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

I've always had an interest in technology in the home.

For me it all started when I heard the Beach Boys playing Barbara Ann through a Sony TC377 reel to reel tape recorder via a high end Sony system in Farmer's, a dealer in Luton, in 1973.  I was blown away by the effortless way in which the music moved me in a way that I had never experienced before.  I knew there and then that the system allowed the music to flow effortlessly and I loved it.  I've never looked back since.

It has taken me many years and many bad choices before finally settling on my current Naim system, a system that I love and will, hopefully, see me out of my mortal coil!

However, despite Haim's original comment, ultimately it does have to be about the music.  I've always loved music.  I married a musician and I sing in a choir, for without all of that, hi fi is pointless

Yes, for me, better and better HiFi is the means to get closer and closer to the music and that elusive emotional connection you get when you hear something special.

When I heard Dark Side Of The Moon on headphones from a Goodmans music centre, it was the first time I had experienced proper stereo and the first time I had heard 'proper' music. I listened to the whole album cross-legged on the floor while the rest of my family and my friend's family got on with their evening of socialising around me. I then listened to Yes, Close To The Edge. Incredible stuff for someone so young, exposed to real music for the first time.

I could't stop thinking about that experience, it literally blew me away. I have to say though much of my wonder was as a result of hearing such an amazing albums for the first time. Goodness, it sounded great.

I am of an age when Larg's of Holborn was the place to go for spending serious money on nearly all UK manufactured hi-fi.

A neighbour close by had a system from them. Larg's used to supply a cabinet, bespoke,  with a top opening lid and contained within this he had a Garrard 301, strobe-most classy, and a Decca FFSS cartridge and matching arm. The amp was by Leak with a matching FM tuner. He had graduated from a Tannoy corner speaker in mono and added a second one in the other corner. They were not identical as he was told this was OK to have a second smaller one  Tannoy York and Canterbury from memory.

He put on a 45 RPM of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, the hope and glory one. Well that was it. A knockout as far as I was concerned. Just watching the disc spin was enough for me.

Larg's had a superior attitude to their customers and folded albeit a good few  years later. I also had dealings with Studio 99 in Swiss Cottage owned by John Teller but really run by David Davies. This was my first LP12 along with Naim 32/250. The default option back in the 1980s.

I still feel its music first and equipment second, or so I like to think!

1978/9 hearing David P of this very forum’s Planar 2, Nad 3020 & KEF Coda play ‘Communique’. After going up and down the ladder a few times in 40 years I have been on the wagon since acquiring the 272/XPSDR/Proac Tab 10 over a year ago...I’m cured!

G

GraemeH posted:

1978/9 hearing David P of this very forum’s Planar 2, Nad 3020 & KEF Coda play ‘Communique’. After going up and down the ladder a few times in 40 years I have been on the wagon since acquiring the 272/XPSDR/Proac Tab 10 over a year ago...I’m cured!

G

Only a temporary recovery Graeme, there is no cure for audiophilia.

nigelb posted:

GraemeH posted:

1978/9 hearing David P of this very forum’s Planar 2, Nad 3020 & KEF Coda play ‘Communique’. After going up and down the ladder a few times in 40 years I have been on the wagon since acquiring the 272/XPSDR/Proac Tab 10 over a year ago...I’m cured!

G

Only a temporary recovery Graeme, there is no cure for audiophilia.

OK OK...I’m in remission.

G

GraemeH posted:

nigelb posted:

GraemeH posted:

1978/9 hearing David P of this very forum’s Planar 2, Nad 3020 & KEF Coda play ‘Communique’. After going up and down the ladder a few times in 40 years I have been on the wagon since acquiring the 272/XPSDR/Proac Tab 10 over a year ago...I’m cured!

G

Only a temporary recovery Graeme, there is no cure for audiophilia.

OK OK...I’m in remission.

G

Apart from a willingness to test drive any future replacement for the 272, I also am in complete remission! My room wouldn’t cope with ProAc K8s, the only other speaker that would remotely interest me (not that I’m likely to have the spare cash to splash), and I’ve already tried the 300DR and prefer the 250. (in my setting, with my speakers). Most importantly, every time I listen to music on my main system my breath gets taken away!

A far cry from my first foray into hi-fi in the early ‘70s. Starting off with Pioneer PL12D, Armstrong 521 amp, Yamaha cassette deck and NS-625 speakers I spent 10 years on a fruitless path seeking ‘better’ sound which resulted in disillusionment and me flogging the lot and buying a Technics stack system! How I wish I’d tried Naim years ago.

Better late than never. I genuinely believe I’m sorted now (unless I win Euro Millions, in which case I might just have to test drive a Statement and move house!).

