2 Questions To Ponder???????????

Systems

While thumbing through a pile of pictures of past equipment I was left thinking 2 thoughts.

#1. Growing up in Florida in the sixties I found myself tagging along with my parents to a party thrown by friends of thier's. These were the garden variety parties where the kids ran amuck around the pool and bricked BBQ pit, the ladies were huddled in a room or two discussing whatever and the men gathered in a basement or family room to play a game of pool and listen to Hi-Fi equipment while drinking beer and whiskey while smoking cigars. The equipment was not to be touched by small hands and only seen on rare occasions. I can remember all the men who's houses we were visiting that weekend explaining the various advantages of the equipment they had chosen and being ogled by the visitors. Turntables spinning Frankie, Deano, Denny Martin, Herb Alpert and various other artists. Mostly Lounge Music or that cheesy music heard in the movies. The music you hear playing in that bachelor pad that was so cool. This led me to believe that the enviroment I was exposed to must have been a factor in my becoming an "audioholic" of sorts. Being in my pre-teen and early teen years I can still rememeber seeing and hearing the likes of H.H. Scott, Fisher, McIntosh, Dynaco, Eico, Knight, Sherwood, Hardon Karmon and so on. I was fortunate enough to salvage most of my father's collection of vintage equipment after he lost interest in the hobby. I wondered...just wondered how many other Hi-Fi nuts got the bug from the same life experiences growing up?

#2. How much equipment is enough? I've been an audioholic for years. It wasn't until about 12 years ago that I could afford to chase this hobby with a passion. I was able to go to insane measures for a collection I was continually adding to. All the names I remembered growing up with and the latest and greatest. Intertgrated amps, monoblocks, stereo amps, preamps, tuners, turntables, speakers, reel to reels and more. Shelves full of tube amps to display and enjoy listening to. Rows of SS amps and preamps of all breeds. Miniscule bookshelf speakers to massive LaScalla's. Console units that were as good to look at as to listen to. I was in heaven till the ex asked me, "don't you think you have enough? When do you think you'll have enough? I think you have enough". So my question is this......When is enough...enough?

ohskigod

1) Yep, credit my Dad for the audio bug........old school Sansui, Onkyo, Teac, JBL, Altec, Dual, Technics, Coral. I got the hand me downs, and still had the coolest stereo out of all my friends.

2) enough is enough when you say it is. different for every person. Me, I hoard stuff, but then sell it when I want different stuff to try. I am at a point to where my main systems have what I want to have in it, and to get a significant improvement would cost me a ton. maybe experiment with cabling and interconnects, but that is it for major purchases.

bikezappa

1. My parents had a cheap portable mono record player, amp. speaker with the big removable 45 record shaft. It sucked but with enough pennies it played the record over and over without skipping. Growing up I never heard of any of that equipment your father had. I started buying all AR stuff in the 60s when I went to college.

2. I buy some new stuff about every 10 years. I don't have the money for the big buck stuff and have only listened to it at specialty stores. I have no need or desire for it. My 2 channel is the big SDA SRS speakers and vintage Revox tuner and amp. I'm glad I dion't have your issues, I have more than enough.

PS What are you selling?

G-2

1-Dad passed the bug to us

2-There is no answer to this question...

beardog03

my pops started it when I was a kid...
this forum promoted it...
enough is never enough....


although I`m getting closer !!
if there is such a thing !!

Midnite Mick

Great thread.

I got it primarily from my 7 year older brother. I remember being in elementary school in the late 70's/early 80's coming home from school at lunch time and I would always head straight for his room to listen. He did not have high end gear or any seperates but he had an Akai integrated at I think 60 watts per, and Akai turntable in which I remember him buying what we thought was an expensive cartridge etc. When I look back I always think how coooool it was for my 17 year old brother to let me, a mere 10 year old have access to his stereo and records whenever I wanted even if he wasn't around. The only record I was not allowed to touch was a 10CC record as even he didn't play it. I was told it was collector's item at the time.....not sure if this is true or not.

I bought my first stereo at 15 and just had a love for it. However, only recently have I had the means to acquire some real quality gear even though I have always wanted to.

2nd answer.......?

Thanks for this great thread.
Mike

ledhed

1) Definitely dad. Had the late 70s TOTL Pioneer set up growing up. Then we got some Polks for HT, I came here and got hooked.

2) I have no clue, all I know is that I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH LOL

cfrizz

I grew up surrounded by music. My Dad was a violinist & a music teacher. My Mom took singing lessons. My older brother played the piano, My younger brother sang at St. Paul's Cathedral & while there the chior director taught him how to play the organ...I mean the real pipe organ of the church! He has a full size electric one in his apartment. My Uncle taught me how to play the guitar.

So I have always had music in my life, I remember my first system, a green & white plastic turntable that played 33's & 45's & also had a AM radio! So it began from there!

I have enough right now! If something else comes in, something else has to go. Every once & while I think about getting a prepro & give the receiver to my brother. And I would love a pair of LSI towers in a weight I can handle, but everyone says that's impossible, so I will just keep my RTA 8-Ts.

madmax

I somehow got hooked on it myself. For whatever reason I always wanted equipment to play with. Started at 4 or 5 years old. At 8 or so I made it clear I needed a decent system, not this close-n-play crap.

When the house becomes too cluttered to walk through you know its time to re-think the situation.
madmax

WilliamM2

(1) Got my original bug from my father, who had a complete Knight system he built himself, the same year I was born. Also my twin uncle's, whom I thought were the coolest guys in the world, has a complete Marantz system in the early seventies. I bought my first "real" stereo at 9 or ten years old. A 25watt "Technics by Panasonic" reciever, and matching turntable with EPI speakers.

(2) How much equipment? I used to have more than 1 system, but found I only listened to the "best" one, so I am down to a single system, although I have added extra speakers in the dining room and speakers and a sub in the Garage, all run off the same system when needed.

Normanality

I grew up spinning dad's old 78's of the old jazz masters .....Harry James, Dorsey, Mugsy Spanier...... then one day freshmen year of high school I went and saw a live concert with this screaming cat named Maynard Ferguson.

The old record player couldn't produce the screaming highs I heard at the concert so I took all my paperroute money and bought my first decent stereo.

I've been hooked since then.

When is enough enough? Like Max says, when you can't move I spose (and I'm there LOL) ((anyone need a pair of Innersound Eros for a good price?)) 2 pairs are just too much

MSALLA

My parents only had one of those record players that looked like a suit case until you opened it. I wanted my own for my room to listen to my records. Christmas that year, I opened up several boxes. 3 of which were one Yamaha receiver one Yamaha turn table and a set of EPI speakers. I was 11 years old.I got a new piece every year after that till I was 15. I loved that rig. Not the highest quality, but at that age I still feel I was damn lucky.

Enough is enough when you are content.

joeparaski

Ahhh the memories. My parents had one of those old furniture style record player/radio combos. Then they upgraded to a brand new, bigger furniture style unit, complete with a bar and fake fireplace....I used to listen to that quite a bit. Then they got me my own "sound system", one of those "moon unit" thingies with speakers that looked like bowling balls.

I think I was 16 when I bought my own system, the Nakamichi "rack". Of course I needed more power for the home parties so I upgraded to SAE equipment. Then I needed more power because I got people to PAY ME to bring my system to their own house parties.

Then I needed even more power cuz I started doing the dj thing for school dances. Next thing you know I'm spending all my paychecks on PA and lighting equipment and needed to rent a U-haul truck to lug it around.

My free weekends were spent at the disco, not to dance, but to hang around the dj booth and gawk at all the equipment and fantasize about having all that gear in my own home so I could listen to my music.

I guess I have fulfilled my fantasy, the only thing that's left is to tweak it so it doesn't sound like ****.

Joe

petrym

1. It was my Dad: he had a Marantz receiver, Dual turntable, and Klipsch speakers. There were other tape decks (both casette and reel-to-reel) that passed in and out, but that was his core setup. As a kid in the sixties I remember taking tubes from his early setup to the tester in the hardware store, then opening up those boxes and marveling on how cool and complex they were.

2. Enough? Yeah, I have enough... I'm happy with my setup and really don't feel the need to update right now. And yes, I do have a kid ready to go to college in another 1.5 years. After we put the kids through college I'll be ready for my mid-life crisis!

hearingimpared

1. My family is a family of musicians. My grandfather played with a few of the big band biggies like Glen Miller he owned a string of music stores on Broad Street in Philly back in the day. My mother was a bassist in the Philly orchestra back in the late thirties if memory serves me right. My father was a prodigy master pianist. He could pick up any instrument and within weeks play them like he had been doing it for years. My sister was a concert pianist until recently. Cousins who've cut records the list goes on and on. I took lessons on every major instrument but was too lazy to stick with it but I was a music major in high school. In my pre-teen years my mom and dad played gigs every weekend most of which I was allowed to attend, well I remember Friday nights I don't think I was allowed on Saturday nights. . .hmmm I always thought something was up with that. Wednesday nights was jamm night. My mom and dad and their musician friends would take turns meeting at each others homes and jam in the basements with guitars, sax, bass guitar, double bass, piano (if there was one in the house, if not my dad would bring his high end accordian), drums if they were in the home, etc etc, and they took me along to all of them. The thing I remember most besides the awesome improv going on was how really hot those rooms would get because of the tubed amps they all used. Some nights it would be all acoustic some nights amps. . . it was all good and that is why I love music so much. My sister used to play the organ at the huge Catholic church across the street and this thing got waaaaaayyyyy down low. BTW I had the lead bass vocal in the junior/senior high school choir and had the lead in the school musical my senior year in high school.

2. The love of music and the being too lazy to become proficient in an instrument is what brought me to this obsession to reproduce the music. It never ends and never will. If I can't afford to move up then I'll tweak every ounce of performance out of the equipement that I currently own. I will go for weeks on end happy as a lark with my rigs then one day it sounds like **** and I have to do something about it. . .that is when all hell breaks loose.

I'm kind of in that happy phase right now with the two channel, but the two HTs are looming. . .my wife hopes:D

hearingimpared

cfrizz wrote:

I grew up surrounded by music. My Dad was a violinist & a music teacher. My Mom took singing lessons. My older brother played the piano, My younger brother sang at St. Paul's Cathedral & while there the chior director taught him how to play the organ...I mean the real pipe organ of the church! He has a full size electric one in his apartment. My Uncle taught me how to play the guitar.

So I have always had music in my life, I remember my first system, a green & white plastic turntable that played 33's & 45's & also had a AM radio! So it began from there!

I have enough right now! If something else comes in, something else has to go. Every once & while I think about getting a prepro & give the receiver to my brother. And I would love a pair of LSI towers in a weight I can handle, but everyone says that's impossible, so I will just keep my RTA 8-Ts.

We have parallel lives Cath as far as family goes.

Systems

I'm going to bump this back to the front in hopes of sparking some more interest in the subject. I'm still amazed at the fact that I am truely a product of the enviroment I grew up in. I recently showed my dad my collection and sampled several combinations of power/preamp/speakers and music with my dad. I am happy to say he enjoyed the experience we shared. He was delighted to see all the equipment I had aquired and was taken back to days gone by while listening to the rigs. He couldn't believe that I could remember all the details of the sessions I remebered from growing up. It was like we discovered something new in each other. A good time was had and new memories were engaged.

hearingimpared

That is great to hear. . . enjoy your Dad, soak him in. I lost my dad in 1980 at the age of 23. I'm 51 now and I miss him more than ever. I still have talks with him but I can't hear him anymore. So I think about him and I remember those jam sessions and gigs he used to take me to.

Glad to see this thread is still going.

