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Your First System, Circa...

musichal

musichal

poet emeritus
Mine:

Lloyd's AM/FM Eight-Track Player/Receiver with "Air Suspension Speakers," about '66. Yard cuttin' money.

Loved it, ran it almost 24/7. Added Radio Shack closed-back Nova headphones soon after purchase.

(No wonder he thinks that Sony sounds good. :D:D:D)


Just bored and put this together.
Top 20 hits '66

1. The Ballad of the Green Berets, Sgt. Barry Sadler
2. Cherish, The Association
3. You're My Soul and Inspiration, The Righteous Brothers
4. Reach Out I'll Be There, The Four Tops
5. 96 Tears, ? and The Mysterians
6. Last Train to Clarksville, The Monkees
7. Monday, Monday, The Mama's and The Papa's
8. You Can't Hurry Love, The Supremes
9. The Poor Side of Town, Johnny Rivers
10. California Dreamin', The Mama's and The Papa's
11. Summer In the City, The Lovin' Spoonful
12. Born Free, Roger Williams ---- Shouldn't this be Andy Williams? Okay, both did it.
13. These Boots Are Made for Walkin', Nancy Sinatra
14. What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Jimmy Ruffin
15. Strangers In the Night, Frank Sinatra
16. We Can Work It Out, The Beatles
17. Good Lovin', The Young Rascals
18. Winchester Cathedral, The New Vaudeville Band
19. Hanky Panky (Single Version), Tommy James and The Shondells
20. When a Man Loves a Woman, Percy Sledge

Stamps were a nickel. Gas was 32 cents/gal. Average new car cost $2650. McDonald's hamburger - 15 cents.
Walter Cronkite anchored the CBS Evening News. New TV Show called "Star Trek" debuted.
Buffalo Springfield formed. Beach Boys release "Pet Sounds."
Legislation passed leading to breathalyzer use. Groundbreaking begins for World Trade Center.
VW warranty for Beetle 6 months/6,000 miles, whichever comes first.
Hotties in '66: Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Annette Funicello.
Walt Disney, Lenny Bruce, Buster Keaton died. John Cusack, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock born.
Supreme Court rules in Miranda v Arizona changing arrest procedures in the United States (the "Miranda warning").
On March 3 tornados rip through Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi, leaving 118 dead . (One of those three touched down three blocks from my childhood home in Jackson MS, turning a shopping center to rubble and killing, among others, a 6th grade teacher from my elementary school, Mr. Mosley. I remember that day well.)
 
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detassled corn to buy a sharp all in one combo, kind of like a boombox. I remember the next year I upgraded from my summer money. The trend continued...
 
sorry circa 2000, I'm young, 23. My dad's system then would be a whole other story which eventually became mine.
 
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Spring of 1978 (if my poor ol' memory serves me correctly) from a local audio store in the mall in Parkersburg, WV:

- Pioneer SX-1280 Receiver
- Pioneer PL-610 Turntable (had just hit the shelf locally)
- Pioneer SG-9500 Equalizer
- Pioneer HPM-100 (200W) Speakers (believe these had just come out also)
- Initially bought 2 speakers and within a few days I went back and got 2 more

Sure broke the piggy-bank at the time. Had a lot of fun with it though. Still have the SX-1280 and SG-9500 in daily use to this day.

Don
 
Snow shoveling, Lawn mowing, radio repairing money

Lafayette LA-224A 6 "real" watts per channel
Criterion 50A 8"2 way speakers (pair)
Garrard AT-60 Turntable with Pickering v-15 cartridge.

All brand new, system price of $160 in 1965, give or take a year.
 
Circa 1972.
Olson 20 Watt receiver
Garard AT-60 Turntable
Utah 12" coaxial speakers sitting on the floor in no cabinets.

Next year I got a Scott 340B receiver and a Sony TC-600 reel to reel.
Not bad for high school!
 
1971:

Lafayette Integrated Amp (50w p/ch) Have forgotten the model #. Great amp, built like a tank.

AR turntable

Home made speakers, using 15" woofers from organ cabinets from local church (given to me in exchange for grounds work).

1972: Sony TC353 Reel to reel added.

1976: Kenwood (25w/ pc) receiver replaced Lafayette

Dynaco A25 speakers added.
 
Yamaha CA-400, Dynaco A-10 speakers, Technics SL-20 turntable. I bought the CA-400 and A-10s one year and used them with a Dual 1214 turntable for awhile. The next summer the whole lot was stolen and replaced by a CA-410, EPI M50 speakers and the Technics TT. The CA-410 was sold in the late 80's when I acquire a CA-1010, the SL-20 was sold at a yard sale by my ex around the same time (I was not home at the time, grr.... for $5!). The M50s I still have, love and use daily with an Onkyo TX-4500 mkII as my kitchen system.

