Post your first hifi here!

[Bill Hart]

You're kidding right? Do you really want to lay 5 LPs on top of each other, have the first one fall to the platter, and then the second one fall on top of your first LP while the first LP is spinning and then repeat that 3 more times? Never mind the VTA getting worse as each LP drops on top of the last LP.

Had you goin', huh? Yes, of course I was kidding. The very idea is frightening. But, did people back in the day even think of VTA? Maybe they said, "gee dear, you know for some reason, it always seems like the second record in the stack sounds better than the others." The rest, of course, is history.
I guess what killed the record changer was.....
the 8tracktape deck?

 

[Steve Williams]

But Bill

Can you remember those old 4 track cartridges before there were 8 track

 

[mep]

The evolution of playback gear was always centered on making it ‘wife friendly’ and more convenient for the lazy man. R2R tapes in their heyday were way too complicated for women to operate which is why they came out with the 4 track tape that Steve mentioned. The record changer was a huge compromise in sound quality in order to allow people to stack 5 LPs and have them play continuously without having to attend to changing a single LP.

The original R2R tapes were 7 ½ ips 2 track tapes, but they had to give way to 4 track tapes and auto-reverse decks so that you didn’t have to get up and flip the tape over. It was never about ultimate fidelity with most of those ‘innovations.’

For those of you too young to remember 8 track tapes, they were horrible for a number of reasons. The head never stayed in alignment and you could always hear an adjacent track bleeding through unless you constantly adjusted the head which was a real joy. The Cassette deck was a huge improvement for car audio when it replaced 8 track decks. It’s still a miracle that a tape that is 1/8” wide, recorded on both sides, and playing at 1 7/8 ips sounded as good as it did (and does). Nakamichi showed everyone what was possible with the cassette format.

And then when we ended up with the ultimate “look ma, no hands” technology, the CD. It was and is the ultimate couch potato audio format that was/is so simple to use that you could even trust your wife with it if she only knew how to turn your stereo on and operate the remote control.

 

[treitz3]

You're kidding right? Do you really want to lay 5 LPs on top of each other, have the first one fall to the platter, and then the second one fall on top of your first LP while the first LP is spinning and then repeat that 3 more times? Never mind the VTA getting worse as each LP drops on top of the last LP.

Mark, I happened to have been 8 years old at the time and even though I was still comparably knee high to a duck at that time? I still knew better than that. It's a fairly good assumption that whart was kidding. No good audio aficionado would think otherwise unless they were out of their right mind. At least I would hope not.

Tom

 

[Bill Hart]

But Bill

Can you remember those old 4 track cartridges before there were 8 track

Vaguely. I guess that was a purist thing. I still remember how nasty those 8 track players were in cars- thankfully short-lived, to be replaced by......... drum roll.........


the cassette!

 

[treitz3]

It's a fairly good assumption that whart was kidding.

Daggum...My apologies Mark. I should read the entire thread before posting. My bad.

Tom

 

[Bill Hart]

The evolution of playback gear was always centered on making it ‘wife friendly’ and more convenient for the lazy man. R2R tapes in their heyday were way too complicated for women to operate which is why they came out with the 4 track tape that Steve mentioned. The record changer was a huge compromise in sound quality in order to allow people to stack 5 LPs and have them play continuously without having to attend to changing a single LP.

The original R2R tapes were 7 ½ ips 2 track tapes, but they had to give way to 4 track tapes and auto-reverse decks so that you didn’t have to get up and flip the tape over. It was never about ultimate fidelity with most of those ‘innovations.’

For those of you too young to remember 8 track tapes, they were horrible for a number of reasons. The head never stayed in alignment and you could always hear an adjacent track bleeding through unless you constantly adjusted the head which was a real joy. The Cassette deck was a huge improvement for car audio when it replaced 8 track decks. It’s still a miracle that a tape that is 1/8” wide, recorded on both sides, and playing at 1 7/8 ips sounded as good as it did (and does). Nakamichi showed everyone what was possible with the cassette format.

And then when we ended up with the ultimate “look ma, no hands” technology, the CD. It was and is the ultimate couch potato audio format that was/is so simple to use that you could even trust your wife with it if she only knew how to turn your stereo on and operate the remote control.

Don't forget tape snarls. Remember how you'd have to try and feed the tape back into the cartridge? And of course, it got a little creased? Or worse, the tape got caught inside the machine. Of course, in those days, you'd be driving with a cigarette dangling from you mouth, trying to untangle the tape machine and keep your eyes on the road. And they think drivers are distracted today.

