How Did You Get Here?

[Laudanum]

Vinyl and cassette in the late 70's through 80's with a Technics SL-D2, Sansui Receiver and ESS and CV speakers.  Car audio in the late 80's through 90's where I first began soldering and building speaker cabs and cables.  Interest in tube gear peaked by a company called Milbert that made an all tube car audio amplifier and Butler audio that made a hybrid.  I never owned one but the cool glow peaked my interest and I found that vintage and new tube gear was still pretty big in home audio.  Around 2000 I picked up a Kalamazoo Bass 30 tube bass amp and somehow managed to fix it with some forum help.  Makes a better guitar amp with a pedal ahead of it than a bass amp.  Then a Scott tube integrated I managed to restore.  Then back into vinyl with Music Hall table and I almost bought the Seduction back then but bought the Haggerman Cornet instead ... Sorry guys, I just wasnt patient enough to wait.  Im still not patient when it comes to waiting.  Picked up a Jolida Hybrid integrated, built several speakers, both full rangers and conventional, A DIY tube 35, a little S5, got an Ah Tjoeb cheap because it didnt work and fixed that (a wire was loose), a couple other tube CDP's ... a hiatus from spending money and building anything new for several years.  Finally, decided I needed a headphone system and I headed here first, just on a whim figuring that Bottlehead had to have a Headphone amp by now with the popularity of phones these days.  I was right, you had two.  Bought the Crack kit which was just supposed to be fed by a digital player but has quickly turned into a full blown second system for the lazy chair with a TT, CDP and the Digital player and Crack, Seduction and FPIII.  I still cant really read a schematic but I can follow some of them and along with a little help I have managed to get by fine.  But I can solder and I can follow directions and Crack, Seduction and FPIII all worked on first flip of the switch.  And I do know what throws me off the most about tube based schematics ... It's that they only show 1/2 the circuit.  Eventhough the other 1/2 is the same, Im too visual of a person.  I need to see the whole thing, then maybe I would have a better shot at figuring it out.

Anyway ... sure glad you guys are still here.  Wish I was more patient back then, and smarter.  Bottlehead gear is still a bargain today but things were less expensive back then.  $99 for the FP ... c'mon, what a bawgen dat vuz.  More patience and smarts back then and I probably would have had a bunch of Bottlehead stuff already before I ever hunted you guys down again for the headphone amp (turned second system).  

[ttucker329]

I ran across Steve Guttenberg's article on the Quickie at CNET and the rest was history!

[Chris]

Well Grainger.... you can chalk up another one for Harvey.... I received an email from him suggesting , IF i was wanting to get into the kits... he had one word and one word only.... Bottlehead... so I share your experience...

[4krow]

Maxwell,
  There is 'support' for the weird here. As Earwaxer and myself can attest, 'think I'm weird now? I've already been helped.'
 Ok, I had noticed BH from time to time over the years, but only recently, Tuffy Puppy, aka Don Pettit, steered me here. Don and I got aquanted at the Decware site, but wanted more, at least in a different direction. I can't tell you guys enough how great this site and members are. It means a great deal to me, and don't ever think that all of my questions are just dropped at some point. That would lead you to think that might have wasted time by answering. Not true! It guides the curious(me) to greater experience and enjoyment. 'What if' will never leave my head, and this is by far the best resource for help and answers.

[Pfenning]

