?Audio systems we had growing up?

My grandfather had a Fisher rack, sat next to the bar in the basement. CA880 amp, FM660 tuner, CR125 tape deck, MT6420 turntable, RA545 cabinet with the matching 3 way speakers. I was told from an early age "Touch it and you'll pull back a bloody stump" never tried to find out if he was serious. I was in my mid 20's when he became blind, and I was honored to rewire it for him with quality interconnects and good speaker cable. It sat there, next to the bar until we cleaned out the house after his passing. My uncle made sure it ended up in my living room. I didn't look at the equipment when I typed the model #'s, I read it off the original manuals. I have all of them for all of it, including the assembly instructions for the rack. It sounds great to me, and when momma and the kids aren't home, or when momma's gone and the kids are home I'll make the VU meters dance a bit.
 
I grew up listening to a Philco radio very much like this, except it was dark brown not green.

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I do not remember when my mother got it but I was still a young kid. It became mine when I became a teenager which happened to coincide with the birth of rock and roll and finally gave up the ghost just about the time I finished college. By that time, the hard plastic was cracked and you had to push the volume knob in to get it to work. AM only and tubes of course. If you played it too loud, the speaker rattled and the plastic got hot, sometimes enough to give off a faint smell.
 
WOW johnebravo I also had an Akai CS50D invert-o-matic cassette deck. I got it at a flea market in 1982 or so. Talk about heavy. It worked only a few times correctly before I could only play 1 side at a time. I still have it too!! I'd like to get it working again, but talk about complex.

Anyway.. outside of some all in one stereo I got for christmas one year, my first "real" system was like this..

A matching pair of No name 2 way speakers with 10" woofers and some paper cone tweeters. Always sounded so good. NO NAME ANYWHERE! My Dad got them at a freight damaged auction house for next to nothing. Made out of particle board, with cheap veneer, and had removable grills held on with velcro. I thought they were the best things ever. They had blue foam surrounds on the woofers, and sounded great! Later I blew one woofer, and put them into storage in the basement. The basement flooded and ruined the cheap wood cases.
1 single huge console system add on speaker. I forget the name, but it had a lid on top that lifted up for album storage. It was a really nice piece of furniture in it's own right, and had a 15" woofer and a tweeter. Sounded great also. 1 old crappy speaker that I had attempted to work on, with a mix match of drivers. A Realistic speaker switch.

The amp was a XAM Mark II ta, another flea market find for cheap, but great working condition. A little noisy but very warm. My brother has my original and I have several others, including one being rebuilt to 5w per channel class A!!

Tuner was a Realistic TM-102. Flea market score! This is what you call a piece of junk! Still have it.

Akai CS-50D Invert-o-matic cassette deck. Weighed a ton. Sounded good when it worked. Which was very little!

BIC belt drive 960 turntable. I still have it. I fought it for months. One day I will resume the fight. Again, sounded good when it worked...

That got me started when I was still in grade school!! I would mow lawns and work with my dad for money. Most of my finds came from a flea market close by.
It was always fun for me to get a piece of gear, try it out, maybe re sell it for a few bucks and move on. Thats the one system where I look back and say yea. This started it!
 
Had a setup like this in the 70s. Hooked up the speakers to a radio/8-Track in my '72 VW Superbeetle :)

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Rome

I had this Craig 8-track player, but in the mobile (auto) version...man, Vanilla Fudge "Rock And Roll," Blues Project "Live At The Cafe A Go-Go," bootleg copy of "Layla," oh what a simpler time ;)
 
My dad was a Heathkit junkie and built his own gear I inherited a few small amps and tuners that he upgraded from as his building got better.

My own first stereo was an Amstrad monstrosity with a slide out turntable. When I got a part time job later on, I bought a Mission Cyrus One amp, Revolver turntable, Denon cassette deck and some Mission two way speakers. That rig rocked :)
 
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JVC utx150
Loved this little thing.
The cassette deck broke early and never used the fm but hooked up to my pc it was awesome.
Still have the drivers, want to build a new box for them.
 
Pioneer SK-11 and a Radio Shack turntable (yes the boombox had a phono stage) Can’t remember what model or even what the turntable look liked. It must have been 1981 because Rush’s Moving Pictures just came out and it was the first record I purchased with my own money.


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My first components were a Sansui R707 receiver, D55m cassette deck and two way 8” speakers from the same series. The tweeters in the speakers never worked so it was pretty bad sounding system.


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Vintage-SANSUI-D-55M-Stereo-Cassette-Deck.jpg

Not sure if I broke any copyright laws.
 
