What was your first method of listening to music?

[avionic]

Yamaha CR-620,YP-701 with Pickering XV15 ,NS-690,Nakamichi 500 and TEAC 3300.My father's system.

 

[SimplerTimes]

My first experience was with a GE tabletop AM radio my parents put in my bedroom when I was about 5 years old (1971) to help me get to sleep at night. It was tuned to WLS 890 in Chicago and I remember listening to classic rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, Yes, Fleetwood Mac and many others. I was too young at the time to actually know who these artists were, but as I grew up and started listening to music of my choice, I realized that my earlier experience with those AM radio nights definitely shaped my taste in music that remains with me today.

 

[onepixel]

An AM mono transistor radio with one of these ear bud things.

 

[No Money]

Late 1950's vintage tube radio at home and live performances.

 

[mgosdin]

Thanks to my Dad's work we had all manner of radios and phonographs, with that MW Airline brand on them, scattered around the house. I believe every room had at least one table radio.

Strangely enough the first radio I actually had as my own was one of those Zenith AM hand held portables, was in the mid 1960's. I eventually dismantled it and learned quite a bit about how a radio works.

Mark Gosdin

 

[jlh3rd]

my grandmother's console. I don't remember the brand but i played the 45 records " robin hood", " davy crockett " and " let the sunshine in" over and over and over again.

 

[Condorsat]

I'm guessing here .. if memory services me well. I think it was one of those vintage Panasonic shoebox cassette tape recorders. I use to record audio from TV (Archies & Monkees) & radio … followed by a GE Wildcat Record Player (in my teens).

 

[kirk57]

My parent’s console.

I have no idea what it was, but that’s what I used to play the first record I bought, Three Dog Night - Naturally.

 

[Guest126]

Wow that far back? I'd say a fisher price little music box that had a nursery rhyme. I can remember my first radio, and it was a hand held transistor radio I won from a candy sale in the first grade. I used to play it at night...I remember listening to Stevie Wonder's new hit Higher Ground. Most times though my early music experiences were played on my mother's Philco upright console. I had a lot of memories on this unit.

I also remember wanting my own record player, but my parents were reluctant to get one for me at that time. I finally received my first hi fi turntable when I was 14 (Garrard GT-15), which I still have to this day.

 

[Christian B]

The first thing I ever listened to was probably my mom playing her upright piano that sat in the living room. After that my very own Philco PT-2 AM radio that I had in my room once I was old enough (around 7 or 8). There was a duplicate sitting on top of the fridge in the kitchen that mom liked to listen to while cooking and dad listened to hear the news every night while eating dinner.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

Probably my parents' suitcase KLH Model 11, which they still have -- and, I think (I keep forgetting to ask) -- use.

 

[E-Stat]

My reference system at age 10 - mostly listening to 790 WQXI "Quixie in Dixie" AM:

 

[arts]

Fleetwood, and then a transistor AM radio that was green and had a military look (this was the seventies,ya know)

 

[Mr.White]

A little kiddie record player. Up until the late 90's I had a picture of myself standing next to it. Somehow it got lost which pisses me off.

 

[Blasty]

As a toddler I had a choice of my parents' little boom-box, or their all-in-one turntable/tuner/cassete unit with pressboard speakers containing the same kind of drivers found in a boom-box. I knew no better until I started paying attention to speakers outside the house. I was hooked before I could read.

My grandparents had a Yamaha CR-620 receiver, YP-211 turntable, and Polk 10B speakers that I found intriguing as a child. I still have the CR-620 but regrettably gave away the speakers to a friend who had none, and the turntable because it wouldn't keep speed... probably an easy fix. Oh well. I didn't appreciate what I had inherited.

 

[bobins08]

My grandparents owned a two family house, we had the upper, they had the lower. Grandpa had a nice RCA console with FM, a turntable/changer, and an external speaker box. That was the good stuff. We had nothing but I did get a Slyvania transistor radio that I loved. As a little boy I mostly listened to top 40 hit stations on AM through the ear plug.

Later we moved into our own house and we had a portable suitcase phono/stereo. I started acquiring more radios and then a portable cassette player. I started picking radios and speakers out of other peoples trash and cobbling together sound equipment out if it. Then I discovered component stereo systems and fell in love with it. Eventually my paper route money got me a stereo component kit from Olsen’s Electronics featuring a Garrard 40B, Pickering V15, a Pioneer SA 5200 integrated amp and some Olsen branded two way speakers. All for $200 bucks back in 1973. It sounded dam good at the time.

 

[Lavane]

A 12, count um 12!, transistor AM radio.

 

[45rpmspinner]

My parents had a box-type record player on legs in the late 50's. Magnavox maybe???
For awhile it was in my room after they got a console.

Rather frightening at the time, I had a box set of "Sir" Cyril Ritchard reading Alice in Wonderland.
Made nap-time kind of a mixed-bag.

 

[Steven Tate]

Something similar to this. I remember sitting in the floor of my room with the record player and a few yellow Gene Autry records. This was around 1955. I am immediately taken back to that time every year when I listen to holiday music channels and they play Autry's "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer".

 

[crn3371]

Cheap little 9v transistor radio under my pillow, listening to Wolfman Jack broadcasting from Mexico.