I owe my Hi-Fi journey to lunch times spent in the Old Kings Arms pub in Newark while on day release at Newark college. The pub was frequented by everybody from the college who was into proper music and I saw bands like Rush, Sabbath and Judas Priest on pub trips.

The pub was next to the now long gone Newark Hi Fi and a group of us used to take our albums in to be played on a proper system and that was it I was hooked.

After a lot of saving (you didn’t get a lot of spare cash as a joinery apprentice back in the day) I was the proud owner of Dual 504, JVC S11G and a pair of Wharfdale speakers

I’ve had an LP12 for a good number of years but it’s only recently that this has been linked with Naim and I must say it’s been a revalation and the journey continues.

What makes an audiophile? I think there are certain personality traits that are part of it, a certain level of obsession with wanting the best possible quality of something. Not everyone thinks like that.

I can think of three hifi experiences in particular that influenced me along the way.

The first was when I was a teenager and my step dad arrived home one day with a pile of boxes containing a new music system. It was an all-Pioneer system. The thing that particularly impressed me about it was that it included the first CD player that we had in our house. This would have been about 1987 I think. Silver disks and lasers just seemed so much better and more modern to me than scraping a needle along a groove. I quickly knew I wanted one of my own.

The second was attending an audio show in the early nineties, maybe at Heathrow or Earls Court, I’m not sure now. What Hifi magazine had a room there where every half hour they did a closed demo. It consisted of three separate systems, each consisting of CD player plus amplifier plus speakers, each at a different price point; cheap, good, best. They played the same track from the same CD in each system to show the differences. The thing I remember was the bass guitar. On the first two systems it was there going “duh, duh, duh”, but on the best system it was apparent that each “duh” was actually two notes being played in quick succession, “te-duh”. The simple fact that you could play a CD on a system and not hear everything that was on it was quite a revelation to me at the time, and although I couldn’t afford it then I knew I wanted something like that top system one day.

The third was at the now defunct Manchester audio show, in 2009 I think it was. I had bought my first Naim system about a year before, a CD5x and a Nait 5i, and was very happy with it and thought it would be all I needed for many years to come. Then I walked into the Spendor room and was completely bowled over by how good it sounded. It was a NAS streaming to a UnitiQute with digital out to a Naim DAC into 282, Hicap, 250, and the then new Spendor A9 speakers. This was shortly before the first NDX was launched. I don’t know why that system in that room on that day sounded so good to me, but it made my system at home sound completely broken, and set me off on the seemingly never ending upgrade road that I’m sill travelling today.

My dad got me my first system for my room on my 16th birthday. Nad amp and CD player with some Kef Q15 speakers.....hooked ever since!

Hate to give credit to my Father but that Simon and Garfunkel probably copied off vinyl playing on a reel to reel playing off a big Sansui and Kef 103s. Wow!  Wonder if that’s why I now have grown up Harbeth 7ES-3s. 

For many years I just was a great music lover. Between 1990 and early 2009 I had a fine Revox system with JBL speakers. And the fun was about listening to music and enjoying it. Then in early 2009 after returning from Hong Kong, we realized the speakers needed to be replaced and then we also got a hint on how electronics had moved on in those years and ended up with the Verity Audio speakers, Naim CDX2, XPS, 282 and 200. And where happy until the NDAC came out and we added it to the system massively raising the bar...... and that was the start of a stepwise journey in which I got more and more knowledgeable and interested. But I still would say today I am a music lover, and I am just interested in the technical aspect as I know small or bigger things can make a significant difference in the quality of the sound. My current system is in my feeling not too far off of what I am prepared to invest in audio anyhow and it’s also very satisfying on a musical level.

Impossible to imagine being anything other, although what really is an audiophile ? I know other "music lovers" with very basic cd/radio all in ones with tiny speakers.

The pivotal moment for me was the creation of 'The Doctor'. A device that a few of us made up from a gas mask and a bong.

Beind able to witness and feel music and sounds on a deeper level opened up new possibilities .

As a six year old I remember going up into a friends attic to listen to their phonograph playing shellac records.

As an eight to eleven year old lying on the floor playing records on my parents valve record player.

As a fourteen year old using a friend of the families Hacker music center, which he left with us when he went to work abroad.

But, what REALLY turned me onto HiFi was a lab tech at Sussex Uni. I was doing work on phosphines and the way I monitored the reactions was using MRI. The chap who ran the machine had a pile of HiFi Answers behind the console which I used to read. When I expressed an interest he dragged me back to his place to listen to his mastic laden LP12, to active Tannoy dual concentrics via hand built, or modded, valve amps - superb; and I was hooked.

Derek Whittington mostly.

