How did you get into the hobby of HT?

[GMichael]

Wooch, great story!

Bfalls, Legacy huh? nice! What's not to love?

[edtyct]

Geez, if your life passes before your eyes like this, does it mean that it's almost over? I don't do dates well. But through the 70s and into the 80s, I still passed much of my time as a musician. Like a lot of musicians (not the smart ones), I had exposure to good audio equipment, and appreciated it like crazy, but didn't pursue it. I was, however, always a huge film buff, even as an idiot teenager. Like Wooch, I was absolutely floored by 70 mm films--Lawrence of Arabia, Mutiny on the Bounty, How the West Was Won, 2001.

By the mid-80s, When films entered the household via tape, I was hooked--bad. I went on a quest to get the best video equipment that I could afford. At that time, a 32-inch TV was considered HUGE, and I went through them like wildfire, looking for those with the best picture and the best connection suite. NEC made a solid monitor in those days. Proton followed. The Proscans, however, were considered the cream of the readily available crop. And so onward went the equipment parade through the revolving door. So far as audio for film was concerned, I took to wiring my livingroom with a 5 speakers and a sub just as soon as it became possible, with all sorts of Rube Goldberg-ish mounting strategies for surround speakers, which were then a novelty and rarely the same as the fronts. NEC made an early Dolby Pro Logic processor that suited me well until someone stole it, but it wasn't long before I heard the siren song of Lexicon and other dedicated audio companies as the quest continued. As I tried to squeeze as much quality out of my monitors as possible, I couldn't resist tweaking; I have the shocks and burns to prove it.

I adopted the laserdisc format within minutes of its arrival, and was immediately transported to heaven. We had a wonderful place to buy disks in my area (the late lamented Sight & Sound) run by two enthusiasts (one of them a classical musician), and it had EVERYTHING, supplying a lot of the professional film community--at least until California became a hot spot as well. I followed every technical improvement of the format, until laserdisc breathed its last, which wasn't too long into the DVD era. Particular high points that I can recall were James Cameron's The Abyss, which came out in various versions, but had a look and sound that set the standard, and Ridley Scott's Alien, which came out first in a version so visually dark and sonically muddy that when its final incarnation on LD arrived, it was like another film altogether, a true revelation. Criterion was the most respected name in LD, not only for offering consistent quality but also for bringing out obscure films that often had no other outlet. Criterion almost singlehandly invented the extras that DVD lovers take for granted now. Criterion's 2001 and Blade Runner packages are still legendary. In those days, we couldn't afford to be blase. The incremental changes were pioneering.

At this time, I was well into high-end audio, part of a technical and listening community associated with a particular store. We delved into what made audio and video products tick, and sampled many different A/V components in blind, and not so blind, listening and viewing tests. Sometimes we just listened to music and watched films on the best equipment at hand. Vidikron, Wadia, Meridian, Krell, and others got a huge workout in those days. The CRTs with the 9-inch guns will not fade easily into memory.

I'm tired now.

Ed