I've spent my whole life as a DIYer and HiFi enthusiast. To the best of my memory, I stumbled on to the Electronic Tonalities (Bottlehead) website around 1997. At the time I had 2 Krell amps, some PSB speakers, a Cal Audio tube DAC and transport, and some preamp. I was working lots of overtime trying to assemble a system based on Stereophile recommended components, and was really pretty happy with the results. I convinced my wife to purchase a Foreplay kit ($99) and a Paramour kit for me ($349 I think) for Christmas, I believe. I had no idea what I was getting other than there was a very enthusiastic group of people on this forum singing the praises of these components. I grabbed the Whamodyne speaker design and ordered up those cheap MCM drivers, because I knew my PSB speakers wouldn't cut it with only 3.5 watts. I have to admit, the thought of an aluminum cone driver made me shutter. After all I was a Stereophile reader, there's no way this will sound as good as my PSB's. I built the speakers over Christmas break in an ice cold garage ( I live in Nebraska, so it really was ice cold). I new the ET kits would have to sit if I built them first, so I knocked out the speakers in a couple weekends. My kits were wrapped nicely under the tree on Christmas morning, and I tore into them like a kid! I was so excited. My wife then told me that she had talked to Eileen at Bottlehead when she ordered them, and Eileen had went out of her way to make sure they arrived in time for Christmas. As she told the story of the great interaction with Eileen, she admitted to waiting way to long to order the kits. Eileen made sure the got out and they arrived Christmas eve day. I began the assembly of the Foreplay, and over the next 3-4 weeks, I built the Foreplay and Paramours in stock form. I had an old Marantz receiver I snagged from the goodwill for $25, and I played the Whamodynes in my dungeon of a basement while I built the kits. I was surprised at the sound they put out, but didn't really pay much attention to them. I was focused on getting the kits done. Once they were finished I set them up in the dungeon on a cinder block DIY rack. I hooked up my very first CD player (vintage 1985, I purchased when I was 15 years old for like $400. Insane!) and turned on all the power. As I rolled the volume up I was pumped! It worked! I sat down in a folding chair, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was blown away! This meager hand built by me system was killing my main system that had I spent crazy amounts of money on. I was in love with the sound. It didn't take long before I started on modifications based around reports on the forum, and it just kept getting better. As time went on, my Stereophile components were sold off, and I worked to get the most out of my Bottlehead system. Fast forward about 15 years, to the present, I have a much nicer basement now, but the same Foreplay and Paramours. The Foreplay has a string of mods I likely can't remember, and I just installed C4S and upgraded iron in my Paramours this year, after waiting 5 or 6 years, because I never wanted to be without the amps. C4S and iron was a huge upgrade to say the least. Maybe someday I'll feel the urge to try out Paramount or whatever else Doc and the guys come up with, but for now I'm set on amps. I did purchase a Foreplay 3 to replace my current Foreplay, but I haven't built it yet. I just finished a Crack amp, and am getting ready to start modifying it. My current system also has Seduction with C4S, a DIY turntable based around the Teres motor kit, and Pi stage 4 speakers. It's the best system I have ever heard at any price. Bottlehead has a lifelong customer in me. Thank you for your wonderful products and customer support, your truly a world class group of people. I can't wait for my kids to get a bit older so we can start building some kits together, and I can expose them to this wonderful hobby.


Pfenning          

[Doc B.]

Wow, thanks for such kind words! Our customers are the reason we keep pecking away at this weird little niche business - your enthusiasm rubs off on us.

[casanis]

My first experience with the bottlehead name came from auditioning a pair of 1976 Klipsch Cornwalls at a gentlemens house.

I told the wife I was going to need the station wagon to go to work that day because they were discarding a few odds and ends that I wanted to take home (I work in a television studio).

The gentleman who auditioned the cornwalls for me had the bottlehead paramour II's setup.

I arrived home that evening with some rather large speakers, and an itch to follow-up on this wonderful new name "bottlehead". Found this forum, and since that time, I have built the Foreplay III and am in the process of putting together the Paramount kit right now!

[Jim R.]

Pfenning,

What a great story -- thanks for sharing that with us.  I'm on very much the same path having just sold off my Shindo amp in preparation for an almost all bottlehead system.  Getting back to my DIY roots and all that.  For me it is a confluence of several different factors -- one is that I've just never been wowwed in proportion to what I've spent on high-end gear (though the shindo was an exception but way expensive for somebody in my shoes). Two is that the more I come to understand what is going into the bottlehead gear, the engineering, the choices made, the custom iron, and the inherent tweakability/voiceability of the gear to my liking.  Third would be the fact that I can also customize the looks and appearance to my tastes, but most of all it is the performance and sound quality -- price notwithstanding.  Of course the idea of building it myself is also very appealing.  I do also have to mention that a good part of my currennt motivation has been the speakers that Clark Blumenstein makes and their synergy with bottlehead gear -- this is the icing on the cake, and together with the bh gear promises an audio system that I will, probably for the first time, think of as end-game audio.

I don't need jewelry, bragging rights or a system to wow the friends and neighbors (ever notice how most people who are not into audio don't really care at all what the system sounds like anyway?) I want a sound that impresses and relaxes me and that can play my favorite musics in such a way that I don't even have to think of gear anymore.

So, now as we plan to move to a new house, it is a great time to part with the old, re-evaluate, simplify, and add a level of consistency to the entire system and then spend the time honing it as necessary.

Of course the great community here, the great service and integrity of the folks at BH, are also important and just make it all the more worthwhile.

-- Jim