A neighbour of my parents had a Thorens TD160 on a shelf at eye level and I was bewitched by the view and to some extent the sound from his home made speakers.

Then I met Derek.

I’ve taken a step back in some ways. I’ve simplified my life going from pre and power amps bi wired with signature CD player to a one box Nova.

Very good sound and I no longer worry endlessly about improvements, recordings, support stands and electricity supplies. I just enjoy the music. Although I must admit Spotify needs to improve!

SamClaus posted:

steve95775 posted:

First staff purchase... a traded NAC22/NAP120. My transformation was complete. Thanks Vince.

My first Naim amp was the NAC22/NAP120 too. Not many of those today.

Just remember the stupid layout of the NAP120. That damned power switch was hard to get to. But it made my BC1s sing a lot better than the Spendor D40 amp. Yeah I had one of those too briefly. My last purchase as a punter, just before my acceptance to the cult.

A second hand A&R Cambridge A60 integrated amp. 

The world was never the same.

For me it started with my father’s Kenwood receiver, B&O turntable and some (good) DIY speakers with Lowther PM6 units which opened my ears to good sound. Then, when turning 14, I got my own stereo - an Akai stereo with lots of lights/LEDs and a crappy plastic turntable on top … Quickly went from there to a reasonable integrated Yamaha amp, an Ariston RD40 turntable and took over the aforementioned speakers. Then, over the years, have gone through various stuff from NAD, Denon, Mission, Rega, Snell, Dali etc. in different constellations until discovering Naim (where I’ll stay as I like the sound as well as the looks). As long as I have the music I could live with a modest stereo – but I’d rather not! 

nigelb posted:

.... I then listened to Yes, Close To The Edge. Incredible stuff for someone so young, exposed to real music for the first time......

I too was blown away with Yes as a 15 year old boy. I had a copy of "Close To The Edge". Something about Jon Anderson's voice/phrasing just hooked me right in. And the amazing Hipgnosis cover art was almost worth buying the record for. Sadly my vinyl masterpiece died/was purloined/can't actually recall well before my hifi journey got me to the LP12 level.  Just recently I got a hi res album of Steve Wilson remasters of Yes material. Wish I had a copy of the vinyl to compare but the hi res is still pretty good.

Building valve amps with my Father-in-Law and when not going that listening to his Garrard/SME/V15 via Quad 33/303 and Celestion Ditton 44s - my first intro to real hifi! Oh and the obligatory Akai R2R.

Used to like going through my dads collection.

41 years ago,..Society has moved forward. Today,this HiFi magazine would have been sued for such a picture ????.

/Peder ????

My start was disparate valve radios, one for each channel, and made-up speakers.  Then a couple of Sinclair amplifiers (tiny little things) driving Wharfedale Dentons.  Then a period of making various kits - Texan T20+20 or some such thing with the same speakers, followed by a Bailey amp kit and a Wireless World (I think) pre-amplifier - it was quite a highly-designed pre-amp, no-holds-barred.  It had two pots at the beginning of the circuit to provide balance control and to give some impedance matching to the input, and a volume control towards the end of the circuit.  IIRC it was a John Linsley Hood design.  That combination was good.  Then I bought an early Naim 'Speaker pair (made by Mordaunt Short.  That was the start of the slippery slope to my downfall - NAP120 first, I think, then NAC12.  Then through various amplifiers (250, dual 250s , 4 X 135s (turning the Naim speakers into active ones), then SBLs (active), NAC52, NAP300 into S600 and now NAP500.

I keep think that I ought, at some point, have tried alternatives to Naim, but never have taken the plunge.

My Dad ran a hifi shop in the early 70s, bringing home mostly high quality Japanese kit. I remember him building a pair of huge transmission line speakers using Kef drive units of the day (pretty much the same as Linn later employed in Isobariks). When i was about 10 he bought me a Leak Delta 30 amp, a Sony turntable and a pair of Kef bookshelf speakers. Over the following five years i transitioned to an A&R A60 amp, a Rega Planar 3 turntable, and some AR18s speakers. Everything changed when one day i went round a friend of my fathers and heard a pair of Gale 401s on chrome stands, some Quantum pre power amps and a Linn LP12/SyrinxPU2/Supex SD900...... holy shit that blew my mind playing Dark side of the moon. 

By the time i was 20 in 1984, i had moved through an entry level Linn with Naim Nait, 42/110 Kans, to an LP12/Ittok/Asak 'T' 32/snaps/250/Saras. A system i stayed with for several years and took a lot of part time jobs to buy as i was still mostly a student. As they say the rest is history, been up and down the ladder since and these days not so interested in the latest or greatest, but love a few classic pieces that capture the essence of what it's all about.