What was the game changer for me, a loan.
Right after I got married in 1984 I found a really righteous deal on a set of used DQ-10s at Audio Exchange in Roosevelt Field. The 40 watt Yamaha integrated amp I had at the time was simply not enough to drive them, so I ended up buying Hafler 110 pre and 220 power amp kits and building them myself. Having never owned anything better than a pair of $80 Lafayette speakers before, I was in hog heaven. I had a Thorens 105 , had just discovered MoFi records and was thinking to myself, it doesn't get much better than this. At the time my friend Jimmy (who you now know here as jimbones) was into high end audio and kept telling me, it doesn't sound bad, but you could really use another preamp. I though he was crazy. The engineering part of my brain said its only a volume control, what could a more expensive preamp possibly do? And so I just kind of blew off his suggestions.
Well Jim wasn't about to give up that easily. Not too long after that Jim got married and right before the wedding packed up all of his audio gear to move it out of his mother's house with the intention setting it up of in their new apartment when he returned from his honeymoon. The day before his wedding Jimmy showed up at my door with an Audio Research box in his hands. He said I need someone to babysit this for a week or so. Why don't you put it in your system and listen to it while I'm away. Again I thought he was crazy, but we had had the preamp discussion so many times that I figured I would plug it in just to shut him up. I wired it in, let it warm up for a while and then put on a record to listen to. I didn't get 10 seconds into the first cut before I was saying to myself, Son of a bitch, I really do need a new preamp.......
And the rest is history.
But the story does not end there, as Karma has a way of evening things out. We both bought houses, had kids and fell away from the audio to some extent as parental duties demanded more of our time. Jimmy more so than me. About ten years or so ago Jimmy pretty much washed his a hands of the hobby. He would listen from time to time, but decided that his system was what it was and there was no need to touch it anymore. Then in the fall of 2009 I found a deal I could not pass up on a pair of Theil CS-6s. So my son Bobby and myself drove from Long Island up to Framingham Mass brought them home to set up in the Man Cave. I was thrilled with them and one of the first people I invited over for a listening session was Jim. After listening to these speakers and not too long later the ARC VT-200 tube amp Jimmy was once again bitten by the Nervosa bug... big time.
And since then, I think he has upgraded everything in his audio room with the exception of the carpet.
Payback's a bitch.
