Ramblings.

Welcome to Issue 100. For this milestone issue, I have asked our contributors to look back over the past quarter-century or so of their involvement with this hobby and reflect on some of the experiences that they have had. As you will see, many of them responded, each in a different fashion.

For my own part, I have some memories and observations to share. I can still recall meeting with John Horan some years back when we were in the process of preparing Issue 50; we were both amazed that the magazine had made it that far. It very nearly hadn't. That meeting does not seem that long ago, but now another 50 issues have come and gone.

My subscription to The Sensible Sound began back in 1977 with Issue #2. I was thinking about buying a pair of DCM Time Windows and when I saw a classified ad in Audio magazine that indicated that those speakers were reviewed in this new "underground" publication, I decided to subscribe. One thing quickly led to another, and by Issue 3, my first review appeared (a Garrard turntable, as I recall, was the first piece ever sent to me for review, but my first printed review may have been of a dbx compander that I already owned. I honestly can't remember for sure).

And yes, I did wind up buying the Time Windows. One of the thought questions I gave to the staff for this issue was "what were your all-time favorite speakers." In some ways, the Time Windows were my favorite. I loved the way they sounded, I loved the way they looked, and I can't help but think that if they were plopped in my living room right now, I would still love them.

But were they my most exciting speaker purchase? Probably not. That honor would have to go to the (audiophiles should immediately skip to the next paragraph) Bose 901s that I used a good chunk of my Army re-enlistment bonus to purchase early in 1972. My wife and I had listened to countless speakers, and had nearly purchased a pair of KLHs (5s, I think), but could just not get around the fact that we liked the Bose the best. We liked the spacious sound, and we liked the way the 901s never seemed to spit the trebles at us the way many of the speakers did (we still recall hearing the early Infinity POS 1 speakers--JAH loves to recount the story of how those were so designated--and being amazed that anyone would think of buying a speaker with such an obnoxious, sibilant, tiresome top end).

Actually, at the time we bought the 901s, we already had a nice little system. Not long after arriving in Germany, I had gone down to the Audio Club at Patch Barracks near Stuttgart and purchased a system comprising an Elac turntable, Kenwood receiver, and a pair of small ...