How did anyone afford gear in 70's-80's??

Living at home, no bills, gas (and beer) was cheap. My boss used to get on me to cash my paychecks so he could balance the books. But good stereo equipment was pretty important back then. much like phones and pads are today.
 
G'day, I grew up on a farm a couple of miles from the Canadian border. Went to school in a small town that had a Zenith dealer and nobody else with stereo stuff or even televisions. So my dad bought the top of the line Zenith console with monster tube amps, 15 inch woofers, good midranges, and decent tweeters. It sounded really good.

I worked on the farm in the summer and a grocery store in the winter. On one of our few trips to the "big" town nearest us I walked into my first electronics store. I bought the first calculator in my high school and a Wollensak 8 track quad unit. I plugged this into Dad's console stereo and the sound was awesome.

Then, one of my fellow students gave me a pair of his dad's old speakers for me to play with. It was a pair of Altec 15" 3 way speakers. Dad and I made a couple of enclosures and ran wire down to the basement, across the ceiling, and up to my room in the opposite corner of the house. We installed our own switches to play the speakers separately from the console so he didn't have to listen to my crap any more.

I went off to college in 1974 with only the Wollensak hoping to get a roommate that had a system. No such luck but I did run into a guy with a Roberts reel to reel. Ok, now I had amplification and speakers. Then in 1978 I got a grant, a scholarship, and a student loan. First thing I got was an SAE 3100, SAE2900, and a pair of AR speakers. Oh yeah, a turn table too but I cannot remember which one.

Two years went by and I was getting married. As a wedding present, my inlaws gave me another 3100 and another identical pair of AR speakers. And these did come from the PX as he was military.

Then, while living in married housing (a quonset hut) I got a real job while my wife went to school. Next thing you know I had a pair of SAE 2600's and and SAE 2100 and my first cassette deck. Got a much better turn table as well. And then the entire system got retired to storage where it sits today other than what I am using and blowing up in the garage.
 
Good electronics stuff, the quality items, were a major investment in those days compared to todays consumer electronics. I bet a average color TV (21")cost a couple of months salary in the 70's compared to a couple of days salary today (27")

Can't speak to the 70s, but in the mid-80s a Sony 27" Trinitron cost me $899. I got about 13 years of use.
 
Living at home, no bills, gas (and beer) was cheap. My boss used to get on me to cash my paychecks so he could balance the books. But good stereo equipment was pretty important back then. much like phones and pads are today.

Yeah, there really wasn't much else to spend your money on in terms of entertainment. Had the car, parents had the main TV (with about 6 channels of content), gas was REALLY cheap, just worked, and bought awesome stereo gear and records. Also had an awesome car stereo.

Now, the options are dizzying. Computers, iPads, iPhones, TV, gaming - much different era now. Stuck in my ways like the rest of you, love my hifi!
 
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you could spend summers cutting lawns, bagging groceries for tips, Washing cars, odd jobs for neighbors, baby sitting, riding a bike instead of a car (saving gas $$), and breaking up with girlfriend to not have to spend$$ on dates then saving up the cash for your dream system.

Or if you were Navy detailed to a ship, take a partial pay (just enough for essentials)each payday, live on ship, eat on ship, etc., take someone else's duty night for $20.00 a night, until you had the $$ to go to the exchange and get the gear, then have it shipped home (on the Gov'ts dime) for when you got discharged.
 
I remember working my butt off as an office runner for a law firm when I was 15 for a few months. Made exactly $70.00. Walked into a Radio Shack and the STA-76 had just gone on sale for $179.00 regularly $249.00. I plopped the 70 bucks on the counter and put it on Lay Away. For the next few months I worked my butt off mowing lawns and only came up with another $60.00. Still owed about 70 bucks on that Receiver with the layaway balance and NY Tax on top. Might as well have been $1,000.00. I was out of options. My sainted mother (RIP) took pity on me and ponied up the rest for my birthday. Otherwise I'd never have made the layaway deadline. I still have that Rig in mint condition in my bedroom and I'd never part with it.

In College the STA-76 was never going to do. My dorm-mates all had REAL stereos like Sansui, Yamaha, Kenwood, and Marantz. So I worked all summer long installing Cable TV Mainline (pole to pole) in the 90 degree plus heat and humidity and mosquitoes and wasps and hornets and crazy drivers trying to kill me and a jackazz boss also trying to kill me as well, just to buy a Yamaha CA-810 system. Still have that system too. Worked too damn hard NOT to keep it.

So that's how I afforded stuff back then. I worked like a mule. And the OP was right, IMO, on his post years ago (wow, old thread). This gear WAS expensive back then. Still is, but in 1975 dollars, WOW! Stratospheric at the time. Especially with the economy in the last 70's.
 
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My first "high fidelity" system (a term we threw around a lot as high school hot shots who liked to quote Julian Hirsch to impress our friends) purchased in 1977 at age 16; a Sherwood S-7100 receiver $117, a pair of Electro-Voice EVS-13B's (seems like they were $67 each), and a BIC 900 series turntable (seems like it was around $55 with cartridge). Ordered them all from Stereo Discounters in Baltimore, MD. The day they were set to deliver we had the biggest snowstorm of my lifetime and UPS was delayed one loooooooooooooooong day.
But while $300 seemed like a lot of money to a 16 y/o, it really didn't take long to save up. It was a very high priority.
In retrospect, a very nice system for a kid to have. I know I sure got my money's worth out of it. Upgraded to a Technics SU-7700 integrated amp about 2 years later. I bought it used from a friend.
 
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Living at home, no bills, gas (and beer) was cheap. My boss used to get on me to cash my paychecks so he could balance the books. But good stereo equipment was pretty important back then. much like phones and pads are today.

That's funny cause I remember the secretary gettin' down on me for the same reason. I was makin' squat (minimum like $2.10 maybe) back then and still found three un-cashed checks in my drawer. Awww, how I miss those days with mom and dad :sigh:
I remember going through some old papers with my dad before he passed and one of the things he found was a pay stub for a $1oo+ dollars and that's with overtime. He said "at that time I thought if I could make this kind of money all the time I could live like a King!"
 
In a nutshell, that says it all^^^
I wonder if I still have my first pay stub @ $1.90 an hour. As someone here said "one piece at a time". My first was a Sony 10 WPC receiver followed by a pair of Marantz speakers both of which got replaced pretty quick once more cash rolled in.
 
My first Hi Fi system was a Poineer SX580 with a pair of Sansui S37 speakers.I got them for Christmas in 1980. These speakers would get loud with my 25 wpc Pioneer. I had a Garrard turntable as well. I still own the speakers and turntable. I also had a Sharp RT10 cassette deck. A friend gave me the turntable. My system was really cool for a 16 year old. The receiver and speakers played lots of parties back then. Ahhh those were the days. My parents put the receiver and speakers on layaway at a electronics store in the small town I lived in.
 
I started at $1.70/hour. My first stereo was at a discount, courtesy of my mother who worked at Midland Electronics. It was Midland's BOTL receiver, a BSR 310X turntable, and a pair of Midland speakers. I still have the speakers, but have not powered them up for many years. Even so, it was way better than the clock radio I had been listening to FM with.
 
I recently asked my (headphone wearing) son when he would invest some cash in a nice loud hi-fi system. Told him it's a son's duty to drive his parents and neighbors crazy with loud music.
He just gave me a funny look. Kids these days, they just don't understand :no:
 
I took the best road

In the early seventies I took a job in the industry. What a long strange trip it has been. Jim :music:
 
In a nutshell, that says it all^^^
I wonder if I still have my first pay stub @ $1.90 an hour. As someone here said "one piece at a time". My first was a Sony 10 WPC receiver followed by a pair of Marantz speakers both of which got replaced pretty quick once more cash rolled in.

I actually did find a paystub from 1977 that was in the center console of my car back then I had in storage until I sold it in 2003. Went through the car before sale and found the paystub. PITIFUL looking at the low amount by today's standards, but back then as a part time job, it was in line with everyone else since it was at minimum wage. $2.30 an hour x 20 hours. Not a heck of a lot of money, but for a high school kid, money was money.

In college, as I posted above, I landed a job working mainline construction for a Cable TV company during summer breaks at $5.50 an hour. That was good money back then, when minimum wage was $2.90 an hour. It would be like a college kid today earning $18.00 an hour. Although the kid that cuts my lawn on the Mainland charges me $25.00 a cut and it only takes him 45 minutes. That's $31.00 an hour. Not bad.
 
Nostalgia & comparisons
While some of us are on this kick, I seems like prices got better in the 70's. My first High summer high school jobs paid 75 cents and then a dollar an hour in the late 50's, right on minimum wage. No way to get a good system then. First job out of graduate school at the start of '67 paid $12+K per year and my first real system 4 months later of a Fisher 400, a pair of AR 4X and a Dual 1009 sk cost $400, a week and a half's salary and more than twice a month's rent. A decent system was a top priority those days. Still have them all.
 
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There was a novel concept at the time. Saving for what you wanted rather than what you could afford at the moment...or whatever/everything that came along.
 
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