?Audio systems we had growing up?

[Technics101]

There are a lot of topics on current set ups, dream set ups, etc. What about set ups we experienced as kids. The ones that got us hooked on audio in the first place. I grew up in the early to mid 80’s. My dad had a slim RCA stereo receiver, a Pioneer CT-450, and MCS cassette players. He had a direct drive turntable that got stolen and he replaced it with a Technics Sl-j33. I can’t remember what speakers he had, but I loved playing music with him on that set up. He bought me an Emerson all in one unit, which wasn’t great, but I was 6 and thought I had the coolest stereo around. This is where it all started for me. If I find any model numbers or pictures of any of my dads old equipment I’ll be sure to post it here. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing about other members recollections from their past, especially to hear from people who grew up in different generations!

 

[Poinzy]

I had a 45 rpm changer hooked up my Mom's cast-off plastic kitchen radio.

 

[pdm4606]

Our old 1956 RCA B&W mono TV had a phono input.(Maybe 1956 when I was 13) I tried it and it wasn't bad. Later I checked the speakers and to my surprise it had a 6" X 9" low tone and 2 tweeters with a single cap X'over.
Of course the whole TV was on when the phono was used and the heat was enormous. It also had the fault of blowing something inside the TV very often making it under repair often.
That also made it off limits to me. I eventually got my own Knight kit and speaker for a neat mono setup.
But I remember that old RCA sound. UUUGGGHHH!!

 

[E-Stat]

Similar threads from the past. I participated in the first.

Got Any Pics of you and Your Systems, Back in the Day?

Evolution and Progression of Members Systems

 

[Jeff449]

 

[eis01]

bought one of these when joined the military back in 1979. My first real stereo... Had a pair of Superscope speakers and an 8-track tape player.
Growing up we just had some junk my old man brought back from southeast asia. Nothing like the stuff I was hearing at the PX when we were overseas.

 

[Rome]

Had a setup like this in the 70s. Hooked up the speakers to a radio/8-Track in my '72 VW Superbeetle

Rome

 

[mark warren]

This Pic is from the net. But My Big Brother had this in his room with all the cool 45s I would sneek in his room and listen to songs like mony mony and 409 by the Beach Boys. My life is just screaming by it seems like a year only takes 6mo.......................

 

[Technics101]

Someone is selling the Emerson all in one I had as a kid on eBay. It brings back a lot of memories of me making mix tapes from vinyl and tapes I had. I would even record from the radio from time to time shen there was a song I had to have.

 

[Dave_1962]

Viking portable turntable - it was bad but I loved it.

 

[sKiZo]

You're only as old as you feel, right?

 

[Silentnet]

My dad had a pair of Cizek Model 1s (knowing what I know now... I never would have let them go! My greatest audio regret), a silver face Yamaha Natural Sound receiver (don't know exact model, probably less than 50wpc), and a relatively early Sony CD player (not a 101, but probably not far behind it). This was in the early 90s. I'm assuming he kept the Cizeks for a long time before that. Later the woofer foam gave out and I inherited them... After we'd replaced them with shitty $20/pair junk from a "electronics show" at the local fairgrounds.

 

[andx0r]

My parents had an unknown cheap turntable paired with a Panasonc RS281s cassette/receiver thing and it's included speakers:

Really cool looking thing, but kind of crappy sound-wise. I played my 3 or 4 cassettes on it when I was little.

And when they bought their first house in 1991 they got a Sony rack system (integrated, 5 CD changer, double tape deck, AMFM tuner, and two floorstanding speakers) from Best Buy.

 

[AubRock]

Mine was more along the lines of this

 

[Technics101]

Similar threads from the past. I participated in the first.

Got Any Pics of you and Your Systems, Back in the Day?

Evolution and Progression of Members Systems

Thanks for the links! Very good threads to read through!

 

[Chrisxo55441]

We had a Magnavox tube console at our house 60's-70's

 

[avionic]

Dad had a Yamaha CR-620 , YP-701 with a pickering cart.,NS-690's , Nak 500 and a TEAC 3300S.

 

[johnebravo]

The first one I can very clearly remember would have been at around 15-16 years of age: an old Admiral console with a tube amp inside (exactly as shown in link . . .)

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/mid-century-admiral-stereophonic-1695615488

The turntable was far too crappy to use to play any record you actually cared about, so I had an Akai Invert-O-Matic cassette deck planted on top . . .



Big heavy sucker. No Dolby -- it was too early for that. It did, however, have a somewhat noisy robotic arm that would reach out when the cassette got to the end of a side, lift up the tape, flip the damned thing over, and drop it back down to play the other side: the Brute Force approach to Automatic Reverse. When other kids saw it do its stuff for the first time, they often made remarks, especially if we had been imbibing in herbal recreational activities, as we typically were . . .

 

[mark will]

This is some of what I have .

 

[Bosphrous]

The first system I had that sounded any good was a Scott (20wpc) 319RA with Realistic Optimus 50 front speakers and Realistic MC1201 (bookshelf-size) rears. (I returned an Aiwa LED equalizer, because I couldn't figure out how to hook it up!)