When did you start collecting audio gear?

When did you start collecting audio gear?

  • 5-10

    Votes: 31 12.1%
  • 11-16

    Votes: 109 42.4%
  • 17-22

    Votes: 61 23.7%
  • 27-32

    Votes: 18 7.0%
  • 32-37

    Votes: 7 2.7%
  • 37 or +, please specify in post

    Votes: 31 12.1%

  • Total voters
    257
I have never "collected" audio gear, just got it with the intent of using. Sure I have stuff laying around that I am not using but I don't consider it a collection. It's just another pile to go along with other piles of stuff LMAO!!!
 
I don't collect audio gear. I buy it to listen to the music. I bought my first components in 1975 before I turned 19 years old. Prior to that, I had a cheapo all-in-one sytem that I paid $150 for at Kmart.
I presently have a 5.2 channel HT system, my main music system (2.2 channel), and another 2 channel (laptop) system all in my main listening room. I have 4 other 2 channel systems throughout my house. Presently, I have one extra receiver that's not connected to a system and two extra pairs of speakers. I always have gear and speakers for sale to make room for the next piece to try out.
 
Last edited:
Started at the age of about 10 with a Zenith CD shelf system. Ended up buying a pair of Panasonic Thrusters for it later. Then had a Sanyo rack system, then a Technics rack system. Blew the Technics speakers and bought a pair of Avid Model 110. Must have been about 16 by then. From there I bought stuff like Advent, Onkyo, Boston Acousics, Harman/Kardon, Akai, Pioneer, PSB, AR, KLH, Cerwin-Vega, JBL, Ohm, Energy, Allison, and so many more. All those are gone now. Later I moved onto Rotel, Ascend Acoustics, Thorens, Rega, Naim, Musical Fidelity, Exposure, and so on. Been through a lot of gear and still going. Would love to get rid of some of the stuff I have now though.
 
Never. I collect music (LPs and CDs, mainly) but not audio gear. So, throughout the years I've been upgrading gear in my two systems (main and bedroom), but sold the replaced stuff.
 
If you count an 8 transistor radio my dad gave me at 6 years old, that was 1960. Later I had the hand me down of my parents old system-Console style.
About age 15 I was given a receiver with cassette player builtin. Magnavox? Crap. in 1972 at 18 I bought Marantz separates and a phase linear 400 amp to power some
Bose 901s. Dumped the Bose shortly after when a friend named Hugh Fountain introduced me to a store called Speakerlab. They sold a kit for something I had never seen-Klipsch corner horns. Built those in the basement.
Circa 1980 after moving a few times I sold it all off and bought some NAD stuff and 3-way Polks. Around 2000 a friend told me to buy some Mackie powered speakers
and a Pioneer Elite Receiver to use for a 5.1 system. In 2017 I tired of all the cables and power lines and dumped it all again. I bought an older Pioneer SX 737
and a pair of Vintage Altec model 9's. The Pioneer died and the Altecs sucked so I bought a pair of Klipsch Chorus 1s. Bought an nearly new Onkyo 2 channel Receiver.
All was fine till I heard some Altec M500's. Probably too much for my room size but I love them. I have a Sansui Eight that needs repairs and a HH Scott 340a that will
arrive next month in need of total overhaul. More to follow later...
 
I bought my first stereo at age 16 with money earned flipping burgers, then after a few years. Life got busy for a long time with job, girlfriend, school, marriage, family, more jobs and school, on and on.
At age 52, life changed completely, I found myself living alone, and I refused to subject myself again to the empty yammer of cable TV.

While killing some time at a flea market a few months after moving, I spotted a forlorn looking stereo under a damp cardboard box of junk and I pulled it out out of curiosity.

It was a Sansui 771, and I bought it from the guy for $20.
I hooked up a pair of old Infinity tower speakers, and it worked for a couple of hours, kind of, and then went belly up with hugely loud bangs/pops.
Dang.

I stumbled upon a Realistic STA-90 the following weekend at a thrift store. The store owner literally dug it out from under a pile of old clothes.
I had no idea cigarette smoke could build up so thick on anything. $5 later and it was mine.
Windex on the outer surfaces and some contact cleaner applied to the controls, and it looked and worked great, and holy cow did it sound good! Amazing!

I had completely forgotten how these things sound!

Four years later I still don't have cable TV, just 7 receivers, a couple of tuners, a couple of amps, a couple of turntables, a couple of cassette decks, a RTR, 2 CD players, and a dozen+ pairs of speakers.

The 771 has since been rebuilt and it is the system in my bedroom. It sounds sweet.
The STA-90 was also given a full rebuild and it sounds truly excellent.

Another Realistic came and went, along with a Sansui amp.
3 Pioneers are still around, two fully rebuilt.
I had a fling with a Sherwood S7100-A for about 6 months (outstanding!) and have it set up in a second bedroom just so I can go in every once in a while and listen to it.

I am currently enamoured with an Onkyo TX-3000, which I run in my living room system.
It's presently playing some acoustic folk music through a pair of Advent Prodigy's and a pair of Minimus-7s set up as near-field.
What a beautiful sound this thing makes!
And black, bouncy power meters, you gotta have those. ;)
Early 80s Onkyo....who knew?
 