Gaara

1. Nope odd man out as it were. I am a different generation, I never went to parties with my parents, they got a babysitter. Never heard anything decent growing up my aunt had a pair of old Advent (?) speakers with a denon receiver. Only time I heard it was when watching football games. In our house up until I was ~15 all we had for equipment was a Sony boombox that my brother had and a old portable radio. No old record players, no fancy receivers, just a cheap boombox and a portable radio. Hell we never had more then one TV before I bought one, and never had larger then a 27 before I bought my 34in sony.

2. Couldn't tell ya, personally I think it will be enough when I have gear that I don't intend to use, I just want to have it. I currently have 4 systems with different uses, ranging from my 2ch/ht to my outdoor system consisting of a pair of Insignias and a t-amp.

Jared

Deadof_knight

My dad is about half deak from vietnam so he wasnt into music much I mean not any more than the cheapy stereo from Montgomery wards, I got into Audio as a teen laying around my friends house listening to his polk 11t's I just thought they were AWESOME, then car audio kicked in , that took over for a while till I grew up a lil stored it in my closets for years given to the kids and diy projects these days and here we are........

cfrizz

Wow Joe our lives do kinda parallel each other. I lost my dad in 1982 to cancer. I was 21! But he accomplished a lot in his life before he left & passed the love of music onto his children!

hearingimpared wrote:

That is great to hear. . . enjoy your Dad, soak him in. I lost my dad in 1980 at the age of 23. I'm 51 now and I miss him more than ever. I still have talks with him but I can't hear him anymore. So I think about him and I remember those jam sessions and gigs he used to take me to.

Glad to see this thread is still going.

Ern Dog

Cool thread.
I was introduced into this hobby by my father. He was a die hard Realistic fan from Radio Shack. I have memories of him jamming out to his salsa records all my life. At 12 years old I took an interest in music and bought as many Kiss albums I could buy with my paper route money. In high school, I would love to come home and blast the stereo with my records. He never got into the hobbie as much as I'm into it. He came to visit over the summer and was impressed with my rig. During Christmas I took him to a tube shop in San Jose and we were both blown away by the realism and separation that came from a $100k rig.

For me enough is enough when it stops being fun. Enjoyment of the music is what its all about for me. I consider myself still a rookie in this hobbie, so I have lots more to learn and more gear to experience.

hearingimpared

Ern Dog wrote:

Cool thread.
I was introduced into this hobby by my father. He was a die hard Realistic fan from Radio Shack. I have memories of him jamming out to his salsa records all my life. At 12 years old I took an interest in music and bought as many Kiss albums I could buy with my paper route money. In high school, I would love to come home and blast the stereo with my records. He never got into the hobbie as much as I'm into it. He came to visit over the summer and was impressed with my rig. During Christmas I took him to a tube shop in San Jose and we were both blown away by the realism and separation that came from a $100k rig.

For me enough is enough when it stops being fun. Enjoyment of the music is what its all about for me. I consider myself still a rookie in this hobbie, so I have lots more to learn and more gear to experience.

Back in the days when I rode a dinosaur to school, Radio Shack made some great equipment. Then if I'm not mistaken they became a Tandy Company and woe was all.

Anybody remember Lafayette gear. . . talk about muscle.

hearingimpared

cfrizz wrote:

Wow Joe our lives do kinda parallel each other. I lost my dad in 1982 to cancer. I was 21! But he accomplished a lot in his life before he left & passed the love of music onto his children!

Yep, Cath my dad was a teacher as his profession and in my life.

halo

1. Dad was the spark but older siblings fueled the fire and, eventually, friends got their influence into the mix. I always went my own way with music - kind of a jack of all trades. Thanks to my pop I had (IMHO) a nicer stereo than any of my friends. I tried to repay the favor and put together a vintage rig for him a little over a year ago (with help from doro and SCompRacer) but he is losing his hearing so I'm afraid it may be too little too late. He always said that tubes were the way to go. That, in his opinion, was hi-end. I now have an all tube rig but, since his hearing is going, he can't appreciate it.

