My First Audio Love

[Mr. Widget]

I recall listening to one back in the day but my audio acuity was highly suspect at the time to form any valid opinions.

David's post got me thinking... over the years I have heard a number of fellow enthusiasts (that includes people just like you if you hate the word audiophile) say that they still remember the day when they heard the model XYZ being played with so and so electronics and wow it changed their world... ever since they have wanted to recapture that sound. Or something along those lines.

I believe Don McRitchie was originally smitten by a JBL 030 system. There was something about the effortless dynamics, realism and punch that caught his imagination. I have heard similar tales from many JBL heads about the first time they heard a model this or that. For me, I was first really blown away by a pair of Harold Beveridge Model 2 electrostats. I'd love to hear a pair again, but I doubt they could hold a candle to the goose bump invoking sound I remember. I had some JBL S7 systems at home and they were pretty darned good, but there was something about these fast as light electrostats that really blew me away... unfortunately they needed a million dollars worth of electronics to make them really sing and they cost about $4K back in 1981... they might as well have been a NASA prototype. There was no way I'd ever have a pair.

I thought it might be interesting to hear what speakers, or other bits of audio gear first blew you away.


Widget

[tom1040]

My older brother had a Marantz receiver, large advents and a wonderful Akai reel-to-reel with REO Speedwagon playing "Riding the storm out & Golden country". I was home from school sooner than he and always lit those songs up until he arrived. I think I was 13 years old.

It sounded really special to me-dynamics that I thought were wonderful.

[SEAWOLF97]

.

I thought it might be interesting to hear what speakers, or other bits of audio gear first blew you away.

.

I'd been playing around with Dad's stereo* from abt '61 on ...went Navy '68 , finally had money and access to reasonably priced stereo gear at the PX ....bought a Pioneer receiver & speakers ..it was OK , not spectacular ...ran with that thru the 70's , BUT in 1977 I went into a "high end" stereo shop in the Water Tower Mall (converted factory) in Portland .....the sales guy grabbed me when I walked in and said "you gotta hear these , there is nothing else like them" .....he powered up the big Ohm Walsh F's ...I sat dumbfounded ...never forgot the sound, but never saw another pair either ....

Then, mebbe 5 years ago , a pair came up on CL ...the model number was listed as "model S", with a poor cellphone pic ....I wasnt excited...just sent an email , then went back to the ad and wondered ??? could those be Walsh F's ??? gave the seller a call , he really didnt know the model....he took them in as part payment on a landscape job he did , his wife hated the LARGE speakers in HER living room , he couldnt push them (very inefficient) and just wanted the money owed...I had him look again and WOW..they were the elusive F's .

Was helping my son load a moving van that day, so made an appt. for 2 hours later ...was so jazzed that I just helped load the big stuff and then boogied off to Hillsboro.

Yes, the were F's ...he tried to demo using an Aiwa boombox with both speaker leads twisted together (for more power) ....they seems OK condition so I bought them on faith...

Hurried home and wired them to the 2230 ....WOW, just almost as I had remembered them from that demo long ago.

Spent 3 months detailing them, paint splatters , bad wiring , faded brown grills that I now re-dyed black....they are incredible...in some aspects better than the 250Ti's ..bought a particular amp to run them to potential .....these days they are still in use, the highs have faded a bit so I vampired off a 2 way network (the speakers are 1 way with no network) , nipped the LF leads off and ran HF leads to a titanium tweet and added to the cab front under the grill.

Guests in the house usually want a demo and they come off just as dumbfounded as I was in 1977. The Ohms were introduced in '72 for $450/ea and last sold in '82 at $4000/pr....the L100 in '73 was $273/each (AIRC)

I can get tech support via email from the company president ...havn't tried that with Sydney , yet..



* Dads little system was a Sherwood tube receiver , Dual 1015 TT , Uher reel-2-reel, some home built Utah/University speakers ..it was SoTA to me at 13.

[Odd]

but the first with the JBL. In a friend's recording studio in the early 70's with JBL L 200. And the source was from a 2-inch master tape, and the mix was not finished. I'll never forget the sound pressure and dynamics. At that time I had no opportunity to buy L 200, but some years later I built some 4320 with drawings from JBL enclosure manuals. They was not easy to fit in with other furniture in a living room, and after some years replaced by L65.
Well it was not my decision.
As you can see in my avatar I am now back to the JBL studio monitors which are built in to a large bookshelf.
Thanks to Giskard for crossover network!

[Ducatista47]

My father's mono setup in our basement. This was in the late 1950s; being a quality control engineer at Shure Bros gave him a window into good sound and how to get it. We didn't have any money, but he managed to cobble together something very nice.

Source was a Dual 1009 turntable with a Shure V15 type 3 cart, at least in later years. It was always a Shure. Amplification was a tube Knight or Heathkit, soldered together by himself. Speakers were full range drivers scattered about the different rooms in the finished (again by himself) basement. They ranged from eight or ten inch units to a twelve and a fifteen inch. The fifteen was in the main room, cabinet mounted, and the twelve was in the wall of the workshop, near the Shop Smith and the electronics workbench. The big units may have been coaxial, I don't remember. It might not seem like much, but it was sweet.

He never went stereo because he liked to listen as he walked around the basement. If you have never hear a great mono setup, you would not understand that no real compromise was being made. No mystery why I have ended up with a full range system myself after all these years.

Clark

[grumpy]

Funny... wouldn't think I'd remember much detail from back then
(before owning anything of my own beyond a clock radio):

Parent's Stromberg-Carlson walnut/cane stereo console changer/AM/FM.
A fair section of my music taste was honed laying on the floor in front
of that thing. I think they paid someone to tow it away... I was not happy.

Church basement "thrasher" Zenith console radio (a crime to think about now):
Large beautifully veneered (difficult to see as it was not well taken care of)
cabinet, multi-band radio, cat-eye tuner, field-coil speaker ... capably filled that
large space with live sounding rump-shaking music. Probably no frequency response
above 6-7KHz. Sounded wonderful.

Uncle's system:
BIC turntable (940)/Tandberg toploader cassette (TCD-300), Marantz integrated amp
(1060), Soundcraftsmen EQ (2215), custom JBL Flair-looking cabs LE-14/potato-masher
+ bullet I remember awesome impact/bandwidth but having to sit or lose the top end
completely. At least that's my guess on the model #'s based on looks + faded memory.

Neighbor's system (friend's older brother):
a pair of Design Acoustics D-2 speakers driven by a bazzillion watt Kenwood
receiver (KR-9600?) that probably sold through DAK later... first sense of space and imaging.
Owner freaked if the volume was turned up beyond background levels. Even as a
"kid" I knew this was BS.

One time listen: no idea on electronics, but seemingly refrigerator-sized boxes
mounted high up on the wall, later recognized as some Altec 604 based speakers.
Awesome realism and dynamics. Left a strong/good impression. Also impressive
that someone would tolerate those in a shared living space.

There were some large Advents in there somewhere ... sounded good ... speakers
I would have bought for my parents. Still, there was an odd draw. Good marketing
perhaps.

A friend's dad distributed EV an Altec stuff... Heard the Interface line-up and the
Altec 14/15/19 line. _Really_ wanted to afford the Interface C for quite awhile...
didn't happen, and they went away. Probably never got a well-run demo of the
Altecs.

JBL L150A's - ... bought them new... still have those. Was surprised when I hooked
up a Perreaux 2150B and they came to life a bit more. Even non-audio-geeks noticed.

Acoustat 1+1's ... wow. This is imaging... as long as you sit -right- there. No bass
to speak of. Lost them due to a change in living space (sloped ceiling issues).

Store demo of AR M300 monoblocks, Martin Logan CLS, Kinergetics subs ...
lots of wow... but funny CLS plastic zipper sound I could never ignore (or explain better).

Cornwalls (older) ... came and went. Made some $$. I don't miss them.

Audio youth over.

Insane subsequent influx of JBL pound puppies and parts, pro and consumer...

[Don Mascali]

Dad's mono Pilot console system in the mid to late 50's.

My first serious system was a used one, AR tt and AR3a speakers with a Technics receiver. About 1969.

