Skid Vicious
Member
Hello all,
Have learned a ton lurking and have piped in a few times, thought I would introduce myself, 51 y.o married technical sales/entrepreneur in oil and gas, transplanted to TX 12 years from San Diego, where I used to make skateboard and rollerblade wheels. Yeah, kind of a transition.
I grew up listening to my Dads Dynaco ST-70, homemade speakers with Klipsch horn drivers and EV 15", Garrard turntable, and the first thing I ever bought with my own money when I was 13 was an Onkyo TX-3000 receiver, Onkyo cassette deck and "house" speakers from hmmm....can't remember the retailer. Pacific Stereo maybe? I just remember taking a long time and listening to a lot of different systems and it seemed like the Onkyo was the best sounding that was within my budget.
Lost that in one of my many moves, never really thought about hifi again until a girl I was dating at the time who worked for Pioneer got me a smoking deal on a VSX-D811S, dvd player and satellite speakers. Still have the receiver. I just remember being underwhelmed by the sound of the satellites in surround and preferred 6 channel stereo, but they still sounded thin and wimpy so I found a pair of Klipsch towers (remembering my Dads speakers) and ohhhh yeah, even though they were Synergy's they sounded so much better to my ears).
A few years after that I stopped at a garage sale, guy had an Onkyo TX-4500 with some Bose cubes and subwoofer for $10. The Onkyo brought back a lot of memories so I grabbed it. He said it worked, got it home and it was dead on one channel. Got it repaired at Charlies Airwaves, a lovable old curmudgeon, hooked that up to the Klipsch towers and was like yeahhhhhh, that's the stuff.
Moved into my new place with a new wife about 3 years ago, put together a system with a Pioneer Elite VSX-90 mostly because of my comfort with Pioneer products and it looked pretty "future proof", 4 Klipsch towers (the Best Buy Icon label, nothing that special but a great value), DefTech C-1 center, 10" JBL sub and 15" DefTech sub and it does well for home theater. I run it as a 3.2 system before I hear about running back channels in the front
For vintage gear I have a clean Pioneer SX-780, the TX-4500, and Altec Lansing 886a's that have had the tweeters upgraded to the period correct phenolic rings, and my home office system has the Altecs with a Yamaha RV-V995, Nikko EQ-1, one of those Pioneer Andrew Jones 8" subs, a Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, Roku 3, and Direct TV with a 2004 Sony 42" plasma that still looks great, basically all the old obsolete non-HD gear that was in the house and had been forgotten. I sure get a lot of enjoyment out of that system mostly because of how cheaply I put it all together and it sounds and looks great.
My barely teen and tween daughters were getting into vinyl (for some reason) so I told them you can't be ruining your records on those crappy Crosley portable players and put together some solid systems for them, Pioneer turntables, one has an newish Onkyo 2 channel TX-8555 receiver with Polk towers and the other an old Yamaha RX-V2092, a huge powerful brute and the big brother to the -995 with DefTech BP8B's, which I can't seem to talk her out of, and they're the best speakers in the house....lol.
I love scouring the classifieds for interesting deals, thinking I would make some money flipping gear, and I've gotten OK at acquiring it, but I have found I'm not so good at selling it
Right now I'm looking to improve the speakers on my main rig but not wanting to spend the money I'm going to either look at some kits or I have some ideas for building my own (I'm pretty handy). Also am looking for an old console stereo to refinish and upgrade the electronics on, which actually my wife is really into that idea, reminds her of her parents old Curthis Mathes set up.
Aside from that, I'm a pretty hack guitar player and just finished a thrashed out garage sale Fender Jazz Bass project that turned out real nice, even though I don't really play I couldn't stand to see it there looking so sad I'm in the Houston and have tried to join the Houston Audio Group but haven't heard anything back, but have found some great people through buying gear through the classifieds.
Have learned a ton lurking and have piped in a few times, thought I would introduce myself, 51 y.o married technical sales/entrepreneur in oil and gas, transplanted to TX 12 years from San Diego, where I used to make skateboard and rollerblade wheels. Yeah, kind of a transition.
I grew up listening to my Dads Dynaco ST-70, homemade speakers with Klipsch horn drivers and EV 15", Garrard turntable, and the first thing I ever bought with my own money when I was 13 was an Onkyo TX-3000 receiver, Onkyo cassette deck and "house" speakers from hmmm....can't remember the retailer. Pacific Stereo maybe? I just remember taking a long time and listening to a lot of different systems and it seemed like the Onkyo was the best sounding that was within my budget.
Lost that in one of my many moves, never really thought about hifi again until a girl I was dating at the time who worked for Pioneer got me a smoking deal on a VSX-D811S, dvd player and satellite speakers. Still have the receiver. I just remember being underwhelmed by the sound of the satellites in surround and preferred 6 channel stereo, but they still sounded thin and wimpy so I found a pair of Klipsch towers (remembering my Dads speakers) and ohhhh yeah, even though they were Synergy's they sounded so much better to my ears).
A few years after that I stopped at a garage sale, guy had an Onkyo TX-4500 with some Bose cubes and subwoofer for $10. The Onkyo brought back a lot of memories so I grabbed it. He said it worked, got it home and it was dead on one channel. Got it repaired at Charlies Airwaves, a lovable old curmudgeon, hooked that up to the Klipsch towers and was like yeahhhhhh, that's the stuff.
Moved into my new place with a new wife about 3 years ago, put together a system with a Pioneer Elite VSX-90 mostly because of my comfort with Pioneer products and it looked pretty "future proof", 4 Klipsch towers (the Best Buy Icon label, nothing that special but a great value), DefTech C-1 center, 10" JBL sub and 15" DefTech sub and it does well for home theater. I run it as a 3.2 system before I hear about running back channels in the front
For vintage gear I have a clean Pioneer SX-780, the TX-4500, and Altec Lansing 886a's that have had the tweeters upgraded to the period correct phenolic rings, and my home office system has the Altecs with a Yamaha RV-V995, Nikko EQ-1, one of those Pioneer Andrew Jones 8" subs, a Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, Roku 3, and Direct TV with a 2004 Sony 42" plasma that still looks great, basically all the old obsolete non-HD gear that was in the house and had been forgotten. I sure get a lot of enjoyment out of that system mostly because of how cheaply I put it all together and it sounds and looks great.
My barely teen and tween daughters were getting into vinyl (for some reason) so I told them you can't be ruining your records on those crappy Crosley portable players and put together some solid systems for them, Pioneer turntables, one has an newish Onkyo 2 channel TX-8555 receiver with Polk towers and the other an old Yamaha RX-V2092, a huge powerful brute and the big brother to the -995 with DefTech BP8B's, which I can't seem to talk her out of, and they're the best speakers in the house....lol.
I love scouring the classifieds for interesting deals, thinking I would make some money flipping gear, and I've gotten OK at acquiring it, but I have found I'm not so good at selling it
Right now I'm looking to improve the speakers on my main rig but not wanting to spend the money I'm going to either look at some kits or I have some ideas for building my own (I'm pretty handy). Also am looking for an old console stereo to refinish and upgrade the electronics on, which actually my wife is really into that idea, reminds her of her parents old Curthis Mathes set up.
Aside from that, I'm a pretty hack guitar player and just finished a thrashed out garage sale Fender Jazz Bass project that turned out real nice, even though I don't really play I couldn't stand to see it there looking so sad
I'm in the Houston and have tried to join the Houston Audio Group but haven't heard anything back, but have found some great people through buying gear through the classifieds.
The gear you mention and own is incredible too!! Enjoy your audio journey!