 

[Bill Hart]

One of the places on my list: http://eighttrackmuseum.com/home.html

 

[cjfrbw]

"For those of you too young to remember 8 track tapes, they were horrible for a number of reasons. The head never stayed in alignment and you could always hear an adjacent track bleeding through unless you constantly adjusted the head."

Yeah, but it was great for smoking dope and hatching conspiracy theories, especially if they were backwards.

 

[Bill Hart]

"For those of you too young to remember 8 track tapes, they were horrible for a number of reasons. The head never stayed in alignment and you could always hear an adjacent track bleeding through unless you constantly adjusted the head."

Yeah, but it was great for smoking dope and hatching conspiracy theories, especially if they were backwards.

You just brought back a long dormant memory. The dudes that had those tricked out vans that were really a party on wheels, shagadelic interiors, big stereos, waves of smoke when the side door opened, ala Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

 

[JackD201]

Boy am I bad with model numbers! I also started buying my own stuff around 1990. It was a mixed DJ/HT system comprised of two beat up second hand SL-1200 Mk2s with M44-7 carts, a Numark mixer with built in Aphex Exciter (yuck), a Pioneer Laser Disk player, a VHS machine, the cheapest Pioneer receiver, AR Rock Partner monitors from a damage sale at Good Guys I scored for $30 as it had a big chunk of MDF missing at one corner hahahahaha and a passive sub from Cerwin-Vega which got it's juice from "Speaker B". All wire was from a nearby hardware store and ICs were the freebie variety. Luckily I was able to pass the stuff off easily within a year. I sold my membership at a sports club since I played for the Badminton team of another one closer to home come to think of it I'd stopped competing at this time and went back to Golf which is probably why I sold. With that I purchased the top of the line Onkyo Integra (Integra had yet to be spun off as its own brand) and later its separate AC-3 decoder and 5.1 set of Canton speakers from Germany in 1991. This became a set of 600 Series B&Ws by 1995 or so which stayed until 1999. 604s were notoriously power hungry so I added my first pair of monoblocks, the affordable and beefy Musical Fidelity XA-200s MF's biggest cylinders along with an X-24 DAC fed by a first gen Toshiba DVD player. These speakers were replaced with Energy Veritas speakers a Proceed AVP, Proceed BPA-3 and a Levinson No 23.5. The Veritas 2.4s were very good sounding speakers but the woofers would miss align mechanically and freeze up. The dealer took them back and I opted for Revel F30s, and the matching center. After a bad string of tenants in our adjacent condo, I decided to remodel it and use it as my man cave instead. The first system here was a Dynaudio Contour 1.8 the 23.5 replaced by a 332 in the HT, a second hand set of 360S and 380S and a Tascam CDR pro unit feeding the 360S via AES-EBU. No bass in the long narrow room. Out they went. In came a pair of 1.6QRs I hoped would deal with the narrow room better. Big mistake. Those moved to the HT where they were quite fantastic and the F30s that had just been poked to death and the tweeters replaced went into the play unit which would double as a unit with two showrooms as the story progresses. Still no bass. Damn it! Things speed up crazily at this point. I auditioned everything around but nothing tickled my fancy at my budget.

I ordered a pair of Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen.IIIs factory direct after hearing the Gen II at a friends place. Took on the dealership after a whole bunch of friends asked me to order for them. In came the VR-4SR and the ML Pre and 331 were bought by a VR-4jr buyer. I got my BAT VK-32SE and VK-150s ushering in my tube love affair. Also in was my return to vinyl first with a pair of SL-1210 M5Gs with Ortofon Concords and a Tascam Mixer then adding a VPI Aries 2 with a CA Strad cart and a BAT VK-P10 SE. Replaced by an HRX, CA Titanium with Phantom L, the VPI dealer's former personal unit. The Phantom brought about the cart phase with an XV-1s and my first spare arm wand. In came the VR-5 SE replacing the VR-4 SR. At this point we had an order for VR-9s. The client, my big brother, wanted to work only with us initially and at that point we didn't carry any electronics. We took on Lamm and I ordered a set comprised of an LL2, M2.2 and LP2 for myself while my partner ordered a LL2 and ML2.1 SET amp along with a VS DB-99 for himself. Yes getting high on your own supply is dangerous. I ordered my own pair of VR-9s after I heard Jim's pair. There is an interested party for my VR-9 Mk2s which were field upgraded by Albert himself. If that pushes through my self restraint will be tested heavily between an upcoming model or going the whole "11" yards. I've been spending my time looking at paint codes!

I wish I had pictures of my first system unfortunately I didn't own a camera in those days.

