[Rasta]

Ok fun topic - what component really changed your perspective on audio - popped your top - flipped your lid -  tweaked your toes - and changed you forever?

What is/was your high water mark for audio.  Are you still searching?  If so, what do you think it would sound like?

For me, it was hearing a believable waveform through my Shindo Montille amp.  It's not the detail, not the energy, but the accuracy to natural sound that blew me away and still does.

[JLM]

Irving M. Fried Model H speakers (1976).  That was the year I started my quest for high-end audio and went speaker shopping.  Thought I knew what kind of sound I wanted (the expensive, artificial, big hi-fi equipment, initially impressive bass/treble stuff that most brands still strive for). 

The Model H (satellite/sub) changed all that.  The small standmounts ("satellites") were from the LS3/5A school of design, a later modification added aperiodic vents.  They did the disappearing/imaging stuff like nobody's business and gave a sweet/detailed sound.  The sub was the famous coffin design, left and right mass loaded transmission lines (MLTL) laying side by side provided incredibly deep/musical bass.  They were capable of 500 wpc input, 114 dB output down to 17 Hz.

I've been with MLTL speakers ever since.  It was my first audio ephiphany.

[soundbitten1]

Dunlavy Athenas . I felt I could play anything through them and they would sound good . I do and they still do .   

[BrianM]

Watching Leonard Bernstein conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich's Symphony no. 7 (1989 I beleve) and concluding once and for all that no stereo system can ever hope to recreate the pulverizing acoustic mayhem that a handful of world-class brass players + percussion can unleash on a room. My ears rang the rest of the night.

[TheChairGuy]

A Townshend Rock turntable (I think it was a Mk. II version)....with a Helius tonearm and cheap modded Grado cartridge.  I had no idea vinyl could create such impact, bass and dynamics up until that point. 

That was 1988 or so 

John

[John151]

An audition at a Linn dealer about 20 years ago got me started, and it has been struggle ever since.  Seems like I am chasing a moving target.  The more I learn (er, spend),  the further away the target becomes.   

If I had to pick a single component, it would be the Linn LP12.  An A/B with a CD player of the time blew me away.  While this was a long time ago, the LP12 still stands out in my mind as showing how much better good gear sounds than the basic stuff sold at Best Buy. 

[Eric]

When I heard some Audio valve Challengers with a Kora pre and Metronome CDP along with Jags

[Wind Chaser]

John Iverson's Electro Research EK-1 strain gauge pick up system.

Acoustat Model 2 when they were finally set up correctly.

My first SET - Decware Zen

My first full range single driver, Ed Schilling's HornShoppe Horn.

My first open baffle with the Visaton B200.

The little Tripath amps - great sound for next to nothing.

Sony PS1 - phenomenal sound for virtually nothing.

With the exception of the PS1, none of the above remains.  My new digs don't have an ideal listening room, but I'm off to a good start as I now possess a very nice OB mini monitor which can be quickly moved in and out of place as required.

[TomS]

In terms of a system I spent a lot of time with, many years ago...

SOTA Star, ET2 arm, Denon 103d
Electrocompaniet preamp
Two Electrocompaniet AmpliWire amps (stereo amps) vertically biamped
Vandersteen 2Ci's on Sound Anchors stands

It was incredibly stark and unassuming to look at, but what came out of them was nothing but music, music, music!

No fireworks or bombastic exaggerations there, but a pleasure to listen to every time I sat down after a long day at work or a week on the road.  No tweaking needed either.

Tom

[Marbles]

Too many to name them all

some that come to mind are: the Empirical Audio modded Perp Tech P3a DAC

Dodd Battery based tube pre

nOrh marble 9.0 speakers

[*Scotty*]

My first experience with High Fidelity sound was from a pair of Tympani 1-D loudspeakers driven by Audio Research electronics and a Linn TT.
List of speakers that defined my expectations of High Fidelity sound for a lot years.
Dahlquist DQ10s
Infinity Holosonic Monitors with Walsh tweeter
Ohm F,
DCM Timewindows with RH Lab servo sub
MGIII with RH Labs Sub.
Scotty

[vman71]

Tubes completely changed my audio world.  Some specific models include:

Eico HF-81
H.H. Scot 222C
John Hogan 6sn7/27/300B SET

The music I hear with tubes and horns is beautiful.

[zacster]

After going to many dealers over the years, and never feeling like anything I owned sounded anything at all like what I heard in the stores, I bought a Bottlehead Foreplay tube preamp kit.  It cost all of $150 and it changed everything.  Suddenly there was a 3 dimensional sound that I never heard before, and this was with all my other gear being the same.  It didn't take long before I bought a power amp, an ST-70, and then modified the hell out of it until it was no longer an ST-70.  I recently also bought a tube dac.

In a word, TUBES.  SS just sounds like hi-fi to me now, tubes sound like music.