I built an Eico integrated amp kit,KHL model 17's,and a Garrard syncrolab and Statton 500e cartridge.I just looked in my cartridge box yesterday and the Statton is still there!My brother built his Eico which he still has.Wow,that was back in the mid to later 1960's.I still have LP's I bought from the 60's like my Doors Soft Parade.Somehow a box of about a 100 45's survived all the moves. |
KLH 17 is STILL a good sounding box ! |
Wow,I remember how proud I was when I first bought the KLH 17's I think they were $69. a pair new in the 60's.That Garrard syncrolab was a rumble box full of bass feedback,I hated that thing.Then I bought a new Dual 1019 which I still have.I remember listening to the Beatles Sgt. Peppers when it first came out and all of my friends systems we would listen and compare out treble on our systems. |
In the late 70's I had a beautiful new Schwinn Varsity ten speed bike that held my first REAL audio system.
I was 12 or so and it was an AudioVox cassette player that had a built in amplifier and volume control. I attached it to the back bike rack powered by a motorcycle battery that was in a bike seat bag hanging from the back of the seat. I had 5 1/4 inch speakers attached to mirrors that rose a few inches off the bars that I super glued the magnets to. This was my first system and it sounded awesome! Boz Scaggs, Steely Dan... I was in heaven. Two of my favorite things together, so cool. |
I built my first system when I was 15; I'm 72 now. My first amp was a Heathkit that took me a week to build. My first enclosure was a thick cardboard box with a coax speaker because I couldn't wait to hear my amp. The source was a cheap turntable. As an improvement to my speaker I found plans in a Popular Electronics magazine for a "sweet sixteen" enclosure with 16 RadioShack 4" drivers which were modified to increase their excursion. I added a 12" speaker in the attic access hatch turning the attic into an "infinite baffle". The last improvement was the addition was a piezoelectric driver as a tweeter. I'm sure it would sound terrible today but I thought it was the best system I'd ever heard at the time. |
Given to me by my parents as a high school graduation present in 1975: BIC turntable with Shure V15III cartridge, Pioneer SX-838 receiver, pair of Sylvania AS 125B speakers. Still use receiver and speakers as a garage system! |
At my very early age I had phonograph with spring and one day I couldn't dial the spring and was listening to my records by simply spinning at near correct speed with my finger. Than I tried to fix it by taking it apart by putting together collapsed spring back into coils kneat, but it jumped out of chassis high up the ceiling. I was probably 5...6 and was VERY upset to tears that I wouldn't ever be able to spin my records manually. My dad than managed to get old WW2 times Telefunken console unit. After some small research he managed to get all tubes in place and start it up and it worked! Few to several years later I was able to troubleshoot it myself and replace tubes as necessary as this console I was using till my youth. The console had tuner, record player and 7" r2r tape player. By that time I learned circuits and kinematics of all 3 console components and knew how to fix issues. |
I remember it very well, though it was way back in '69. A Garrard SL55 turntable with a Shure M91e cartridge, plugged into a Fisher X-100A integrated amp (tubed, of course), powering a pair of Acoustic Research 4ax's. I could actually still enjoy music through that system today! |
I was 13 in 1975, and as many of you from that period have already said, I had a Technics 25wpc receiver, worked construction during the summer and bought a BIC turntable, with a $35 Altec Lansing cartridge. I was using some super cheap speakers from my dad's quadraphonic system (blew them up) until the end of summer when I bought some AKL towers at Harvey's Warehouse! I did replace the turntable with an ADC unit at some later date. But that system lasted me until after I was grown and married, I was probably 23 before I moved into the high end of audio. Or at least attempted to. |
I must have been half asleep when I wrote that, it was an Audio Techica cartridge. But reading most of the other entries, it does seem to be a trend. Almost all of us started out in the mid-fi stereo of the 70's. I remember stores like Sight and Sound, Harvey's Warehouse, and later Circuit City, that sold good mid-fi equipment at affordable prices, perhaps this has something to do with why our hobby is dropping off? This starting point is missing. It's either surround sound systems for movie sound tracks, or nothing, until you jump straight into the big money stuff? Even though there may be affordable systems at your local salon, these shops that were in every local shopping center are gone, and one must seek out the rare salon, which can be intimidating to the uninitiated. |
Let's see.....
There was a Marantz receiver with a horizontal thumb wheel. The was a BIC turntable. Strange, but I can't recall the speakers.
I do remember that my first high end speaker was the Kef Corelli and my first separates were from Audire. I bought the Audire Diffet Pre and ? Power amp at a steep discount from Crazy Eddie, a NYC based big box store that somehow briefly got hold of an Audire franchise.
There was also a Dual turntable in that system. |
Bdp24, Your system had been in my dreams serious! |
1965. AR-3 speakers; AR turntable; Shure V-15 cartridge; Dynaco PAS-3 preamplifier; Dynaco Stereo 70 amplifier. |
JVC R-S77 Receiver
Infinity RS-2000 Speakers
Yamaha PF-30 TT
Nakamichi BX-125 cassette deck |
First system was 1968 with a Marantz 8B amp, Dyna PAS 3x preamp, Rek-O-Kut turntable with Empire arm and Altec A7 speakers. I was 15 and my father was a long term audiophile back to 1949. He went through everything from Cook binaural records and tubes to transistor and back to tubes. |
My first stereo setup was purchased after a long hot summer of waiting tables at a big local seaside joint. Where I come from the equipment of the day came in the form of receivers - Pioneer, Marantz, Sansui.
I saved. When that glorious day came that I finally had the scratch it went toward a Sansui 9090db receiver, a nice pair of rather large Advent bookshelf speakers, and a Garrard turntable. Odd that I don't recall how much I spent on it, but it was substantial enough for me at the time.
While I don't remember what happened to the Sansui,. I still own and at times listen to my Pioneer SX1050 purchased sometime during the same era. I would many years later purchase a Marantz 2252b on eBay just for the hell of it. I've spent but a few hundred dollars over the years to keep the Pioneer operable, an investment well worth it simply because it's a great looking piece. It sounds pretty damn good, too.
Currently I'm listening to a simple setup;. McIntosh MC275 MkVI amplifier, Audio Research LS3 solid state preamplifier, Marantz TT-15 turntable with a Primare R32 phono stage, and a pair of Thiel CS3.5 loudspeakers. |