 

[NorthStar]

---Man, my first serious rig goes back to 1967.
A pair of Stereo speakers (not Mono) and I don't remember the brand, but they were quite large and with those 'church' type grilles (wood art deco with brown material tissu), turntable (Garrard I believe), Stereo receiver with an 8-track cassette tape deck incorporated (don't remember which brand and model), and Radio Shack speaker wires. Few albums were purchased every weekends.
And few months later I gave up on 8-track tapes (I exchanged my receiver for another one with an alarm clock). Again I don't remember the brand (not high-end anyway).

Sorry, no pictures (didn't have a camera yet back then).
But my Dad had two Leicas (no can't touch). And he had two rifles (high power and caliber) for moose hunting.

But here's the thing: everything was purchased with my own money!

* Later on, sold everything to my sister Josee for $200. ...With all my albums (100 or so).

 

[tdh888]

I started hifi in 1978 when I was in third year high school. Stereo components were the norm during that time. What I had was a Sansui receiver 8080DB, JBL L65 Jubal's ,Technics SL 3350 auto changer turntable ,audio technica cartridge I cant recall what model and a Nakamichi 600 cassete deck. As usual its was my Dad who bank rolled this system .


tdh888

 

[LL21]

Besides my first boombox...actually 'upgraded' my boombox to one with CD player...my first separates system was: Celestion SL6si, Denon Integrated, Crystal Cable and boombox as CD player. First CD player was NAD 5000 using Audioquest Crystal interconnects. All is long gone other than the AQ interconnects which i use from my cable box. I eventually added a Velodyne 1200 subwoofer. That was my first system fully evolved.

The 2nd fully evolved system came 15 years later CJ PV14L, CJ MV60, $50DVD player and Zanden DAC, Transp Ref cabling, SF Guarneri with Velodyne DD18.

System 3 has been underway over the last 5 years and continues to approach 'fully evolved'.

 

[Vincent Kars]

I started with the old gear of my parents



Triotrack turntable with ceramic cartridge.

You could flip the cartridge as it had 2 needles, one for 78 rpm and one for micro groove (33/45)





Erres radio, mono, valves


I added a big Philips speaker mounted in a piece of plywood.

Valves, vinyl, open baffle, I was a highender at 12!

 

[A.wayne]

My first system was my fathers , who was a trumpet player in his teens and a big jazz buff , so we always had music in the house . In 1969 he got serious and went with a full component system ..

1. Garrard 100 with shure cartridge
2. Akai cassette deck with auto reverse
3. Sony receiver 20/20 watt
4. KLH model 17 with stands

I was stumped and this served us for years until 1976 when I had the opportunity to get my own setup , summer jobs and mucho savings later I wanted my own setup , well that was until I ran Into a deal on a set of power amps that would take up my whole budget , I was smitten , and figured hey I Would used the model-17's until I could afford speakers , sadly the amp was sold when I arrived and instead I was offered another set , disappointed I took them (monos) satisfied I would keep them fora few months until I could find me another MC2300 ..

The amps MC3500

So my first real hi-if system consisted of MC3500 's driving KLH model 17's .....

I was later offered the chance to trade them in for 30% value of the 2300 , I said no thanks ...

 

[Mosin]

Channel Master 6620 integrated amplifier...vacuum tube, of course.

Open baffle 12" full-range speakers salvaged from a Wurlitzer jukebox. I heard similar sounding speakers at RMAF a couple of years ago, and they wanted $8,000. Mine cost $20. Theirs were worth $20, but listening to them instantly brought the old Wurlitzers to mind. LOL

Flip-down GE whatever thing all-in-one portable that had a turntable inside that I modified, so that only the turntable part worked. I have never been able to leave a turntable as-is, not even the first one.

Astatic ceramic cartridge. It had a penny on top.

18 ga. brown lamp cord with no terminations.

One record in the beginning. It was a 45, Janis Joplin "Piece of my Heart" on side A, and "Down on Me" on side B. I preferred side B.

The thing played surprisingly loud.

Oh, to be 17 again!

 

[Odyno]

My first HiFi system in 1982
Quad amp and pre-amp

Mission 700 speaker

Rega 2 turntable

 

[astrotoy]

My first hifi was in my freshman year in college, back in 1963. It was a single Heathkit speaker (bought used for $20) and integrated amp from Lafayette, don't remember the brand, with an AR TT and Shure cartridge. I also had a pair of headphones that I listened to at night, not to disturb my roommates. AR was in Cambridge, MA on the other side of town from where I was going to college. I remember I had a problem with the TT and took it over to AR (near Lechmere Square) by bus and tram. I waited there and they not only fixed the TT but upgraded it to the newest model on the spot. I bought my first album, a set of the 9 Beethoven Symphonies by Karajan on DGG for $18, and then decided I needed some equipment to play the records!

Larry