[Wayner]

I started working for my dads' friend Ralph, on Saturdays when I was in seventh grade in high school. He was a master electricaian, did TV and radio repair, installed 2-way radios, wired residential and comercial buildings and was cheif engineer for 2 local AM/FM radio stations. I didn't like cleaning up the basement repair room much, but it was a gas to go to the radio stations and sit with the DJ's while Ralph did some modifications to the sound board or something like that.

I put my first Dynaco Pat-4 and Stereo 120 together under his watchful eye. Of course, I loved rock and roll from the beginning and still enjoy music from the late 60's thru the 80's and a few from todays era. Music was fun then. I also bought my first pair of speakers to go with the Dynaco electronics, the AR-2Ax was the choise. I also had an ARXA turntable. Not a bad match but would have rather gone with a pair of Dynaco A25's at the time. The ARs were fun, though.

In my later years, Frank Van Alstine was an influence. He lived down the road a bit and I have enjoyed his equipment and conversation. He is very dedicated to music reproduction and he has incredable drive in creating products.

Also must mention the wife. She sits and listens to vinyl with me almost every night, at least for awhile. It is nice to have someone else share the hobbie with and talk about electronics and bands. She can also tell when a tweak works or not.
 

[tyee]

I blame "Millers" sound store, a 7" Sony Reel to Reel tape deck, JBL L100 Speakers ( I think that was the model), and The Doobie Brothers, "Listen to the Music". That did it, could not stop and haven't till this day!

[nodiak]

Same for me as with others starting into music as a child - singing in choir, school, trumpet in band class, guitar in kid bands in mid '60's. Thanks music teachers! As a teen good audio was putting the speakers from the Garrard suitcase system in the back window of the car hooked up to the 8 track! An Alpine car system in the early '80's was quite a big thrill I remember.
In '86 my friend Doug saw my 6x9's in the smallest possible box in my car. He said we can make a better box than that, introduced me to Speaker Builder mag and it's wealth of info and heroes. We started spending weekends building speakers, eventually I started selling speakers to fund the new habit. Projects from SB, and a few kits from Audio Concepts. A lot of pyramid and sonotube based shapes, some kooky paint jobs. Had fun with it for a few years. Bought decent budget electronics, Dual integrated amp and tt, Sony cassette deck, same level of cdp when cd's came out. Graduated to Van Alstine ss pre and amp, Scanspeak speakers (from North Creek) in '95. Recently into tubes. Still make speakers for friends at times.
~ 3 years ago got into online forums and have been learnng about the complete system and room. Etc. Thanks all!

Don   

[togil]

An enthusiastic salesman at a department store in Munich in 1965 who imported McIntosh, Marantz, Fisher and Sherwood from the US when the concept of Hi Fi was still largely unknown in Europe...

[ThomDP]

Since their are no audiophiles in my family or friends I have to compliment the following sources.

Hifi Choice magazine back in the early to mid 90's. At that time there was no better mag for budget to mid level audiophiles with more enthusiastic writers and their still may not be.

The online community. There is no greater resource for me than what you guys think and have experienced.

Dennis

[shep]

My upstairs neighbor who came to visit one day, took one look at my boombox and said he would not darken my door again unless...I wandered after him to see what the fuss was about and was confronted with a rather jolly system comprised of some early Pro-acs, Conrad J. amp and pre. and a decent TT. I was totally chagrined. He then proceeded to wear down my resistance until one day he took out "the dice man" and dared me to dice for a "real" system! I did and "lost" and had to fork out about 2000$, which was a lot at the time. Followed endless issues of TAS and Stereophile. The rest is history.

[avahifi]

Robert Fulton, who else!

May he rest in peace.  He tought everyone he could how to listen and had amazing unusual speaker designs that really were worth listening to, and a whole lot more.

Helping him with a live recording session, and following that all the way through the process of coming up with the finished record was an instant education.  What better  A - B experience than the live performance vs: the finished record playback.

An amazing man.

Frank Van Alstine

[Soundbitten]

Surprisingly , one of my ex-wives got me into audio .

The downside was that she took the stereo with her when she left .      

[denjo]

"Mentor" is defined as a person/source that is a wise and trusted guide and advisor, usually a teacher or trusted counselor.

I think that there has been no better mentor (and no better mentoring process) than to experience the school of "hard knocks", to make some painful decisions, to learn from them and to move on. Discussion forums and the like are a great place to start but one must always be mindful that no matter how sincere our intentions might be, we all come with some biases and prejudices. At the end of the day, we must remember that it is our ears we should begin to trust and at the end of the day it is our pair of ears that will have to live with our audio decisions.

[richidoo]

Albert Fuccillo. Serious audiophile in disguise as mailman, algebra teacher, rock fan, loving mentor to all of his students.  I had him for 9th grade and 12th grade math. I remember making a Christmas card for him by drawing a huge stereo system the same size as the imagination of a 14yo on the inside. He gave me an old ratty copy of some stereo magazine. Made me think being an audiophile was cool, not nerdy at all. Thinking back 25 years, yeah I guess he was pretty nerdy after all, and so was I!!    I started visiting tech hifi around that time, thinking maybe someday I can have a set of Ohm speakers... Fooch was the coolest teacher in the high school, we got to be good friends having hifi as a common interest. Thank goodness because we certainly didn't have math as a common interest.

Rich ("Doc")

[tanchiro58]

It was in West Germany 1982 I visited an audio store called "Revox Audio" and listened to an old time audio system and wondered why these huge and heavy electronic stuffs sounded so good (to my ears) than my JVC stereo boombox. But when I took a look at the prices and said my goodness these costed more than my three month paychecks. Then I thought I have to be someone special with "fat pocket" so I can afford them. After so many years playing with my stereo boombox and worked hard until the year of 2000 walked into an Hi-end audio store to purchase my first hi-end entry level system consisted of C.J, McIntosh, Sonic Frontiers and Cabasse... That was my story of my "mentor myself" to get involved in this addicted hobby.