How about a brief story as to how we came to be interested in Home Theater or Stereo?

I started in high school, walking through Price Club (now COSTCO), and looking at the stereos. I looked at all the AIWA and other such all-in-one bookshelf systems, but then I saw to things that changed my life (how's that for drama?). I saw a TEAC receiver (100 watts/ch) for $149.00, and a pair of KLH speakers (FOUR 8" woofers, two in front, two in back, 5 1/2" midrange, 1" tweeter) for $300.00/pr. I bought those and rocked! My parents built a room for me in the detached garage because I was too annoying.

That's how it all started. Here is a list of equipment that I have or have had:
TEAC receiver
TEAC 5 disc CD changer
KLH tower speakers
Polk Audio 10" sub
Infinity bookshelf speakers (2 pairs)
Infinity center channel
Harman/Kardon receiver (I loved this piece)
Pioneer LD player
Phillips 27" TV
Hitachi Hi-Fi VCR
Atlantic Tech 12" sub
*Pair of Definitive Technology 15" subs
DefTech towers (BP6?)
Energy Take 5 (not energy sub, though)
Polk Audio bi/di-polar surrounds
*Sony 5 disc CD changer
*Toshiba DVD player (first year's model)
*Toshiba progressive scan DVD (5700)
*Mitsubishi 55" HDTV
*Atlantic Technology 370 THX speaker system
*Kenwood DD/DTS receiver (can't stand - I bought for digital decoding, which was brand new when I got it, but now I can't wait to get funds together for 950/770)

*-Indicates that I still own.

There may be some more items I missed, but that's pretty thorough. My friends and family love me, because I have never sold any of my gear - I just give it away.

Anyway, I would be interested in reading about other people and how they got addicted, and where there journey has taken them.

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Benjamin King
benjaminking@yahoo.com

I started out around 1987. Met a guy at work and he leant me a couple of Absolute Sound and Stereophile magazines. I was off and running!
*B&K ST 202 Amp
B&K Pre amp (hated this after a while- cheesey RCA jacks)
*Rotel RCD855
*Acoustic Reasearch Turntable
Nakamichi BX 300 cassete deck
Technics speakers
*Cambridge Soundworks Towers
*Cambridge Soundworks Center Stage
*Cambridge Soundworks Newton 300's for rear channels
*Panasonic DVD

I had a 10 year hiatus due to marriage, unemployment, kids, etc.
Glad to back into HT and to have found products and sights like this one!

I've had a Magnovox portable stereo since 1995. I didn't really get into anything until I purchased my own computer during college in 2000. I upgraded from the standard set to Creative Labs FPS2000 pretty quickly. I used those for a couple years (remember, in college we had no money really!).

I made a friend there who was nuts about home theater and he got me into it more. For my final semester last fall, I bought a set of Klipsch 5.1 ProMedias (it's really a computer set) and hooked them up to my DVD player. My room was 12'x12', so these had more than enough power to fill it, and the rooms next door. I could hear the sub 5 rooms down. The guy in the next room had a some type of Klipsch HT sub. His was more powerful, but I thought it sounded horribly muddy compared to mine. Maybe his placement was just bad.

Anyway, last Christmas I recieved a pair of Bose 301s that I put into my current setup as the mains. Now, I have the Klipsch set up in my room hooked to my computer with a new Sound Blaster Audigy card. Holy cripes is it loud. Before, they could make my ears feel a little funny and leave a ringing, but with this card in there it just hurts to leave it up all the way. DVDs sound great, CDs distort a bit too easy (MP3s sound a hair better for some reason @128 Mbit encoding).

Now I am in the market for a reciver and am waiting for my tax return to come so I can afford it.

My equipment:
TV: Panasonic 27"
(DVD actually on parents TV, but it's the same type)
DVD: Toshiba SD2200
VCR: Panasonic something good
Speakers: Bose 301

Computer:
Dell Dimension XPST 700 MHz PIII
512 MB RAM
17" Dell Trinitron (read Sony) monitor
SB Audigy sound card
Hercules GeForce 2 GTS video card
Toshiba M1216 DVD drive (I think)
Klipsch Promedia 5.1 speakers

Want to upgrade to a screaming fast machine as soon as I get a good job. I'm very happy to be in the HT game and glad to be in the Outlaw forum.

[This message has been edited by BenjaminRigby (edited May 05, 2002).]

I thought I might update my equipment list. I still have all the things listed in the last post and now have:

Receiver: Marantz SR6200 (please don't hate me!)

Speakers
Mains: Mirage OM-5
Center: Bose VCS10 (soon to be upgraded to Mirage OM-C2)
Surrounds: Bose 301 (These used to be the mains).

Has anyone else heard of Mirage? I think they are fantastic.

I had a 45 player when I was a kid. Didn't play 33s, only 45s. Not sure who made it, but I think it might have been Fisher Price. Did they ever make record players? Anyway, I had a bunch of Billy Joel singles for it that I used to listen to over and over again. Of course, being a kid, they're all scratched as hell now and worthless. But it still brings back some interesting memories...

Well, there's *my* bit of audio nostalgia... I know it can't quite match up to some of you guys'.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Matthew Hill:
[B]I had a 45 player when I was a kid. Didn't play 33s, only 45s.
I had sorta the same thing. It was an old record player back in the 60's. It looked like a typewriter and had two 2" speakers in each corner above the turntable. I plopped down my first 45 ever-"Im a beliver" by the monkees! Man Im really getting old...

My family had a "hi-fi". It was a turntable (record-player as they were called then) with 2 speakers attached. It folded into sort of a suitcase, and the speakers buckled closed to the sides. Then my older brother (by 12 yrs) went to college. He came home with a Sansui integrated amp, a Pioneer tuner,Altec Lansing speakers, and a Dual turntable (1973). I was hooked. I was 15 when I needed a Sony receiver, a Technics turntable and tape deck, and a beautiful pair of EPI speakers. From there I moved to Klipsch Fortes and Kg4s, NAD electronics all around, a Dual turntable and an AudioControl EQ. That 2 channel system lasted until my wife asked for smaller speakers or in-walls. She got Klipsch Quintets (don't laugh, if set up in the right spot they sound really sweet) and I got an SVS 16-46 PCi. In the last few months I picked up a brand new Parasound HCA 855 amp and hope to get my Outlaw 950 in a few days. We went to DVD and moved the old stereo to the basement.Also included was a Behringer BFD for the sub. I don't upgrade like others here, mainly because my NAD is sweet. I do, however, follow the industry, and finally decided I needed to dive into surround sound.

[This message has been edited by willscary (edited September 12, 2002).]

This would make a great forum. I have always loved music and electronics but it wasn't until October of 1976 that I got really hooked. Pioneer had a travelling display of equipment that they set up in the college rathskelter, WOW what an impression! In less than a month I owned a Pioneer receiver and Advent speakers. The receiver was rated at 15 watts/channel, but then wattage was very expensive. By December I owned a direct-drive Technics turntable, (god I loved this thing). Since then it has turned into a passion. You should have seen my wife's expression when I first moved all my equipment into our apartment. She couldn't understand why all the steps just to play an album, and then to adjust the pitch using the built in strobe! However, after a few months she began to notice how poorly music sounded on other set-ups. Since then she has tolerated all my upgrades over the past 20 years and truely appreciates the advances. Hell, she's learned tricks that I didn't even know my components were capable of.