Where's the Strangest Place or Weirdest Way You've Met an Audiobuddy?

[MylesBAstor]

Gosh the longer I'm in the hobby, the more stories I have to tell.

But this week was a good one.

I left my reading glasses--and I'm blind as a bat without them--at Bob Visintainer's store the other day. When I got home, I realized I had probably left my glasses downtown and emailed Bob to see if he had found them; indeed he had. Bob replied he had to drop something off at a customer's home in the upper East Side and if I was home, he'd drop my glasses by too on Thursday. Bob asked for my address and I told him xx1; Bob sent a note saying you won't believe this but my customer is at xx2. It turns out that that the person moving into the newly rennovated townhouse directly across the street is not only an audiophile but a brand new Magico speaker owner. Imagine that! Two Magico owners on one block in Manhattan! Ha! Guess I'm going to have to introduce myself and offer him a listen to my system if he's Jonesing for an audio fix while his new home is being finished!

[Ki Choi]

Poor guy... his is doomed...now that Myles is going to corrupt his mind and drain his wallet with millions of records he needs to buy... I guess that's life though.

[mep]

That is a good story. What are the odds?

[MylesBAstor]

I thought it was one of those small world stories.

[Ki Choi]

I had mentioned elsewhere but I met one of my audio buddies after emailing for a long time in Stockholm. He was one of the key persons at the Forsell and I needed parts for my Air Reference Turntable.

I talked wife into stopping in Stockholm for cultural reasons during one of our vacations and happened to run into him. What's the odd of that happening?

[mep]

I had mentioned elsewhere but I met one of my audio buddies after emailing for a long time in Stockholm. He was one of the key persons at the Forsell and I needed parts for my Air Reference Turntable.

I talked wife into stopping in Stockholm for cultural reasons during one of our vacations and happened to run into him. What's the odd of that happening?

Yeah-that was purely by accident.

[MylesBAstor]

I think how I met my audiobuddy Sanji (who I hope will join us here) is a great story too. Several years ago, I was travelling to LA to accept a personal training award and I happened to mention on Facebook about my pending trip. One of my audiobuddies mentioned oh BTW that's Record Store Day and was I planning to hit any of the stores while I was out CA way? I replied probably not since I wasn't renting a car (you Californians know about those things). Out of the blue, one of my FB audiobuddies who I had never met in my life chimed in and volunteered to take me around LA that Sunday. Sanji spent the whole day with me, picking me up at the Roosevelt Hotel and taking me first to Amoeba Records in Hollywood followed next by a visit to Sunny's Audio and Video (Sunil Merchant) to listen to a variety of great sounding systems. That was followed by a great lunch at a local Mexican place finishing up that day at the grand re-opening of Brooks Brooks Berdans' store where once again had the pleasure of listening to more great audio systems as well as the opening of their huge record store. What a day, what a nice guy and what a great hobby we have, especially if we stay enthusiastic and positive!

[MylesBAstor]

I had mentioned elsewhere but I met one of my audio buddies after emailing for a long time in Stockholm. He was one of the key persons at the Forsell and I needed parts for my Air Reference Turntable.

I talked wife into stopping in Stockholm for cultural reasons during one of our vacations and happened to run into him. What's the odd of that happening?

What did it cost you? More or less than Kobe?

[JackD201]

When I was a congressman, one day I sat beside a colleague in the lounge. We were talking shop and somehow talk turned to hobbies. It turns out that he too was into audio and that we actually had the same brand of loudspeakers. 6 years later he became President.

[Response Audio]

In a nursing home. I.was there seeing my now non wife and there a guy there that spend 3 very hour with his mom who.was a resident there. We got talking and he is a true audiophile. He was in the process of having a new custom preamp designed for him

[MylesBAstor]

Ki will appreciate how I corrupted this individual. It's not quite, however, the Reader's Digest version.

