Canuck Audio Mart

What made you an audiophile?

I was 13 (it was 1975) and I had just discovered the beatles. Since the beatles wouldn't get together, I decided I needed them to come out of our stereo system as close as possible to the real thing. I know, absolutely absurd, but I was 13.

We had a Pioneer SX737 Receiver, AR6 speakers, pioneer turnatable, and teac tape deck. I remember I worked all summer to save money to buy a Shure V15 cartridge ($100, a lot dough in those days). Yes, at the time I believed the V15 brought the beatles into our room.

According to my parents this is where the craziness began, and continues to this day. My wife is the one putting up with it. Although the Beatles are long gone and now it is mostly Jazz.

What is your story?

My older brother had a buddy with a pair of JBL L300 powered by an all Mac system and Pioneer TT. Playing Pink Floyd "Echoes" on this rig is what hooked me into this hobby; I can still feel the bass from that stereo to this day.

It was 1972 - I was 13.

Wow, that is some system! Great album too!

Spoilt for life!

I can't remember what system my brother had or what I had for that matter!
It was about 1972 or 1973 and I bought my first two albums.
Elton John's Goodbye Yellow brick road and Honky Chateau!
I was about 12 years old and I still have them to this day and they are still playable!

1977 Dad owned a grocery shop and at 9 years got hooked on stereo magazines did alot of research and fantisized about what
pieces I would own that lasted until I could reach the playboy mags Never ended from there just alittle sidetracked here and
there. Did the theater thing for about 10 years . 3 years ago got back to vinyl .Now I'm 40 and enjoy two rooms in the basement
one theater room for the teens and one anolog 2 channel tube setup for me.

I like music, and do not particularly like people, so I can have what I want with a hifi.

A store in Fredericton New Brunswick called Majic Forest. I was 17 and fell in love with a set of Paradigm speakers. I remember going into that store for over a year every other week and getting the demo that sales guy just told me after awhile to make myself comfortable. I moved away to Ottawa and gave up the Paradigm crush for a year or so until I was walking on Bank Street one day and went into Bank Street Audio. The store was jammed with used audio gear and this is where I saw and listened to my first tube amplifier. It has been foggy ever since. I now own tube gear and paradigm speakers, life is good.

It was 1995...I was 17 and big into car audio. The shop I frequented (ok...I damn near lived there lol...and ended up working there my first year of University) also dealt in home gear...Bryston, Mirage, Cerwin Vega, Yamaha, Rotel...but what caught me hook-line-and-sinker was the day they set up one of their demo rooms with all Sonic Frontiers. It was valued at around $22K but it was worth a million bucks to my ears!! Thus began my love of all things audio.

It was 1975 I was 11, Dad leased the upper chalet at Dagmar ski resort.He wanted to try to run it , but it did not work out for him . When we moved to Mississauga he sold me the sound system from the chalet for 100 dollars.(It was months of delivering the star) Included in the system was : Toshiba reciever, Dual 1214 (I think?), Sears speakers (the biggest they had at the time). The bonus was the 150 or so 45rpms,All current for that time .These days when I listen to music from that era it brings back a lot of memorys.

I was 12 and our family had a Sansui receiver and my brother bought a Lenco turntable. We asked a carpenter to customer built a cabinet to fit both into the cabinet. The receiver was on the top with fold down hinged cover. If you close it, you could not tell there is a stereo in there. Underneath the receiver is the turntable, with slide out platform. We slide it out when we play records.
Speakers were custom built floor standing cabinets with reflex based designed fitted with huge woofers. I forgot what was the tweeter, if any.1980, the Next thing i owned was Mitsubitsu pre amp and power amp. Then Technics turntable and Speaker was Scanspeak from Denmark, I believe.
Now, I still have Mitsi Mitsi and turntable, all functioning properly.

For me in 1977 ,when I was 13, saw the Marantz 4400 in an ad in a school library magazine on audio...began to realize how the music I like would sound better...I wanted that 4400 and visited an audio store on Yonge street to see how much that was...$800 for the 4400 and that was a sale price..the store was Toronto Hi-Fi....along came the summer in 1977, the CNE had the automotive building full of stero displays...I think it was the 100 years of recorded sound expo...and found a receiver I could get ,the Marantz 4270...$500 back then..it was all my money and my dad let me get it...so, for a year , all i had was a new 4270 quad with headphones...soon got summer jobs to get speakers, 2 ESS , and in 1978, bought the Pioneer PLL 550 turntable(still have) and marantz 5420 cassette deck. This system interested my dad, he also got the bug and bought an entire system Marantz 4400, 5220 6300 and 4 Pioneer HPM 100 speakers...so my house was full of nice stuff when i was a kid...still love the 4400....I feel that one receiver 4400 made me an audiophile for life...now I have all McIntosh components and Klipsch speakers and many Marantz as well...

1976-77. Dad bought a Marantz 2225 receiver, Dual 721 with At cart, Teac A400 and Gen 1 Bose 301s.

Very full powerful sound from a low powered amp and efficient speakers and the TOTL Dual DD table.

I was hooked. I was 11.

I was about 13 as well. Threw a party at my dad's place while he was gone and I kept torturing his 15watts Yamaha receiver. We were plugging two car subwoofers in parallel with random speakers and were playing cheap cassettes from an old sony walkman. At some point, I remember smelling burnt plastic and I actually saw smoke coming from the vents of the Yamaha. Lots of it! The poor Yammie died on that day and my quest for a replacement began. I was unaware of the existence of an Hi-end audio world. I thought Yamaha was the best there was... I was wrong.

That was the turning point of my audio journey. Still, I remember shopping for my first walkman (cassette player). I wanted the best there was. I tried every headset in the store and I chose the best (dad agreed). In fact, I chose the ones that rumbled along with bass notes, but hey, I was 9 years old and they sounded good too! I've always been impressed and somehow captivated by sound reproduction.

Don't worry Nuck.....
You have friends on cam......