Yeah, I know- we are more sophisticated now, but I was just remembering my first AIO stereo from 1975 when I was 14; a Radio Shack Clarinette (98, I believe) with tuner/preamp/power amp/tt and cassette recorder. Lots of good times with that thing as I developed my musical interest and tastes. I wish I still had it, but got rid of it when I bought my first receiver- a Technics SA-303.

So does anybody have any AIO memories to share? Lloyds? Clarinette? Soundesign? MCS? Other?

MY 100th POST!____:banana:____:banana:____:banana:

My first "real stereo" was a Panasonic RS-820S all-in-one unit with AM/FM Stereo and 8-track recorder. I later added the matching TT, which was actually a BSR-made unit. I bought it with $$ made by cutting grass.

This is not my unit, but pictures of an identical unit.

It came with the speakers shown. Later I upgraded the speakers to a pair of 3-way speakers with 12" woofers that were made by Electro-Voice.They were sold under the name of Royal, which was the "house brand" for the stereo store where I would later be employed when I was in college.

It sounded pretty good and I recorded a lot of 8-track tapes on that unit. When I purchased my first "real" component piece, a Pioneer SX-6000 Stereo Receiver, I sold it and the speakers that came with it. That left me with the Royal speakers to be driven by my Pioneer receiver.

It brought me a lot of enjoyment and it was the stepping stone from "record player" to component stereo.

My first "real stereo" was a Panasonic RS-820S all-in-one unit with AM/FM Stereo and 8-track recorder. I later added the matching TT, which was actually a BSR-made unit. I bought it with $$ made by cutting grass.

This is not my unit, but pictures of an identical unit.

It came with the speakers shown. Later I upgraded the speakers to a pair of 3-way speakers with 12" woofers that were made by Electro-Voice.They were sold under the name of Royal, which was the "house brand" for the stereo store where I would later be employed when I was in college.

Nice. In reading this, I am remembering now that in the pursuit of better sound, I removed the nylon fabric grill that was glued on the fiberboard front baffle. In keeping with the times, I painted the woofer and tweeter cones white! Those were the days...

I suspect that many AKers will have simular stories about the ownership of an "all-in-one" unit being the stepping stone from a "record player" to component stereo.

I too look forward to seeing other stories about this journey!

My first was NOT an all in one - I had a Garrard Zero 100C, RS Optimus 9's, and a Pioneer SX-737. That was my start - I think most who had all in ones - went to Bose now. *ducks head* :lmao: :D :smoke: :tongue:

My first was NOT an all in one - I had a Garrard Zero 100C, RS Optimus 9's, and a Pioneer SX-737. That was my start

Well, not ALL of us were 28 when we bought our first stereo! :D

Seriously, I'm guessing you were about 14 or 15 when that gear was new. You must have had a really good paper route!

When I was about 8 years old, I was given my parents' first audio- separate Philips amp/TT/speakers and Grundig tube radio. Never had an all-in-one, but most of my friends and family members did. I remember visiting my aunt and uncle when I was about 12, my nephew just bought an all-in-one and we played music all day long. I can't remember the brand but it was the late '70s and it was brown. :) I was impressed by the volume, can't remember if it actually sounded any good.

Wow . . . brings back memories.

Electrobrand was my first, which was returned because it had a piece of styrofoam in the tuner display.

Exchanged for an ERC all in one, which works up to today, though it is with another family member.

I distinctly remember the BSR turntable as well.

And those all in one speakers that looked so, whats the word I'm looking for . . . well . . . cheap.

But I was in my own little music world back then . . . and I'm back again for a little visit thanks to this post.

Cheers

Well, not ALL of us were 28 when we bought our first stereo! :D

Seriously, I'm guessing you were about 14 or 15 when that gear was new. You must have had a really good paper route!

I was 16 when I got these - :tongue:

I was 16 when I got these - :tongue:

Pretty good stuff to start with!

