I can mention the one that got away- a pair of Marantz 10b tuners. $1200. For both of them. Duh- what was I thinking?
You are invited on a "trip down memory lane".
This thread is, of course, mainly hyperbole (or less kindly B.S.). But that said, what is an item from your sound system over the course of your journey that you would most want to have back? I have sold some that I, likely, should not have. Mine would be the CJ ART pre-amp and the Magnepan MG-20....a distant 3rd and mostly nostalgia would be the Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers.
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I must have been about 7or 8 years old and I had saved some money for a small transistor radio. It was a typical unit from the day (back in the sixties) 8 transistor handheld. I would play it while in bed at night and carry it around with me. I loved that thing. My dad of course would yell at me to turn it down. Funny, he had the big stereo with tubes and honkin Western Electric field coil drivers, and he was telling me MY radio was too loud ... One day he took it and told me was going to ‘fix it’ for me so the batteries would last longer. When he gave it back it no longer would play louder than a whisper. I was crushed. It felt to me at the time like the scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest where they took McMurphy’s mind and he became a veg. I just wanted my radio to have it’s voice back. That’s what I miss |
Probably my Don Garber Fi-X integrated ... such a novel industrial design, and sounded great thru my Cain & Cain Abby’s (which I also miss). From a nostalgic perspective, it would be the McIntosh MR-55 tube tuner, born about the same as me, and part of my first system out of college. I have actually repurchased a good bit of some nostalgia ... My college-bound sister (and I was high school bound) talked parents into first ‘real’ stereo based on Lafayette components, and I’ve reacquired the Lafayette LA-950 and matching tuna) but not the Garrard 40B nor Criterion 100B’s) My system just out of college ... I’ve reacquired the JVC JA-S44 and matching tuna, and Polk Mon7’s (but not the Pioneer PL-117D nor McIntosh MR-55) So Tom Wolfe and Yogi weren’t quite right. |
VTL Tiny Triodes mono blocks, second version. Only 500 pairs made. They were gorgeous, small in stature and could scare the hell out of a lot of speakers much larger than them....... and I stupidly sold them. I took them to an audio shop to demo a pair of Martin Logan Aerius and they took hold of them and shocked the salesman. Fun stuff. |
@bdp24 yes, one of my most enduring memories is early winter 1965 a truck showing up and unloading big boxes into our almost 20’x40’ ancient house living room - like no furniture besides the B-305 in cherry and built in cabinet around fireplace to house records and the stereo: 1961 MC-240, 1965 MX-110Z, Dual 1019 and a Shure. My mom was a music school grad and could play piano and accordion and Dad could play trumpet. I don’t think they bought a TV until 1970... I know exactly when the Hook was set.. Peter and the Wolf.... I still have the MC gear in my Seattle vintage system along w furniture from them... another reason for your music visit :-) |
mr_m1,294 I think many of us have had similar experiences growing up. And not being a snob or anything, but my parents drove automobiles that went from point A to point B without any pretense of "fun to drive". Somehow I got into racing Formula Fords and started driving some superb sports cars. In high school I did the old going in a straight line ala. drag racing. In later years I fell in love with the idea of winning races in corners, like at Road America and others. Since speeding can get you a ticket, most of us can enjoy driving by threshold and trail braking and learning about the proper apex of a corner...just a thrill. |
@o_holter If you REALLY miss those A25's Madisound has a nice kit to make a similar but better performing speaker. Check it out. https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/2-way-speaker-kits/seas-a26-10-2-way-kit-pair-based-on-the-classic-a25/ |
My parents had bought an old Montgomery Wards Airline portable record player. You know the kind with the swing open attached speakers. They would obtain albums, throw away the cardboard covers, handle the records like they were shuffling cards, and store the bare records all piled up in a cupboard. I have NO idea how I became an audiophile..... |
bdp24 , well at least your folks had a Magnavox console, mine had a Montgomery Ward portable. |
A pair of Marantz Model 2 monoblock amplifiers (ca. late 1950s), which I owned for a time during the early 1990s. I sold them because with the speakers I was using at the time, and when used in triode mode which I found to be sonically preferable to the more powerful ultralinear mode, they weren’t powerful enough to handle the peaks of some classical symphonic recordings having particularly wide dynamic range. But on less challenging material they sounded gorgeous. Another contributing factor to my regret at having sold them is that their worth today is something like five times what it was then :-) Best regards, -- Al |
