to pay for the brush a track I really liked by INXS was played and it sounded awesome. I stopped in my tracks, asked what it was being played on (which was an LP12 as it so happens), and was gently guided to a more modestly priced deck as befitted my budget (which was non-existent but I had a credit card). 

Thus began my long and seemingly never-ending journey to achieve audiophile nirvana.

Listening to my Dads Quad 22’s in to ESL 57’s from the age of three!

As I posted back on the 4^th December 2004 on the sad news on the passing of Bob Griffin (Griffin Audio in Birmingham and also ex Spooky Tooth) who indirectly got me onto my audiophile trail:

“It was back in the 1980's that Bob's shop, Griffin Audio, got me into real Hi-Fi.

I had always been into music and Hi-Fi but back in 1987 I bought a Technics CD player to hear the release of Sgt. Pepper on CD (it was 20 years ago today) as I remembered listening to it when it was 1st released back in 1967 with a mate of mine behind the cricket shed at school (or at least gazing at and reading the cover!... I also had the original MONO mix!).

Anyway after buying the CD player I was mega impressed with it but after a while I blew the tweeter on my MA852 (?) speakers so I thought that I would go to Richer Sounds ("Pile 'em high 'n sell 'em cheap!") to buy some new ones. So down into Brum I went and parked my car on Bristol Street to walk in to Richer Sounds. On the way I passed a shop with just a record player (LP12 not that I knew at the time!) in the window, so I thought weird and went in. There was Bob and after a dem I ended up with an LP12, NAC72, HiCAP and a NAP 140 ...never looked back...ditched CDs for good and never got to Richer Sounds (although I have recently met Julian Richer on the train from York to London).

Since then some great music and....

Thanks Bob!!!!”

Richard

1. Probably Tom Evan’s fault. I had a simple entry level system(Micro seiki dd24/Sansui AU217/mission 700s) for 10 years until I met him. He was working as a warehouseman with a friend of mine at the time and had a Leak stereo 20 and a Manticore. It wasn’t long before I had a Manticore too. Tom meanwhile was messing around making a pre for the Leak which ultimately led to the Finestra, iso and various Grooves etc. I started a mortguage and by the time I had spare cash to upgrade we’d lost touch for 6 years or so and his amps were too expensive anyway so I ended up with Rega, after a false start with a Nait 5, but went for a CD5x when I auditioned CD players later which led back to Naim.

My father had a penchant for gadgets. I must have picked up a curiosity for hardware from him. Coupled with my mild tendency for obsessive compulsiveness, got in knee deep.

Music has been part of my life of course but dissecting and analysing *sound* and finding what ticks, that came later (being exposed to as many gear as possible helped a lot, however, regrettably cost of education was high! )

Listening to Dark Side Of The Moon on vinyl through a friend's headphones plugged into a music centre. I think I was about 10 years old. I know that sounds crap, but I had never heard anything like it before. 

Xmas at my Uncle Dave,s....he had a Goldring Lenco deck with Goodmans amp and wharfedale speakers. Got Floyd for Xmas and the headphones.....the amp had a socket. It was magical for me when family was chatting I just listened, ...most of the time we listened to a James Last Ochestra, which I did not appreciate at the time.

Friends who had decent hifi in the late 60s (no Linn then... only Thorens, Quad, etc.), then Studio 99 in Swiss Cottage.

Drugs mostly - I wanted music to always sound as good as it did when I was stoned! Still doesn't but it's getting there...

I remember forever staring into the window of Studio 99 (just left Uni and lived nearby) too frightened to go in cos I couldn't afford most of the kit in there. Occasionally I would nip in and have a look at the gear and try to cop a listen to someone else's demo, trying to avoid the question, 'can I help you Sir'.

I eventually bought a Rega Planar 2 and a NAD 3020 amp and a pair of bookshelf speakers from there. Happy days! Those were the days when Jimmy Hughes recommended the cheapest Bell wire you could find for speaker cables, who I followed with absolute faith. I think eventually Studio 99 persuaded me to buy a few metres of QED 79 Strand.

I believe it may be a genetic mutation-  heterozygous or homozygous- the latter have the 500 series or Statement products ????

David

In terms of being someone keen to have the best sounding system I can afford, nothing I can put my finger on: I grew up with music in the form of classical 78s on a wind-up gramophone, then when I was  14 my brother got a Dansette style record player and I heard the likes of Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets as a new style, and Tchaikovsky's 1812 presenting classical better and longer than 78s, and I started to listen to some radio.

Meanwhile I had been interested in electronics for several years, building simple circuits, and reading lots of books, then I found some books on speaker design (I think alongside electronics in the library), and at some point took an old speaker driver our old TV that died, and put it in a better box, attached that to the radio and it sounded a lot better. And hifi books were next, and it all gelled in 2015 when I determined to get a hifi system, funded on a shoestring from combined birthday and Xmas present money plus paper rounds: £60 got me a Garard SP25 Mk 2, Shure M3D, in in DIY plinth, amp made using SInclair's  Project 60 kit modules, and DIY speakers with single 8" drivers. It sounded wonderful - to me and to everyone I knew, none of whom had never heard the likes.

And even then I realised the seed was planted, with my head picturing improved sound, just needing me to....