So my first system was nothing stellar, but to me at the time it was amazing, took my listening to an unimagined new height.
 
bryblob said:
detassled corn to buy a sharp all in one combo, kind of like a boombox. I remember the next year I upgraded from my summer money. The trend continued...
Click to expand...

Now talk about flashbacks. I detasseled corn in high school in the early 1960s. Hot dirty work but good money for a HS kid at the time.
 
1965

Circa 1965.

Some photos already posted in similar thread I started some months ago about my first real system.

I was 24, had my first real job after the military, and was learning about the wonder of credit cards.

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bryblob said:
detassled corn to buy a sharp all in one combo, kind of like a boombox. I remember the next year I upgraded from my summer money. The trend continued...
Click to expand...

I detassled corn all one summer also, in 1973. I bought a bicycle and a B&W portable TV with my earnings ($1.65 per hour). I've never run into anyone else who also detassled corn or knew what it was to do that.
 
I bought my first 'system' in 1977 - 1979. Pieced it together one bit at a time.

Harman/Kardon 50+ quadraphonic receiver. $75 used from a local radio station.

Sonic brand speakers (supposedly made by Pioneer). House brand for a local stereo chain in Denver. 12 inch woofers, paper cone mids and tweets, ported. They worked.

Toshiba SR-230 belt-drive turntable with whatever cartridge came with it (don't recall). It was BOTL and purchased at an 'audio sales event' that they used to hold at McNichols Arena in Denver a couple times a year. Funny, it was a good turntable, but decidedly cheap - now they go for big bucks on eBay. Apparently, if it's old, it's good. Strange days.

Akai CS M01 cassette deck. Very basic, two-head, Dolby B and supported Chrome tapes as I recall. I liked it, it worked well. Don't know what happened to it, wish I did. Funny thing; it was also a BOTL cassette deck, but people make YouTube videos just to point out how 'cool' the VU meters on it are. I thought they were cool, yes, but every cassette deck had them at the time. Nothing unusual there.

Then, as now, I was on a severe budget. I pieced my system together on my own, replacing a GE Wildcat portable that my parents had given me to play records on. I paid for it with money I earned working at a Texaco gas station after school during my high school years.

When I graduated high school and joined the Marines, I saved up and bought some serious kit when I got to Okinawa, Japan, in 1983. Most of that, I still have.

Luxman L-580 Integrated Amp
JVC QL-A75 Direct Drive Turntable
Teac V-1RX three-head, three-motor cassette deck, with Dolby B/C/dbx.
Acoustic Research AR-58S speakers
Technics SH-8055 Equalizer (bought it just for the light show, never put it in the signal path).
 
My first REAL system was bought at a Washington D.C. armory electronics sale. My dad and I shopped around for a few weeks until we saw the full page ad for this sale. It was a no brainer. I can't remember the exact prices, but I do remember it was $447 for everything.

Circa 1979

Pioneer Pl-518 TT $130
Empire 2000 EIII cartridge $20
Pioneer CT-F500 cassette Deck $ 100
Kenwood KR-3090 receiver $170

I used some 8" 2 way Pioneer Project 80 speakers that I had bought at a George Washington birthday sale for $29 each. I remember having to wait 2 weeks for those speakers (out of stock) because of the blizzard of 1979'. I had "the bug" forever starting with this system.
 
Mid 70s

Dad got me a Sanyo all in one for Christmas.
The following year he got me a Kenwood 3500 integrated to power it & Tech Hifi store brand speakers..
Tech Hifi replaced those speakers numerous times.
They had defective drivers that kept blowing out ;)

It took over 10 years of everyday abuse to let the smoke out of that Kenny. Good lil amp :yes:
 
I was a paperboy back in 67-68. Saved my money and my dad went in halves with me. My uncle being in the record distributor business got me a Titan AM/FM 8 Track unit with the unknown speakers and a BSR turntable. I ended up doing most my listening with Koss Pro 4A headphones.

And the audio obsession began...
 
1958:

Used Garrard RC-80, originally wired mono, rewired (not by me) to stereo, with a GE VR-II or some such that tracked at about a pound. Rumbled like a freight train.

Two AMi jukebox amplifiers (only jukebox AFAIK that used magnetic cartridges), raising and lowering volume required moving two knobs up and down.

Pair of dreadful GE 12" coaxes in home-made cabinets.

(That was my first stereo system; before that the stuff I had was so dreadful I can't even think about it)
 
2005- grandma gave me her older Bose wave radio. It worked for a 14 year old looking for some tunes. Sold it a few years ago for $300 and now have a nice set of components and full size speakers.
 
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