Hello all,
It's my first post after reading many threads over the past few weeks. I've enjoyed my visits and I appreciate the valuable work Amir does in his "retirement."
As an introduction, I will list some of my formative audio experiences along with their consequences (good or bad!).
Age 5: Visited neighborhood appliance store in small town in Taiwan. Obsessed with watching turntable platter spin. Result: parents forced to buy from the store because I spent so much time there.
Age 11: Heard friend's $300 Technics rack system in his bedroom. (Location: North Carolina. Demo music: Billy Joel 52nd Street.) Result: caught audio bug for life, right then and there. Bought my own Technics system.
Age 14: Wandered into neighborhood audio store and saw Stax headphones on display. Result: asked parents to buy Stax gear on my behalf during their next two trips to Japan. Still have the Lambda Professionals, Sigmas, SRX-Mk III, SRM1 Mk2 amp, SRD-7 and SRD-X energizers.
Age 18: Discovered the Absolute Sound magazine at hifi store in Massachusetts. Result: sucked into sound and fury, signifying nothing. Or almost nothing. Reviewer Robert Greene separates himself from the TAS pack. I also participate on his Yahoo audio forum.
In the years since, I've dabbled with digital room correction (Sigtech and TacT RCS 2.2x) and owned various speakers, all bought used. Those include planars (Eminent Technology LFT-8b, Soundline SL2, Quad ESL57 and 63) and boxes (Harbeth Monitor 40 original, Monitor 30, Gradient Revolutions, Mangar Zerobox 109, Spendor SP1/2, Lyngdorf W210 corner woofers, Hsu Research tube subwoofers). A very serious problem: I still have them (all except for the Quad 63s and Harbeth M30s).
One other formative audio experience: started violin lessons at 7, continue to play professionally part-time. For many years I played in the Grand Teton Music Festival orchestra in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a beautiful place to make music. No longer go out there because my family got too big--and I don't mean my family of loudspeakers!
Thanks for the community here.
Edward ("Amadeuswus")