• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

The 80s, when and why did it all go wrong?

Digital and electronic synthesizers and other electronic gadgets. The move away from acoustical instruments was another reason for the decline. Yamaha electronic keyboards for instance.
 
Bill Ferris said:
I haven`t read in this thread about the introduction in the mid eighties (at least that`s when I started seeing the use of the STK-~? style power pack output stages showing up in some receivers brought to me for servicing).
Oh joy !
Click to expand...

maxhifi said:
Oldest one I've seen is in the 1975 Sansui AU-2200, which is actually a neat and good sounding little amp! I find them very easy to service, assuming you can find a new one!
Click to expand...

i've got a sony str6046 on the shelf waiting(tuner issues)..it's got a pair of stk-056(working) . circa 1971-1974. i was surprised myself that they were around that early.

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sony/str-6046.shtml
 
IMO, the quality of audio gear started getting cheaper as the price of VCRs became affordable. VCRs were around in the late 1950s, but cost crazy $$ ($8,000 in todays dollars), but once the price came down to $250 in the mid 80's everydody had at least one in their home. With affordable VCRs, people wanted home theatre (we called it "surround sound" back then) and so the audio companies started pumping out affordable equipment for these folks. Many companies still made good quality audio equipment, but it was not what most people wanted. I bought a mid-fi Onkyo M-508 amp in 1986 and still have it (recently fully recapped), and I also have my brothers M-506RS that he bought in 1982 and it still plays wonderfully, so not all the stuff from the 80's was crap !
109_2483.JPG 014.jpg
 
redk9258 said:
No they were not.
Click to expand...
according to this:

https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2006/06/article_0003.html

they were invented in 1956 and a unit was released for sale:

"Ampex released the world’s first magnetic tape video recorder, the VRX-1000, in April 1956. It caused a sensation. But with a price tag of US$50,000 (equivalent to some US$325,000 today), expensive rotating heads that had to be changed every few hundred hours, and the need for a highly skilled operator, it was far from a consumer item."

But it goes on to state that they were bought mostly by networks. Kinda makes sense if you want to re-air something at a later date that was originally broadcast live, or have a quick and easy method of reviewing something that was just broadcast.

However, it also states the first "affordable" consumer model wasn't released until 1964 by Sony...although I'm betting that was also quite expensive as we all know VCR didn't really become mainstream until roughly the 80's.

Like most technologies we use as consumers, it seems it was "invented" a fair time before it became consumer level goods.

Note: I have no dog in this fight, I'm just putting out the information I found on the subject.
 
Last edited:
tourmax said:
according to this:

https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2006/06/article_0003.html

they were invented in 1956 and a unit was released for sale:

"Ampex released the world’s first magnetic tape video recorder, the VRX-1000, in April 1956. It caused a sensation. But with a price tag of US$50,000 (equivalent to some US$325,000 today), expensive rotating heads that had to be changed every few hundred hours, and the need for a highly skilled operator, it was far from a consumer item."

But it goes on to state that they were bought mostly by networks. Kinda makes sense if you want to re-air something at a later date that was originally broadcast live, or have a quick and easy method of reviewing something that was just broadcast.

However, it also states the first "affordable" consumer model wasn't released until 1964 by Sony...although I'm betting that was also quite expensive as we all know VCR didn't really become mainstream until roughly the 80's.

Like most technologies we use as consumers, it seems it was "invented" a fair time before it became consumer level goods.

Note: I have no dog in this fight, I'm just putting out the information I found on the subject.
Click to expand...


that is hardly a video CASSETTE recorder. so no, vcrs were not around in the 50s
 
tourmax said:
according to this:

https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2006/06/article_0003.html

they were invented in 1956 and a unit was released for sale:

"Ampex released the world’s first magnetic tape video recorder, the VRX-1000, in April 1956. It caused a sensation. But with a price tag of US$50,000 (equivalent to some US$325,000 today), expensive rotating heads that had to be changed every few hundred hours, and the need for a highly skilled operator, it was far from a consumer item."

But it goes on to state that they were bought mostly by networks. Kinda makes sense if you want to re-air something at a later date that was originally broadcast live, or have a quick and easy method of reviewing something that was just broadcast.

However, it also states the first "affordable" consumer model wasn't released until 1964 by Sony...although I'm betting that was also quite expensive as we all know VCR didn't really become mainstream until roughly the 80's.

Like most technologies we use as consumers, it seems it was "invented" a fair time before it became consumer level goods.

Note: I have no dog in this fight, I'm just putting out the information I found on the subject.
Click to expand...

The internet isn't always right. This is probably more correct..
https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/2-01.html#:~:text=In 1964, a team led,VCR intended for home use.

However note that they are calling the CV-2000 a VCR but it is not. It is a VTR. The first real home VCRs came out in 1975 (Beta) and 1976 (VHS).
 
Last edited:
Interesting discussion. I remember those days well. I remembering going into Treble Clef to look at and listen to different equipment. And I remember well buying my Marantz 1530 when it first came out. I regret that, because I could have gotten a better system if I had had a more open mind. My inspiration was my best friends Pioneer, and it sounded quite good! I never really liked the Marantz after the honeymoon wore off. But I used it well into the late 80s because, well, interest rates were through the roof!

I also remember looking at audio gear. I couldn't afford any of it after 1987 when my first daughter was born. Diapers were using up any excess money I had. But I do remember that Consumers Distributing had all kinds of very cheap all in one packages that looked like separates, and were real junk. There was another company at that time, that allowed you to make payments in the long term to purchase any of the crap they had on the shelves. It was junk as well. But they made the payments low enough that most people in my shoes could afford it. I didn't because the total cost was insane, and I was too cheap to do that. Instead, I bought my first NAD 7240PE used in 1989. That was a game changer for me, because it sounded really good. I started listening to my records again, they sounded so good! Put the Marantz to shame. I ended up using the Marantz for parts in a project I was working on in electronics, and later used one of the rotary switches in it to customize the TV console I bought from my Mom after I replaced the crappy speakers it came with with some good speakers from Radio Shack. It sounded great after that! I used the switch so I could switch the speakers from internal stereo to external input mono as the centre channel of my HTR. I remember the first time my son saw Jurassic Park with my HTR on the TV Console. It scared the crap out of him!

So I remember well those days. Some of my friends used ghetto blasters for their home music with a full light show! I thought they looked tacky, but they did sound loud! Most didn't have a good system. But they had an adequate system for their needs. Most people, then and now, don't really care about good sound. They appreciate it when they hear it, but they won't go looking for it. Their excess money went for a VCR, a laser disk player, or whatever with the sound coming out of the TV. An expensive Trinitron. And they put on MTV.
 
The economy was going south, some big companies got bought out and the new owners of the brands rode the gravy trian on the brand names pumping out crap. That's huge over simplification, but some of that did happen. :D
 
Strictly personal reaction: I can't think of anything that didn't go south in the eighties. Cinema, fashion... Elvis Costello called it "the decade that Music forgot". I was 30 in 1980, and for me it remains a loathsome decade by nearly any measure.

Moderator note, mention of politics removed.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom