Walk down memory lane

Thank you Jim!
I have a graying Lab as well. 
Love your set up, multiple speaker options to boot!
Your 240 is sweet and clean, great hot rodding too. Mine had some minor repairs and refresh a year ago, plus new tubes. It may have more dents and patina than a 74 Pinto, but it sings and I'll never retire it. 

OP - I looked on your system page - lovely room and groove, i bet it sings… We share a 240 in common. Mine is 1961 heavily modified w HK style regulation topology and a slug of PIO caps. Not my Dad’s 240.

You may enjoy this:

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7106#&gid=1&pid=11

Best to you

Jim

OP - great redux of a thread we do every 3 months w slight twists… good on ya, i always learn something…

Similar story, different geography..but close. I spent half days my senior HS year working at Audio Connection in Huron Ohio. Work study because i ran out of AP classes and owner of store rescued me with “ work-study”… Yes paid to skip Skool in a high end audio store. Dream realized. Owner had a full time job elsewhere, so i had run of place. My parents had a high end Bozak / Mac system from my age of five, so no stranger to good sound.

Store carried Thiel, IMF, Shahinian, and JBL raw drivers and Community Light and Sound horns/cabinets for pro / high spl duty. Tables were Technics, and Ariston, SME arms, Grado carts, Audionics of Oregon and Sansui on lower end.

In University i quickly landed a full time job selling audio at Speaker Company in Columbus. They  Engineered own line of kits and sold Kef kits as well. They morphed into a 7 showroom ( audio only ) monster Progressive Audio. I helped manage that until returning to school mid eighties. Lines included; Infinity, Acoustat, Quad, Soundlab, Beveridge, ADS, KEF, Wilson, Vandersteen, Similar depth in electronics, etc..

Like you i took and still do, great pleasure in helping people. Servant leadership works.

Jim

 

That was me at the Puyallup Radio Shack in 1972. I was about 15, rode my bicycle, spent hours quietly studying every single thing they had in there. Learned about amps, speakers, sensitivity, just a huge amount of stuff. I don’t remember anything about the store staff other than as long as I was careful and didn’t disturb anyone they left me alone to mess around. So I was able to hook up and listen to everything, including trying all the cool stuff I was learning about how speaker placement affects sound.

That is where I got my very first stereo, a receiver with record player on top and some speakers, whatever they were I don’t recall.

Few years later I was able to drive to Tacoma where they had Jafco, then the biggest best selection this side of Seattle. They had the rooms with walls of speakers and amps and stuff and a Space Shuttle control panel you could switch from one to another.

Once again the staff was skilled in benign neglect and so I was free to master the control panel. I would always respectfully step aside for paying customers and when they wanted to hear something the sales guy didn’t know would just quietly say Q2 or whatever. This worked out great as they get the demo done faster and I get back to listening and messing around. Win-win. Heh.

My budget back then was from a paper route and driving flat-bed loads of lettuce to Associated Grocers in Seattle. So it took me a while but eventually the JBL L25 Jubal went on sale and so that is how I got those garish orange speakers that lasted me all through high school and college. Also Pioneer TX-9100 tuner and Kenwood KA-8004 integrated amp. All from Jafco.

Careful readers will note both dealers who were nice enough to let me while away the hours were rewarded with me giving them pretty much all my money.

It was not until a good 20 years later that I ran into another great shop, Corner Audio in Portland, OR. Joe was the first one to help with more than just benign neglect. He let me bring some of my own components in to compare. He introduced me to tubes, turntables, and even some new music. Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. Santana Abraxas. He had some simply amazing Lineaum Model 10 speakers, so good that after hearing them one time my wife was bugging me to buy them. How often does that happen???!

There have been a lot of shops over the years. And I haven’t even mentioned what was by far the best of them all.