My love for hifi started out with little child me playing with a Pioneer CD player, an old BIC Venturi turntable, a Harmon Kardon 730, and Altec model 7s. I was so fascinated by the sounds that would come out of the speakers. It was the coolest thing In the world to my little eyes and ears. Sweet memories :D
 
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I started with this:
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Then for my sixteenth birthday I added Siemens Club 816 to my "system":
SiemensClub816.jpg
In 1995 I bought Philips MZ7 HI-FI Mini System, but I really didnt have any time for music:
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I was happy with it until 2012, when I was allowed to have an "Audio Fund". The Philips was neatly packed and since my system has gone through a number of metamorphoses, mostly Marantz, Pioneer and Denon gear to settle with these two much, much cheaper alternatives: Harman Kardon 730 in the office and Harman Kardon 330C in the bedroom.

Soundork
 
Wonderful idea for a thread!

My father is for sure the origin of my stereo bug. He brought home a used but fairly high-end (for the time) stereo when I was maybe seven years old. It had an Eico ST-40 tube integrated amplifier and matching tuner, a Rek-O-Kut turntable, and custom speakers using University drivers.

My brother still has Dad's Rek-O-Kut K33-H:


That's my old Stanton mounted on it. I'd like to hear it again...


Here's one record he used to play for guests, at a life-like volume, too!

As I got a little older, he taught me how to handle records, how to clean them with a curious little brush, maybe 5/8 inch diameter and 2 1/2 inches tall, of brass, with bristles of fine sable I would guess, where the bristles were retractable by turning a ring at the end of the brush. Pretty soon I was playing records on my own.

My favorite was this one, and I'm naturally extremely partial to this particular performance, and regard Bruno Walter as a genius:

Maybe I'm not the only one partial to this performance. Here's a Youtube comment that I could have written, but didn't:

"Still by far my favorite version of the 5th Symphony by Beethoven. The pace and timing are not typical of most conductors and it has always been more elegant and powerful, at least to me, because of this. My father used to listen to the original vinyl of this disc practically every week when I was a child, and I memorized this symphony by the time I was 12 years old because of it. Time well spent. THANK YOU for posting this!"

Here's the album cover:


I wasn't so much of a genius, though. For years I thought Beethoven's first name was Walter. :rolleyes:

Both the trains and the Beethoven sounded amazing coming out of these, which I still have:


They still sound as I remember them. Ah, nostalgia!

:music:
 
Wonderful idea for a thread!

My father is for sure the origin of my stereo bug. He brought home a used but fairly high-end (for the time) stereo when I was maybe seven years old. It had an Eico ST-40 tube integrated amplifier and matching tuner, a Rek-O-Kut turntable, and custom speakers using University drivers.

My brother still has Dad's Rek-O-Kut K33-H:


That's my old Stanton mounted on it. I'd like to hear it again...


Here's one record he used to play for guests, at a life-like volume, too!

As I got a little older, he taught me how to handle records, how to clean them with a curious little brush, maybe 5/8 inch diameter and 2 1/2 inches tall, of brass, with bristles of fine sable I would guess, where the bristles were retractable by turning a ring at the end of the brush. Pretty soon I was playing records on my own.

My favorite was this one, and I'm naturally extremely partial to this particular performance, and regard Bruno Walter as a genius:

Maybe I'm not the only one partial to this performance. Here's a Youtube comment that I could have written, but didn't:

"Still by far my favorite version of the 5th Symphony by Beethoven. The pace and timing are not typical of most conductors and it has always been more elegant and powerful, at least to me, because of this. My father used to listen to the original vinyl of this disc practically every week when I was a child, and I memorized this symphony by the time I was 12 years old because of it. Time well spent. THANK YOU for posting this!"

Here's the album cover:


I wasn't so much of a genius, though. For years I thought Beethoven's first name was Walter. :rolleyes:

Both the trains and the Beethoven sounded amazing coming out of these, which I still have:


They still sound as I remember them. Ah, nostalgia!

:music:
Sorry, all I could see in the last pic is a QUAD ESL 57 with something obstructing it...:)

I have about 600 classical records, but I do not have the Walter Beethoven's symphony. Now I am curious. I shall find it and listen to it.

Soundork
 
NAD 7020 Receiver
boston Acoustics A40 Speakers
Dual 1228 turntable
pioneer cassette deck - dont recall model from around 1983
 

When I was in college my parents got something like that but some different brand. The covers were speakers with an open back and one side open. Between the very small driver and the lack of front/back isolation there was no bass to speak of. But it played records and that's all that mattered to them.
 
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