How did you get into the hobby of HT?

[L.J.]

OK, your turn. Spill it.

After I got married and moved into my first little apartment, I wanted some music. I went to a Sears type store in the bay area called Wards. My intentions were to buy a all in one unit(CD,Tape,Tuner). I get into the electronics section and didn't know where to start so I asked for help. You see, my world had pretty much consisted of a couple of boomboxes. Anyways, the salesman starts a little speech about buying separate components vs all in one units and gets into surround sound. First apartment = small budget. I left Wards with a open box Panny HTIB (Pro Logic) for $300. I hooked it up to my VCR and WOW. I thought it sounded so good. This was about 8 years ago.

About a year after I got my Panny setup, my wife and I took a little trip to her dad's in AZ. Well I thought I had a nice little setup until he showed me his Pioneer Elite system. We watched Matrix and Saving Private Ryan. My little Panny setup was not a HT. He showed me what a DVD player was and talked about how to set everything up. As soon as we got back to Cali.....ZOOM.....straight to Circuit City. I picked up a JVC AVR and DVD player, Kenwood tape and CD player and a Yamaha speaker setup with a powered sub. My first DVD was The Matrix. I bumped my TV from a 27" to a 36".

I was happy for a while but the little voices started talking to me. I started spending more time at CC and BB and wanted some tower speakers. I replaced my 3 front Yamaha's with Sony towers and a Sony center. And about 2 years after that I upgraded to another JVC AVR and upgraded all my speakers to Sony. I know, bad moves, but I had no clue. After about two years of that setup, I still felt something was missing. I had a buddy who got into HT and he was in love with Energy speakers. He also explained what I should look for in AVR's and quality brands to go with.

About a year ago I started upgrading again little by little. This time around I had a good idea about what to look for. I started with my AVR. I researched and narrowed it down to Denon, Onkyo and HK. Well we know how that ended. I noticed a difference in sound but nothing like night and day. Next I went through a bunch of DVD players. I wanted a player with SACD playback and at the time only Marantz, Samsung and Denon offered it. (Well as far as I knew). We know how that ended. Lastly about 5 months ago I made the best upgrade of all, my speakers. This time I knew to check my options at stores such as Good Guys and Magnolia. I auditioned Boston Acoustics, Klispch and Energy. I had heard Energy at my friend house and liked em, plus the C-series was being replaced by the RC line, so I got my C-series setup at 50% off. A Energy sub got worked into the deal and there you go.

After finding this site and learning soo much, I was able to calibrate my system correctly. The new speakers are still amazing to me. The biggest difference by far came from upgrading to some quality speakers. I've gone through most of my CD collection and DVD collection. It's so crazy, hearing all this stuff I never heard before. I threw a 57" TV in there and I'm one happy camper. So that's my story.

[Pat]

I'm not a very good writer or typist for that matter but here is my brief tale....

Ten years ago or so I bought a Denon 45 watt receiver, 5 disc carousel cd changer and a pair of floorstanding Klipsch speakers. I was completely satisfied with this "huge system" up until about 2 years ago when I discovered a place on our new first computer called Audiogon.
I was fascinated by all the guys who talked about speakers, amps, and audio in general so after a couple months of reading and reading I signed up to become a member and have access to bluebook prices.

A year ago I bought a 100 watt Denon stereo receiver with preouts as an upgrade in power so I thought, a couple months later my nephew hooked up my stereo and speakers to the tv and it was much better than the tv speakers. Next was the cylinder SVS subwoofer, couple months later two Klipsch RF7's, and a couple months later a used 120 watt Conrad Johnson Sonographe amp for a couple hundred bucks from our local dealer.

Right now this sounds pretty darn good at lower to mid volumes and I once borrowed a 200+ watt Carver amp from the dealer and it sounded mucho better but the amp was old and cut out at lower volumes, so back it went. For the time being I'm on a restricted budget and daily I still drool over all the Gamut, Krell, McIntosh and many other amps and equipment at Audiogon. I would really like to try a tube preamp and a very high power S.S. amp.

Our 1600 sq. ft. house has a smallish 12'X17' living room and two channel is plenty...and cheaper......

[GMichael]

Great stories guys.

Who's next? Step right up and tell us your story. Short stories & long stories are both welcome. The first step is admitting you are an HTaholic. I'll go first.

Hi, my name is Michael, and I am, uhm, uh... an HTaholic. Oh man that feels good. What a relief.

[L.J.]

Interesting story GM. Building some speakers seems like a nice little project to get into. I may have to try it one day.

Funny about the Bose. I listened to a Batman demo once at CC. It sounded OK to me, but the first thing I noted was the price. A couple of thousand for that. I just didn't care for them. I have never gave Bose a chance and it's always been due to the price. Later I find out, that everyone has that same opinion.