2. I agree with the statement that this is a hobby and it should be fun. If it takes over your life or you are miserable then its time to get out or just get back to the basics and re-discover what led you here.

schwarcw

My dad was the manager of an auto parts store and he hated my audio hobby. I started like most kids listening to big brother's or big sister's records. Since I was the oldest, I had to listen to other kid's brothers and sister records. My first record player unit with speaker my father got as a promo for ordering a **** load of Peak anti freeze. I cherished that player for many years before I bought my first Lafayette stereo with the money I made working part time in my dad's auto parts store while in high school. He hated my records, he thought they were a waste of money. Many of them are worth many times what I paid for them on eBay today.

He also hated my baseball cards. My mom couldn't wait to give those away to my cousins when I became an adolescent. I had every Topps major league card from 1960 thru 1965, including rookie cards for Peter Rose, Tom Seaver, Roger Maris's 1961 card, the list goes on and on. I had every one in perfect condition, files neatly in numerical order in a shoe box. I discovered they were gone when I was fifteen. My parents were angry with me that I would try to get them back. My cousins abused them and there was no value ever realized as they were discarded in the trash.

Anyways, my Lafayette was very nice, can't remember the model. The speakers were Criterion VI's. They are in great shape, sound fine and my brother still uses them today (nearly 40 years later). I had that system in my room with this AC going during the hot Summer nights, and the black light illumination the dayglo colors of the Jimi Hendrix "Electric Ladyland" poster along with others from the Doors, Vanilla Fudge, Blue Cheer, Janis Joplin, Canned Head and others. I did not use marijuana until several years later. I was just entraced by the music and the "psychedelic" atmosphere. What a ride!

Any other old timers that were in college when there four suddenly "four dead in Ohio" on May 4, 1970?

petrym

schwarcw wrote:

Any other old timers that were in college when there four suddenly "four dead in Ohio" on May 4, 1970?

Not in college, but I was 9.5 years old and that photograph of the girl kneeling over a dead feller in Life magazine knocked the wind right out of me -- how could American troops kill American kids?

Back on topic: now I'm venturing into live recording and sound production with newer equipment, but I still have Dad's Shure 556S microphone, and that baby still sounds smoooooooth...

hearingimpared

schwarcw wrote:

Anyways, my Lafayette was very nice, can't remember the model.

I was begining to wonder if I was the only Lafayette owner here.

schwarcw wrote:

Any other old timers that were in college when there four suddenly "four dead in Ohio" on May 4, 1970?

Well I guess I'm not that old. . . I was in ninth grade what was that you said there, Pop?:p

MillerLiteScott

My father had a stereo console that he built with the guts from some sort of amp/tuner/phono combination and built in speakers. I can still picture it. I can remember being @ 4 years old and listening to my favorite song "Hey Jude".

In the mid 70's he got a Kenwood Stereo amp(since departed), Girrard TT (still has it), and a pair of KLH 5's (still has them in his basement not even hooked up). I spent most of my early teen years listening to vinyl on this system.

My first system was also a Kenwood Stereo Amp, and a pair of Pioneer 3 way ported speakers. I went through a series of Technics tape decks as the the noise reduction technology progressed. I also added a Technics SL-5 ( still have it) turntable to my my system. This system carried me from @ sophmore in high school through college.


I am pretty happy with my current HT and really having fun listening to the tube mono blocks and vintage Polks. I just wish I had a dedicated place to listen to 2 channel.

VR3

My Dad definitely was one of the main reasons I got into this hobby.

Granted I consider my Dad the hillbilly of hifi in some regards. Who runs 100,000 dollar speakers and a 1,000 dollar preamp? No one.

So backwards, but anyways. Yep - seeing his gear and how it sounded, I wanted my own. This forum definitely was the ultimate in pushing me to where I am now. Sean (Zero) has been a big help in selecting alot of the gear.

Its been a fun ride.

As for the gear thing - hahahahaha, I remember when I had 5 Adcom amps in one rack. 10 channels of power and I was using them all. Thats just insane! lol - but no, there is never enough gear.