I suspect most of us here that that got their stereo when they were early teens or pre-teens probably started with less substantial gear.

my first and only AIO was a panasonic with cylindrical speakers and two round tuner windows one each for AM/FM, and a cheap BSR TT.
edit, I so wanted a receiver that I pulled the cheap TT off this unit, to make it appear as a receiver!!

I was given a Centrex (pioneer) 8T/Radio/BSR changer unit when I was 12 or 11, by my uncle, who had bought it new.

It worked, did what it was supposed to, and I kept it around for a longer while than I normally would have because it was the only 8track player I had. Last time I saw it was Sophomore year of high school.

Not a recollection, but a thought: In the audio market(s) here, I've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of those all-in-one systems, including some pretty cool-looking ones from brands you might not think of first, such as Yamaha, ITT, Grundig, Tandberg, Bang & Olufsen, and others, alongside the more-common Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic, etc... Even some with Dual and Garrard TTs built into them (Dual had one of their own, including the receiver underneath, but sans cassette deck).

For a little while, I daydreamed about grabbing examples of all these, and making a rare (unique?) "museum" collection of a neglected type of audio gear. Practical sense prevailed, however, when I figured out how much space they'd take up, and for what? A collection that perhaps would soon be the only place one could still find these completely-UNwanted pieces of audio history?

Having made the decision NOT to collect these, I have not bought one in several years (I think at most I had three, all bought because they were essentially MINT. I ended up giving them away, one to an elderly person with no music in their life, and the others to charity because no one would buy them.) Within just the past few weeks, I've passed up on a huge Yamaha "Natural Sound" one that looked like part of the console of a spaceship, with the turntable in the middle and large slabs on either side (cassette on left, tuner and amp on right) - perhaps the biggest and coolest-looking one I've ever seen, and a real temptation --probably rare, too, since there was no reference to it at all via Google search. Then I passed up on a long, lean B&O pne with their typical styling, that a dealer practically begged me to buy, for whatever price I would offer.

I am not personally responsible for preserving the world's audio gear -- that thinking is a mistake that leads to hoarding behavior, which I have no desire to indulge in. I have enough gear as it is, so like everyone else, I pass up on these, too. But I still wonder... if I don't buy these, and it seems no one else does, either, and there are apparently no groups or clubs or fans focusing on them, will they all just completely disappear from the world, within a short time?

It seems a shame, if they do. These were, after all, a phenomenon of their age: a LOT of people bought these things, and used them as their main sound systems at home. They weren't all toys for young students, by any means.

But it seems they are the "forgotten souls" of the audio world, doomed to disappear from collective consciousness, within one generation. They aren't good-sounding enough for the golden-eared audiophiles seeking great sound; neither old enough nor futuristic enough for the retro-seeking fans who quiver at the mention of the name "Eames"; in fact, they're not ANYTHING enough to have sufficient appeal to become sought-after collectibles.

It seems the only people who might have any use for them would be set designers looking for props to use in films and on television, and they're happy with other gear.

You'd think there would at least be a website dedicated to preserving pictures of them, but as far as I know (at least up to a year or two ago, the last time I searched) there are none.

So, it seems, no one collects these things, or even records them, and they are rapidly disappearing altogether. Sad... :tears:

Even boomboxes have their fans and their collector websites, and some (not all) of these all-in-ones were better-sounding than most (but not all) boomboxes. Specific audio brands and styles have their sites, too. But not all-in-ones. There is NO love for all-in-ones, even though --as evidenced in this thread-- many, many people grew up with them as part of their lives.

Does anyone know of ANYone who actually collects these?

Maybe a few more mentions like this thread will form a start towards a little more appreciation/preservation by someone, somewhere.

Their disappearance is good thing, some cynics would say.
It's a bad thing, some nostalgics would say.
What say ye?
Is there anyone who would take up the gauntlet and at least preserve data on these?

Had a Capehart with a BSR TT and 8 track. Don't miss it at all.

I'm thinking that what I had wasn't exactly an all in one since it had neither a cassette deck nor an 8-track player - but it did have a set of RCA inputs for such. It was a KLH Model Thirty-Four compact stereo with an AM/FM receiver, a Garrard turntable and a pair of Model Thirty speakers. It listed for around $500.00 back in the early '70s. I still had the speakers up until about 2 years ago. Great stuff.

John

I had a Ampex all-in-one which was all black with speakers with just one driver. Just a record player with radio. I got it for Christmas in 1976 for $99 out of the Sears catalog. When my friends and I made a clubhouse, I donated the stereo with 4 speakers nailed to the corners for surround sound!

Next was a component system, but this sounded like an all-in-one. It was a Soundesign system I got in 1979 with turntable with ceramic cartridge. I thought the speakers were two-way. They were not! The receiver had a built-in 8 track which I transferred some tapes my brother had to a Realistic SCT 17 cassette deck which still works today. Anyways the turntable had one channel louder than another, the controls were already getting scratchy just only less than a year old. Biggest POS that I ever had!

I had a Masterwork (CBS Masterworks??) AM/FM, 8 track which, as memory serves me, cost about a hundred and a half back about the end of 1971. It had a neat green circular stations dial in the tuner section and detachable speakers that sported 6" or 8" woofers.........I came to regard is as somewhat "restrained" but it made me pretty happy as a 15 year old. It had had a Garrard record changer added into its AUX input by the time I replaced it with a Pioneer SX-1250, a pair of JBL L65s, a Teac A-450 cassette deck, and a Technics SL-1800 turntable when I was 22. I've looked high and low on the internet for pictures of these Masterwork units and can't find but one or two that scarcely resemble mine at all. If anyone knows of a good site with Masterwork pics, please let me know!

A side note...At 15, the object of my all-in-one-stereo lust was a canary yellow sphere (Welltron???) that housed an AM/FM section and an 8 track player with the speakers incorporated into the sides as integral parts of the sphere. The Masterwork was sort of a "consolation" Christmas gift which, I would later realize, beat the yellow thing hands down in terms of sonic performance. These spherical all-in-ones from that period are worth a respectable bit of pocket change now as collectors items I've been told though.....

My parents gave my brother and I a Sears or JC Penney A.I.O way back around '77(I was 5 my brother 9).

It had a tuner, 8 track, cassette and record player A.I.O. Speakers had a roughly 3" driver in each speaker. This came out of the Christmas catalog and was an unexpected gift that was one of the best ever.

In '84 I was given a GPX A.I.O for Christmas for my room. It had a record player, tuner, cassette and what looked to be a second cassette player but was really just storage for about 5 or 6 cassettes. Speakers were very large but had one single 5" driver. Still pretty cool for a 12 y.o. kid.

Two years later I bought a used seperates system from a local guy and the GPX was passed onto another "lucky" kid.

Clarinette. Now there's a brand that I haven't heard of in a while. I do remember seeing these in the Radio Shack catalogs when I was younger though. My grandparents had one that had both cassette and 8-track recorders. I thought those were cool. Both 8-track and cassette in one unit.:banana: I'm sure these were not the ultimate in hi-fi at the time, but as a kid, I always thought that they were cool.

Never in my life have I had a stereo like that. I consider myself lucky.

Never in my life have I had a stereo like that. I consider myself lucky.

We all have to start somewhere and some all-in-ones were pretty nice.

Don't knock what you don't know. :nono:

John

When I was a teenager, I received a Soundesign 5959 for Christmas. It wasn't quite all in one, it was more like most in one.

The main box included a cassette recorder, eight track player, am/fm, and a digital alarm clock. The package included a BSR ceramic turntable and an equipment rack and two speakers. The speakers were almost three feet tall and had foam grills. The (non-removeable) grills had three circular indentions to correspond with woofer, mid and tweeter, about ten or twelve inches for the woofer, seven for the mid and three for the tweeter. Of course, I eventually removed the foam to discover a single six inch full range driver in each cabinet.

It wasn't great, but it seemed great at the time; definitely better than what any of my friends had. That stereo is long gone, but I have found two in thrift stores as well as one that is identical, but with a black face and silver knobs. I use one as an alarm clock and keep the others for spares.

Bought an RCA all-in-one about '72...had a MAGNETIC! cartridge & 8" 2-ways. About 20WPC. Still have the speakers....they've been upgraded a tad and sound a l m o s t like ARs. Ran across a very nice Centrex system at a garage sale this summer...a better-than-BOTL BSR with a Shure cart & a pair of speakers that were pretty heavy for their size. I offered $10...but they wouldn't budge off of $20. I thought it would make a nice little rig to check out thriftstore/garage sale vinyl & the like.

I guess my recent purchase of a B&O Beosystem 2002 qualifies as my first all-in-one...

I had a Zenith Allegro Quad System purchased with a summers worth of grass cutting money. About 400 bucks in the mid 70's. It was purchased from a local furniture store because there were no stereo stores in town at that time. Funny thing was I wanted a Zenith Wedge System like I saw in my uncles playboy magazines. The sales guy talked me into the quad system though.

I am trying to avoid becoming a collector of all-in-ones, and just gave away the Realistic Clarinette 105 I got free a few weeks ago. However I AM keeping this Sony one:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=314384

My first real system was a tube system, the guts from a Viking console. An elder lady neighbour gave it to me but kept the cabinet to make into a chest. After her tube TV caught fire she got frightened and bought a solid state system. I had to make my own speaker cabinets which I covered in red Mac-Tac vinyl. I never did put the receiver portion in a cabinet, a bit beyond my 16 year old woodworking skills.

Ordered a Monteverdi all in one from Speigal catalogue for $150 in1977.I was happy as a bug in a rug with this being my first stereo for a 16 year old.

My first AIO was a Pilot AM/FM with what I'm pretty sure was a BSR changer (weren't 90% of them either BSR or Garrard?) that was handed down from my parents. It had a brushed metal face, blue light-up dial and a real tuning meter(!) It actually came with pretty decent 2-way speakers but my dad hung on to those.

Sadly, the FM tuner didn't work. I remember at age 13 or 14 taking the thing apart and getting ready to solder some stuff that looked to me like it should have been connected but wasn't. Right then my dad came home and put and end to my uninformed repair attempts.

After a few years of suffering with no FM, I swapped the Pilot out for a thrift store KLH (Model 26 maybe?) AIO with a Garrard TT and ONLY an FM tuner. I never missed not having AM.

I remember, back in the early 70s, my dad bought this system... I don't recall what make or model it was, but it definitely put the bug in my blood. It was an all-in-one system that had a turntable, am/fm tuner, an 8-track, and, now get this... a digital clock!!!!

I remember thinking how cool it was seeing time expressed as digits.

Oh, yeah, and it had detachable speakers, too. That made it really cool as my dad had it set up on the bookshelf next to "his chair". The stereo was right there within arms' reach and, now get this for cool... the speakers were on the top shelf of the unit.

I mean, like, OMG!!! Can you believe it?????

As cheesy as it was, though, I was hooked.

Oh, yeah, and it had a quarter-inch headphone jack.

Man, that system had EVERYTHING.

I think my parents might have bought it with S&H green stamps, so you know it had to be great.

Washington DC, where Mass Ave. ends at Goldsboro, 1978. Received a Realistic AIO, table, AM/FM, and 8 track as a gift. Even came with a little mic Made a lot of recordings to the 8 track playing DJ. Eagles, Cheap Trick, AC/DC and Pink Floyd were on the playlist over the next three years of living in that house.

http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/sites/default/files/0001/6980/brand.gif

Had this Panasonic for awhile. Good tuner, HORRIBLE tape player, turntable had trouble.

My first stereo was a late-70s vintage Sanyo JXT 6440 all-in-one with a cassette deck, tuner, BSR TT, and speakers. It looked great, with a family resemblance to Sanyo's beefy JCX receivers of the time, and didn't sound half bad at low volume levels. Surprisingly enough, I was able to find a couple of pictures and a Youtube video of a similar JXT model with 8-track and cassette on the Web:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heezdedjim/3868305508/in/photostream/

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBndka5-YKY

30 years later, I got back into vintage audio with the purchase of a 1977 Sanyo JCX-2600 receiver with the same looks and immensely better sound and build quality. No doubt it was nostalgia for that AIO I had as a kid that influenced my decision to go with the JCX rather than something more common like a Pioneer SX-850/950. Now I wish I would have kept that old system. It would have been great for the garage.

I had a Sound Design New Wave. It was black with tacky teal, purple and yellow buttons. the speakers were thin plastic boxes with single drivers. It had dual tape decks and the crappiest turntable ever made, plastic tonearm. Hell, I'm pretty sure the stylus was plastic. My mom gave it to me for my birthday. It was one of those gifts you hate immediately, but you try to act like you appreciate it just to be nice.

I bought my first stereo in 1973, a Lloyds AM/FM 8 track. No turntable, but it did come with a cheap pair of headphones. Paid $69 for it out of my second paycheck of my first real part time job. I think I wore out my Quadraphenia 8 track on that one through those crappy headphones almost every night. I found one exactly like it at SA several years ago for $9.95. It's stored in my moms old console downstairs. It was quite a step up from AM/FM clock radio.

Kim

when i first started collecting gear, when i was 9 and 10, i was really into the all in ones, from the 60s-70s, i had a buttload of them, panasonics, sonys, lloyds, electrophonics, etc. but the one that always stood out was a electrophonic all in one, with the radio on the top, next to the garrard tt.

1969! I think it was Sylvania. It was a self contained stereo shaped kinda like a small suitcase with speakers on either side and the turntable part in the middle that folded up and down like a murphy bed. It was all tubes, which was pretty normal back then. I thought it sounded great.

I'd love to have it back. The turntable wasn't so good, but it'd make a great little guitar amp now.

My first stereo really wasnt a stereo at all it was a rockola jukebox, my grandma work for a rich banker who had bought it for his kids. But they didnt like it and scribble it up with crayons and cut thepower cord . so he gave to us and it end up in my room. So cut off 3prong exstension cord andtape it together plugged it in and boy was that thing loud. And by the way i know why his kids didnt like it, full of all Bing crosby records:thumbsdn:

My father had a system similar to this one:
http://www.pictars.com/users/Minker17/2010-08-22%2020.24.08.jpg
http://www.pictars.com/users/Minker17/2010-08-22%2020.23.53.jpg

Except his had a BSR turntable mounted on top of it and the area behind the lens was black, not silver as it was an older model made to match the dials of Pioneer's SX-x3x series. The cassette deck was simply a Pioneer CT-F2121 transport (tape sat back and to an angle). I would say apart from the turntable, it was one of the better all-in-ones of the era.

I had some pretty bad ones as a kid. I had a JCPenney all in one from 1982 which was also marketed under several other names including Lloyds. I remember it developed a problem with the heads where it would play both sides at once through one of the channels. After that I had a Realistic Clarinette 122 (I think). It was an all black unit with dubbing decks and a digital tuner. I thought it was pretty cool since it had a digital tuner, although it was not a good unit and it had to be exchanged...twice.

I made all my tapes on my dad's system until I got a "real" stereo in 1989 consisting of a Pioneer SX-1300 and PL-600 turntable with a JVC dubbing deck. Not fantastic, but better than what I had been using and the Centrex was on it's last legs by that time. Well at least the turntable was, everything else seemed to work.

In 1980 I got a Realistic Clarinette 101 for Xmas. The all in one AM/FM/Cassette/8 Track Record/TT. I would sit in the dark for hours at night just listening to it. I still have it. The speakers are long gone. i have a set of Pioneers on it now. Great bedroom stereo. In the beginning it was and still is a bedroom stereo. I moved on to the KR9940 and the SX1980. I still have those too.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v119/chevelle_7172/myspace/DS002.jpg