35 years on. 1970's - 2012
OK I dunno why I'm writing this but I have 10mins to kill.
When I married in the early 70s I started my journey with an old 60's radiogram about 3ft long and real wood. I chopped it up for Bonfire night and made a box to house the amplifier. it worked. I was given 2 12" speakers. Not identical and a bit bashed but I bought two tweeters and a capacitor for filter and made some boxes from very dense & thick chipboard. covered in Formica in white and standing about 1m tall they certainly put out some bass. I guess they would be considered today as less than refined. I bought a second hand Leak amp and because of the Sunday evening top 20 show - a matching FM tuner. Moving into a new house some 5 years later I bought Rotel receiver and decided to buy a Goodmans Mezzo Twin Kit. 8" woofers and tweeter in a much smaller cabinet but made in the same way. Found some stands and was happy with a litle more refinement but a tad less bass. Comet supplied a Garrard 100SB TT and I made a 'box' for it. Removed the auto mechanism and played with rubber, wire and the like for some years. 10cc, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp et al are still some of my greatest albums.
I downsized when the Rotel played only one channel and bought a 5-1 Aiwa system as Dolby Pro Logic began to be broadcast. The fronts were decent speakers and only recently sold but the centre and rears needed to be extracted from their plastic cases and housed in wood. Adding extra speakers, tweeters and gain controls gave me a decent centre and two floorstanding rears which I have today employed as surround back in my present system.
I thought the purchase of a 'real' set of speakers was on the cards so AE Evo 5-1 speakers (which I am now trying to sell) were duly put to use with a Denon receiver. My first really decent 5-1 setup.
Most recently I replaced the AE's with Mordaunt Short's and the amp for a Yamaha 2065. Bluray Sony and I think for the first time I am really happy with the whole package. True there has been a few other bits. A Marantz CD player, DVD players and Panasonic DVD recorder but they are all gone now.
My biggest revelation I think in all these years is room treatment and now I have the kit (but not necessarily the room) to listen to a really nice system.
35 years on and a great deal of money later I am now retired and able to enjoy music and films to a level not imagined those years ago.
I could tell you a story of my travels into ICT & Computerland. But I won't.
Cheers
Thanks Cno - didnt think anyone would read it ! 10cc in concert in B'Ham were brilliant. Maybe we should open a 'Journey' Forum 
Cheers
My first "hifi" turntable was a kit, IIRC made by a company called Dual. You had to make your own base out of wood (they gave you a template) and I spent hours doing that. They were the simplest of things, belt driven and you changed the speed from 33 to 45 by moving the rubber belt to one of two different diameter cogs on the drive shaft. It actually sounded pretty good and it was all an impoverished student could afford.
Chris
OK I dunno why I'm writing this but I have 10mins to kill.
When I married in the early 70s I started my journey with an old 60's radiogram about 3ft long and real wood. I chopped it up for Bonfire night and made a box to house the amplifier. it worked. I was given 2 12" speakers. Not identical and a bit bashed but I bought two tweeters and a capacitor for filter and made some boxes from very dense & thick chipboard. covered in Formica in white and standing about 1m tall they certainly put out some bass. I guess they would be considered today as less than refined. I bought a second hand Leak amp and because of the Sunday evening top 20 show - a matching FM tuner. Moving into a new house some 5 years later I bought Rotel receiver and decided to buy a Goodmans Mezzo Twin Kit. 8" woofers and tweeter in a much smaller cabinet but made in the same way. Found some stands and was happy with a litle more refinement but a tad less bass. Comet supplied a Garrard 100SB TT and I made a 'box' for it. Removed the auto mechanism and played with rubber, wire and the like for some years. 10cc, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp et al are still some of my greatest albums.
I downsized when the Rotel played only one channel and bought a 5-1 Aiwa system as Dolby Pro Logic began to be broadcast. The fronts were decent speakers and only recently sold but the centre and rears needed to be extracted from their plastic cases and housed in wood. Adding extra speakers, tweeters and gain controls gave me a decent centre and two floorstanding rears which I have today employed as surround back in my present system.
I thought the purchase of a 'real' set of speakers was on the cards so AE Evo 5-1 speakers (which I am now trying to sell) were duly put to use with a Denon receiver. My first really decent 5-1 setup.
Most recently I replaced the AE's with Mordaunt Short's and the amp for a Yamaha 2065. Bluray Sony and I think for the first time I am really happy with the whole package. True there has been a few other bits. A Marantz CD player, DVD players and Panasonic DVD recorder but they are all gone now.
My biggest revelation I think in all these years is room treatment and now I have the kit (but not necessarily the room) to listen to a really nice system.
35 years on and a great deal of money later I am now retired and able to enjoy music and films to a level not imagined those years ago.
I could tell you a story of my travels into ICT & Computerland. But I won't.
Cheers
Started hi-fi building around the late 70s and still have evidence of my murky past, including a Garrard turntable and the Marantz tuner which still works fine (over the past couple of weeks may have picked up a fault). Nice to have some sort of direct reference...http://www.whathifi.com/forum/your-system/hears-my-basic-set-up
My first concert was Dr. Feelgood in 1975. I was just 12.
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Hi Robin
It's great to read about your hi-fi journey. Though younger, I have been into this ridiculous hobby for around the same length length of time, and given the music you've referred to, suspect our listening habits aren't a mile away.
Cno
"Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again." André Gide