I started the JBL sickness when I started DJing and blew everything else up. Now I have a house full of Pro and Home gear.

[Eaulive]

Dad's mono Pilot console system in the mid to late 50's.

My first serious system was a used one, AR tt and AR3a speakers with a Technics receiver. About 1969.

I started the JBL sickness when I started DJing and blew everything else up. Now I have a house full of Pro and Home gear.

The first time I heard 4520s as a roadie for mobile "discos" in the beginning of the 80s
More often loaded with Fane Colossus than JBL but hey, what did I know back then, it was JBL on the outside

[jerry_rig]

First hi-fi experience: my old man's stereo Pilot console with large Jensen speakers -- 12", possibly three-way. As a child in the early 1960s I remember zeroing in on the bass from my bedroom upstairs. Probably had something to do with my becoming a bass player.

My first hi-fi circa 1973: a Marantz 1060 integrated amp and my first monster, homebuilt bookshelf speakers featuring a D123, an LE20 tweeter and an LX2 crossover. These had almost no bass! By 1976 I had graduated to a homebuilt SR7 system using a 2470 phenolic driver. In those days I used a Harmon Kardon Citation 11 pre-amp and Crown D-150 power amp.

My uncle's Paragon in 1975, driven by a Marantz receiver. Great dynamics and my first exposure to large format compression drivers. I was particularly struck by the way they handled vocal consonants.

In 1976, I heard a pair of Dahlquist DQ-10s and was smitten. Powered by a hand-wired Hafler 500, they served me faithfully until I moved to Acoustat III electrostatic panels in 1983. In 1985, I moved up to a pair of Snell Type A-iii driven by a Krell KSA 100. Now I've come full circle...

[WDJ]

Friend in high school (Savannah, GA) got a HK330, Dual tt and a pair of L36s.

I went by the store (Norwoods) and heard a pair of L300s with a Mac C32 and 2300. Just amazing...

Looked around for a bit and saw a guy I recognized - he had delivered our newspaper years before. He was a few years out of the Navy and was now running the service dept. I was out of school and looking for a job, had had a few electronics classes in school and picked up some skills from working with my father. I was soon working as a tech there - with most of my income going to my new found addiction.

I went into the Air Force and ended up in Anchorage, Alaska (Elmendorf AFB) from '79 to '81. Saw an ad that JBL was looking for someone to do sales in the military exchanges at Elmendorf and Ft. Richardson - was amazed when I got a phone call and they wanted to talk to me. Gary Elias flew up from Hawaii to interview me and I was soon working part-time mostly selling 4311/L100 and a couple of sets of L200 and 300. I bought my 4315Bs (via employee discount!) in the summer of '80. They paid me to listen to music and fool with audio equipment!

Used to build Hafler kits for half the difference of the kit to assembled price for folks in the dorms - to put it mildly, I love this stuff!

[JBLAddict]

1. 1975
2. L100A
3. Pioneer SX-737
4. BIC turntable
5. Baba O'Riley

story begins.......

[Allanvh5150]

The JBL 4355 did it for me. I was working in a sudio one day and I kept thinking that the artist was sitting in the control room with me. I still have the vivid memory. I have used JBL quite a lot over the years and I did not get that feeling again until a few years ago when I finished my home theatre which included 2 pair of L150's. Not the best speaker that JBL made but OMG, where they are now, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time.

Allan.

[1audiohack]

Mine was an SR rig. Back in the mid 90's I had a shop by the Rio Hotel / Casino and we shared parking and yard space with a company called Hollywood Props. They did and had all kinds of crazy stuff, and we worked around them often in awe and wonder.

One day they gave us warning that they were setting up some thing for a Steven Spielberg premier and after party and that we would probably not have vehicle access to our building from Friday afternoon until sometime Saturday. Mid day Thursday I heard what I was certain a brass band in their building and was compelled to walk over for a listen, when I went inside, all there was was a stack of JBL SRX. I listened for 15 or 20 minutes and went back to work. I would still like to know who so expertly set that rig up, I have heard many before and since, some good and many bad but that was my moment of discovery.

Up to that point I had spent a disproportionate amount of my income searching for the sound on mid-high end consumer audio and that path was left cold by that night.