When my father purchased a Yamaha CR-620,YP-701 and NS-690's new in early 1970's. He had a very large collection of London Phase IV LP's.. Most of which were not my bag at the time. I Bought DSOTM new. Took it home and cranked it up a bit. Dad wasn't as thrilled as I was then. Dad will be 88 this year. He likes Pink Floyd now.:biggrin: Go figure..I guess better late than never.
 
Last edited:
When I decided I liked living at the local audio store more than at home in 1976,lol.In the seventies I was a walking encyclopedia of stereophonics.Today I'm lucky to remember to take my bp meds,lol.
 
I used to be satisfied with one of everything until I retired in 2008 and then, AK surfaced. End of story.
 
I was separates from day 1. Purchased at BX and Audio club in W.Germany 1980-82
Yamaha
NS-1000 loudspeakers
M-4 power amplifier
C-6 control amplifier
T-1 tuner
P-750 DD turntable/ Shure V15 type 4 cart.
Nakamichi
480 cassette deck
Sansui
AT-15L audio timer

Yamaha_C-6_Contro_Amplifier_Yamaha_M-4_Power_Amp.jpg
attachment.php

024bf2956e5a84ea9e76fae8869bcadd41079826deed46359498aa926c63c1d88d97695a.jpeg
65851296_934.jpg
1957924-yamaha-t1-amfm-tuner.jpg
Shure-V15-Type-IV-Turntable-Cartridge-No-Stylus.jpg

image;s=644x461
Bought my first pieces 1980-82 at the BX and audio club in Bitburg Germany.
 
I started taking guitar lessons when i was 8....that would have been 1967. At that point i already had a transistor radio and 3" rtr tape recorder and a record player.
My dad was a TV and radio repairman, so there was always stuff in the house.

I was 14 when i got my first 'stereo'...a LLoyds all-in-one unit. Then i was probably 17 or so when i'd saved enough lawn-mowing money to buy a Panasonic cassette deck and used Pioneer amp thru a set of home made speakers.
Gear has been coming and going ever since...i never stopped.
 
Though I never really purposely collected audio equipment, as I was teaching myself how to service audio electronics starting in 1974, as I acquired broken audio equipment, I would repair the better than what I owned in the way of a receiver that might be sold to me cheap, then swap out what I had for the better unit, and sell, or give away the lessor quality receiver as a economical path to improve my personal audio system.
I never actively pursued collecting audio gear, as at that time, being 19 yrs. old, I was living with my parents, and I was not going to load up their house with unused, and broken stereo gear, but figured better repairable audio equipment would eventually present themselves, as some did over time..

So the upgrading continued, even as I moved out to a small apartment 2 yrs later after becoming employed as a bench tech/mobile equipment installer in 1976.
And when desirable upgraded audio equipment became available, that I stumbled upon, whether broken, or just attractively priced, I still had to be selective, as to future needs, and limited storage space, especially when my girl friend moved in with her stuff that needed somewhere to go !
But, with her splitting the expenses, that helped me with upgrading my test equipment, which helped me perform quicker repairs, both at the shop I was working at, and any that I did on the side, on my little simple bench at the apartment.

With that increased income/lower overhead, I was able to take advantage of ever better used audio gear purchases that would come my way, for purposes of improving my existing stereo setup.

But I never was actively seeking out & purchasing any stereo equipment to "collect", even today with my financial means to do so.
But, that`s just me and my mentality, and I judge no one who wishes to fill up their house/apartment/storage unit, or all the above with all manner of functioning/broken audio equipment !!

Now, on the other hand I have a dining room filled with vintage guitars & tube bass/guitar amplifiers that I have slowly acquired since 1989 when I bought my house..
However these guitars/amps were offered to me at substantially lower then their market value, and the tube amplifiers had all been previously electronically restored by me, for the owners, and required no repair efforts by me, as they already footed the bill.

I never went seeking any of them, the owners just approached me, and then the deal was made.

This guitar amp collection is appraised every few years, as required by my home owner`s insurance rider, and the last appraisal valued it at $250,000.00 !! :bowdown:
Which is a substantially much, much higher amount than I paid for the items in it, so that "old stuff" can remain in my house`s dining room, and hopefully continue to increase their value, being no SWMBO here, to pester me about all "the junk" in "her" dining room..

Mercy Sakes Alive on all that noise !!:blah:
 
Started collecting when I was about 12, around 1994. Had a crappy Sherwood receiver, a crappy Fisher tape deck, a crappy "Crown" CD player, and my dad's hand-me-down Electra 15 watt bookshelf speakers, but it was a start. In hindsight, I should have bought good used older stuff for the same money I spent on that cheap new stuff, but live and learn.

$_27.JPG
 
I started when I was about 10 but it probably started much earlier as I used my parent's Zenith console alot to listen to records. My brother and I shared a paper route for quite a few years. We saved up and went in together on a Technics stereo around 1982. That's when the hobby took off for me. I spent many afternoons at the Stereo Shop wishing and slowly upgrading my system as money allowed. The good ole days. Now it's a real challenge to even find an audio shop in Montana. Miss the audio specialty shops a lot. Internet just isn't the same.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom