What are your early audio experiences

[joeparaski]

I remember as far back as early elementary school. My parents had one of those furniture stereos and I'd spend hours sitting on the floor in front of it listening to music.

One time I was determined to listen to ALL the music ever played so I sat there listening, and when a song repeated I thought I had heard it all.

I had received a portable cassette player for my birthday and I spent lots of time pointing the microphone to the speaker on the "stereo" to make my own recordings. I would lock myself in my room and warn everybody to be quiet so I could make my recording. I proudly carried that cassette player everywhere I went.

Joe

[Strong Bad]

Thats so hilarious! I did the same exact stuff.

I would leave my little portable cassette player/recorder in front of the furniture stereo set on pause/record until a good song came on. I had my finger on the "trigger" just waiting for something sweet to come on.

When MTV just started and would actually play music, I sat the portable with mic in front of the TV speaker, again, with finger on the "trigger."

The audio sickness just kept getting worse from there. :D

Thanks for the memories!

John

[ND13]

Not including the obligatory transistor radio that Grandma would replace every Xmas, because the other one was broke and had gone under the "knife", my dad gave me his Garrard tuntable and Fisher(sand) receiver. He did that in 1972, after he upgraded to Smaller Advents, Philips TT, Roberts R2R, and Marantz integrated amp. I can't remember what brand of 8-track recorder he had.

Man it's hard to believe that I was 5 years old when I got my first rig.

[ohskigod]

growing up, my dad alsways had more than a decent stereo in the house. When Mom was pregnant with me, Dad went out and replaced his old reciever (cant remember off the top of my head) with a brand spanking new Sansui Model Eight, which was not cheap back then. My Dad's logic was, buy it now, because when I have the Kid, I wont be able to afford it then.

He allways liked doing the quad stereo thing, to fill the whole house with music. He had a pair of Coral BX1200's speakers that he absolutly adored, and others as the second pair not worthy of note, the Coral's are what grounded the system speakerwise.

He had a teac real to real (big and nice :)) that he GAVE AWAY to afriend that was very sick and wanted to record his guitar playing before he died.

I remember him having a tape deck that was like a console, all the controls were on the top of the unit, not on the face. For the life of me I cant remember the brand. He bought another tape deck of the same style and gave me the old one, which I used with a little technics 35X2 reciever and a set of panasonic thrusters. This was my first real component system.

I got the sansui reciever after my dad replaced it with a Onkyo Integra TX85 reciever in 85 ish? When I had that Sansui, I had the baddest Stereo on the block by a long shot.

Ah memories :D

[exalted512]

I had received a portable cassette player for my birthday and I spent lots of time pointing the microphone to the speaker on the "stereo" to make my own recordings. I would lock myself in my room and warn everybody to be quiet so I could make my recording. I proudly carried that cassette player everywhere I went.

Joe

So this was the first ways of 'pirating'?:p
-Cody

[mutelight]

[Strong Bad]

So this was the first ways of 'pirating'?:p
-Cody

LMAO! Yes, you could look at it this way.

I remember giving my (ex) brother in law some blank TDK tapes to record albums for me. Nobody ever bitched about pirating back then. We didn't even know the concept.

Speaking of TDK tapes, the MA (metal alloy I think) were the cream of the crop back then. I couldn't afford them. Had to go with the TDK SA 90min tapes. The 120 minute tapes were too thin. My cheap ass tape player would eat them.

Such fun times to think about!

[Strong Bad]

WHOA!!! Accoustic suspension speakers and a diamond needle on that Fisher Price system.

Thats the **** man! :D

[mutelight]

WHOA!!! Accoustic suspension speakers and a diamond needle on that Fisher Price system.

Thats the **** man! :D

Hahaha yeah the sound quality was mind bending. The 3" drivers in those thin plastic enclosures, :sigh: I'd give up my current system to go back to that reference quality system anyday. :p

[heiney9]

Played my dad's original Capitol Beatles albums (the first 2) on an old Fisher Price mono record player (orange and white in color). Scratched the hell out of those albums. Used to jump up and down on my bed using my Pancho Gonzales wooden tennis racket as a guitar playing along to Roll Over Beethoven. I was about 8 years old.

Next was an old style portable console player by Magnavox, the lid was on hinges and the record player was recessed in the case so you could stack records. It had dual 4" speakers built into the front where the controls were. Listened to a lot of early Kiss, Linda Ronstadt, Jim Croce and Rod Stewart on that. All those records (except Kiss were also my dad's)

Next was an Astrex stereo record player with am/fm. It was black and white and seperate speaker cabinets about the sixe of a small box of cereal. It had an opening in the cabinet for a tweeter, but when I took the speakers apart they had a 5" full range driver. The tweeter opening was just for looks. Played a lot of Cheap Trick, Kiss, Peter Frampton, Ac/Dc, etc. on that unit. I had this when I was about 13.

Next was a Fisher reciever, Pioneer CTF cassette deck and ATL Award 8" 2- way bookshelf speakers and a borrowed Panasonic TT from my dad. Got this set-up for my 15th b-day.

After that I had several different recievers, cdp's, cassette decks.

Then when I was around 21-22 I started working selling audio. I got a pair of Polk 5b's (my first Polks) and my other big purchase around this time was my Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Also a few years later I purchased a Nakamichi OMS 4A cdp, Nakamichi CA-5 preamp, Adcom GFA 545 amp and my Polk RTA-11t's.

I've been through a few cdp's over the years, but the final system is still intact going on close to 20 years for the Adcom, Nak pre and my Polks.

After

[schwarcw]

I used to listen to a turntable "in a box". Speaker, amp all in one bos that you could snap the lid closed wrap the power cord into a hideaway space, then carry it around by a hanle on the side of the unit. I also had a seven transistor Magnavox portabe radio with an ear plug. I thought I was kng ping with that little unit. I use to fall asleep in bed listening to Paul Revere and the Raiders, Rollings Stones, Beach Boys, Herman's Hermit's and the Motown groups of the mid '60's.

My first true stereo component system I bout in 1968. It consisted of a Lafayette Electronics 65 wpc amp, not tuner and a pair of Criterion speakers made by Lafayette. I sued it until 1973 at which time I bought a Marantz 2230 and upgraded the speakers to larger Criterions 6's. I love that system 1 My son still uses those Criterion speakers and they still sound suprisingly good. One 12" woofer, one mid range, two tweters and two "super tweeters". They sound pretty good with a good source and power amp. The wooders have a large metal flange for mounting to the baffle. They don't make woofers like this anymore.

Those were the days!:)

[Normanality]

Sitting with my dad, spinning his collection of 78's on the old console.

Louis Armstrong, Harry James, Mugsy Spanier, The Dorsey Boys......

Those were the days.

[madmax]

I blew up and tore apart all of my first music boxes. At a pre-school age I was hooking up extra speakers to everything in site. Previous to that I was happy dismantling any vacuum cleaner in the house.
madmax

[Dennis Gardner]

My dad sold Marantz, Dual, Kenwood, Fisher, Frazier, etc. I would do anything to find a night when he needed to work late, so I could play.

[danger boy]

i'm still a audio virgin, waiting for my first experience. ;)

[Beekyman]

It must have been Xmas in 72 or 73 in Germany when St. Nick delivered a portable record player that ran off of batteries and check this out...it loaded and unloaded the records thru a slot in the front just like a modern automotive CD player! Just push the single in, music starts playing and when the song was complete the record would partially eject so you could flip it over or exchange it! I couldnt have been older than 5 at the time and I loved that thing...I played all of my parents 45's (lots of Elvis and Roy Orbison!) and according to my parents I actually went to bed with that thing playing the same song over and over and over and over until ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz!
I'm sure they were happy they got me a winner of a gift but I'm sure that they were much happier when I finally sacked out and their ears finally got a rest from the same song being played to death!
Other fond memories are from a Telefunken table radio that my German grandparents listened to constantly and my first true experience with a "real" stereo... a circa 1974 KENWOOD stereo that my parents gave to my Opa and he would sit there listening to classical music with his headphones on filtering out the outside world and escaping his earthly cares. I still remeber the remote...it reminded me of an old foil shaver! I think it only controlled volume and perhaps power, Opa was so cool that he had a remote control!!
My first stereo was a all in one combination turntable,cassette deck and tuner from SANYO that drove some really funky speakers that were disguised as books! It was a hand me down from the parents and my buddies and me spent hours playing around with the turntable trying to hear "backwards masked messages" on various artists. I didnt care as the records werent mine and all I had were "modern" cassettes :)
Those were happy days indeed!