It was back in the probably the late '80s and my research group had a collaborative project going with a group at MRC Harwell outside London. I was visiting them on business and got to meet the chemist responsible for their chemotherapy drug project. Terry and I went out after work to the local pub to hoist and few and got to talking. One thing led to another and I found out that Terry and I had a lot in common including being audiophiles and rabidly anti-digital. At the time, Terry owned a typical Brit system with Linn Isobariks, NAIM electronics and a Linn table.

Now here's where it gets good Ki! Upon my return from the UK, I bought Terry a subscription to TAS and had it sent to him as a present. Not long after Terry (well however long in those days that it took TAS to publish and send a copy) sent me a thank you (yes you can tell how long ago that was) with a note adding how amazing it was to read about equipment he never heard about. Remember this was long before most American equipment was shipped overseas. What amazed him the most was this tube gear.

So it happened when Terry was attending attending a meeting in the US that he was able to stop in NY on his way back to London and check out my system then consisting of a pair of cj MV75A1 amplifiers/Premier 3/Modded Maggies 3As and a VPI HW19/ET-2 arm/AQ 404 cartridge. Terry was stunned and left saying that for the first time realized what that "tube magic" was that people talked and wrote about.

Long story short, he arranged to buy and have a pair of Magnepan MG3As sent over to London, order a HW-19 and ET arm and Audioquest cartridge. He didn't go cj but did go tube buying the Beard tube amplifier and preamplifier. Quite a turn around for a British audiophile back then!

[Rob]

this is neither strange or weird. My good audio buddy and I met at an audio store (surprise). he was commenting to his lady friend about the VPI TNT on display, he went on to babble about how his then (Linn LP12) 'table was so much more musical...this and that, yada, yada (this was 25+ yrs ago). I usually don't cut into conversations with strangers but I had to ask him if he had actually heard the TNT. I detected a "right coast" accent, he confirmed he was a New Yawker (an annoying one at that).

In conversation we discovered we had a few mutual interests and against my better judgement, exchanged phone numbers. It didn't take two days before he called me and we ended up chatting for 2+ hours about audio esp turntables. Unil then I don't think I've ever talked to a girlfriend for that long regardless of how interested I acted over the phone. Long story short, today we have a lot more in common than audio and he has become a close friend and confidant. He'll tell you I rarely take his audio advice and just do my own thing (true!). He'll probably also say I do not suffer fools gladly if its a topic i'm passionate about and he's loathe to debate it (it cuts both ways, politics for one). Tweaks, accessories, cables and "audio doodads" as I call them are his thing, and not mine. he likes to discuss minutiae and I'm more into the gestalt. The other day he called me with an epiphany about the importance of active isolation devices, I took the side of the antagonist and the conversation degraded from there (i think he was about to hang up on me at least twice LOL). Our middle ground is an insatiable appetite for music and collecting Vinyl among other interests. He doesn't' 'do' message 'boards and we're all the better for it (don't tell him I said that).

[MylesBAstor]

Tower Records was hands down the place where I met the most audiobuddies; every time I pass the former site, a wave of sadness comes over me for that store contained so many near and dear memories. From the days the doors opened to the day they closed, I met new audiobuddies. From audiophiles to music lover to the store staff. In fact, Tower was the place I first met Wes Phillips and the first audio article he wrote was for me in The Audiophile Voice way back when. Then there was George Stanwick who went from Tower to Stereo Exchange to being the US importer van den Hul for the better part of a decade. Then there was Dave Smith who went from Tower to Stereo Exchange to being the first manager of the Cello salon in New York. Then there was meeting Sid Marks in one of the record bins and remarking no Casino Royales there! (of course for some reason, the NY stores had almost all the Film Music Classic Series (?)). And so many more!

[MylesBAstor]

How about audio shows? Meet any audiobuddies there?

[JackD201]

How about audio shows? Meet any audiobuddies there?

Oh boy. LOTS! Our room is the local equivalent of Greg's room minus the tape. It's mostly exhibitors only so over time the community got rather close. Amazing how so many of teh guys are great cooks. Combine that with the healthy number of oenophiles and you can imagine the fun we have together at each other's houses even when there is no music playing.

Myles, if you visit us here, I'll personally drive you to the gym every morning LOL