August 1983 - "The Beatles at Abbey Road"

The studios opened their doors to the public for the first time. I've never come close to that spine tingling moment. Perhaps the room acoustics (Studio 2) had something to do with it - perhaps the ghosts in the shadows. 

nigelb posted:

I remember forever staring into the window of Studio 99 (just left Uni and lived nearby) too frightened to go in cos I couldn't afford most of the kit in there. Occasionally I would nip in and have a look at the gear and try to cop a listen to someone else's demo, trying to avoid the question, 'can I help you Sir'.

I eventually bought a Rega Planar 2 and a NAD 3020 amp and a pair of bookshelf speakers from there. Happy days! Those were the days when Jimmy Hughes recommended the cheapest Bell wire you could find for speaker cables, who I followed with absolute faith. I think eventually Studio 99 persuaded me to buy a few metres of QED 79 Strand.

I know you want to go back to those halcyon days......I could swap you QED for those pesky Superlumina cables????

I grew up playing for hours with my toy soldiers under my mother's Bechstein baby grand while she was going through her Schumann and Chopin so I was exposed from a very early age to the flowing and very dynamic sound of the instrument.

Later, I served three years in the infantry which caused me a loss of hearing but also gave me the clarity to easily differentiate between the essential and negligible thus I never had any urge to split audiophile hairs.

Studying photography taught me observation, patience and the understanding that art and technic compliment each other in an inseparable way, not unlike music and Hi Fi gear.

It started with BSR

Around 1972 a pal had a system which was so much better than my Ferguson mono record player. I only remember his BSR turntable which I subsequently bought from him and started the journey.  In 1976 I got a job with Norman H Field hifi in Birmingham and was blown away by the fab selection of gear that I could listen to and sell, Linn, Tannoy, Sugden, Quad etc and many of the Japanese brands. My systems have comprised numerous components from Rotel, Yamaha, Sugden, Quad, Goodmans, B & W, Audiomaster, Philips, B & O, Dual, Marantz, Denon, Akai and probably a few I can't remember.  By 1995 and working in an entirely different industry and much improved income, my system was Quad and Linn courtesy of Griffin Audio in Birmingham,  Bob Griffin was a great guy and looked after me really well. The Naim journey started in 2014 and after all these years it may be the last system , but then again maybe not! 

Bob F

Not only it was not 'love for music' (yet when my dad brought home the first stereo set – a kind of piece of luggage with the lid opening into two loudspeakers, 1966, I was already playing guitar and writing songs since at least three years), but I think it was a way to escape from music.

When you're in music you're taken by it – it's like music is an asynchronous DAC and you're a miserable Mac. It's like a fire burning from inside, and you know you won't be able to do anything else in life. So I think I plunged my feet into hi-fi because it gave me the illusion to have some form of control. But when you're in music there's no suspending cables from the floor or swapping a 300 for a 500: you have no control. Audiophilia, not casually, has the sound of a disease. I believe it is.

I love music, listening and playing for myself. I wouldn't call myself an audiophile but I do enjoy  designing and modifying equipment for music creation and reproduction. 

The moment I realised I could do much better was when a friend who worked at Radfords in Bristol said "come and listen to this!" The sound from the system he played for me was in another league to anything I had heard at that time in 1992/3. Linn LP12 > Naim amplification > Linn Kan. I have been searching for a moment like that from an audio system ever since.

nigelb posted:

I remember forever staring into the window of Studio 99 (just left Uni and lived nearby) too frightened to go in cos I couldn't afford most of the kit in there. Occasionally I would nip in and have a look at the gear and try to cop a listen to someone else's demo, trying to avoid the question, 'can I help you Sir'.

I eventually bought a Rega Planar 2 and a NAD 3020 amp and a pair of bookshelf speakers from there. Happy days! Those were the days when Jimmy Hughes recommended the cheapest Bell wire you could find for speaker cables, who I followed with absolute faith. I think eventually Studio 99 persuaded me to buy a few metres of QED 79 Strand.

I was once a Studio 99 customer back in the days when I lived in Kentish Town and Cottage was reasonably near by. Coincidentally, I also bought a Rega Planar 2 there too … plus Nac72, Troika cartridge... time flies, etc etc

enjoy/ken

Always had the passion for music and the interest in getting a system for great replay together from best parts I had available starting from age of 8-9 using my parents old stuff. Cannot explain why that is so

Rush their first album March 1974 I think I'd discovered them from the OGWT or late night Radio One I had my parents old all in one Philips record radio gramme. I spent the summer of '74 at my grand parents grandad was a classical music fan he had a Garrard and I think a Quad 22 and valve amps Mk11 and a pair of ELS the brass looking electric radiator ones. Grandma was very open minded well Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin when Grandad was out. I also got to put my records (I had about 10!) on as long as it as NOT TOO LOUD........wow. Later in life after grandad had passed I took grandma to see Dolly Parton!

Back in 1979 I had a Phillips stereo and was going to buy an Akai stack when a friend of my Dad invited me to hear his Thorens 160, Quad pre-power and Spendors - my outlook changed completely. 

Also in 1981 ish I was working with a chap who is now by coincidence on this forum and he had an influence as well  

Regards,

Lindsay

I was a field engineer for British Telecom back in the 70's and my first ever experience of a high-end system happened when a customer played me his Quad 22, Mk II, ESL 57s system that I'd asked him about.  It seems these early Quads have a lot to answer for.....