Thinking about the good old days...


I'm definitely  an old geezer, and have a lot of experiences and memories to reflect on.  Lately, I've been remembering the enjoyment of "audio" back when I was just starting down this path: the music was just so amazingly enjoyable and fun.  I think my greatest satisfaction with my own audio stuff was when what-passed-for-my-system was a Fisher 90T tuner/preamp, Fisher 80AZ amp, a University speaker enclosure that I built ftom a lot fitted with 12" University woofer and some University tweeter (I forget what).  The only source was a Lenco turntable with a GE VR2 cartridge.  Dang, that stuff was just so wonderful to my young self!
128x128pinkyboy
@dsper Ever shop at Dodd’s Record Shop, or....Believe in Music (records and paraphernalia) back in the day in GR?
I checked out Believe n Music but never hit Dodds. Probably missed a good one.

I attended Aquinas College and spent a lot of time in a record store, don't recall the name, close to campus near Wealthy Street.

However, I do have a distinct memory of listening to  "Brown Eyed Girl" in that store and thinking there was no stadium at Aquinas so I needed to figure out plan B, which was a real problem in that I lived at home while getting my degree!

Thanks for listening,

Dsper
It’s not just our hearing and vision that deteriorate with age. When we were in our 20s, we were bursting with energy and hormones, we felt immortal, the world was in front of us, and everything was new. Whether at a live concert or on the stereo, music to my ears at 70+ less often gives the shocking delight and emotional connection it so often did at 20. It’s not impossible now, but it’s a lot rarer.

The fault, dear Geezer, is not in our gear, but in ourselves! (with apologies to WS)
Hey Mike, I'm 65, my first LP purchased was More of the Monkey's. In all those years only my second wife from 86 to 2009 understood my connection to music. Only she could understand catching me with tears running down my face. It could either be just great musicianship or lyrics. Recently finding videos on You Tube from performances from my favorites and concerts from back in the day put me always into a crying episode. 
dsper My first system was from Flanner & Hasoos in Mayfair Mall, Milwaukee in 1973. A Pioneer 939???, Thorens TD160 that as I got back into vinyl 2 years ago I took it into the shop for a $400.00 tune-up. More than I paid for it. A pair of Jensen 6 speakers. The JBL's were the rage at that time but the 15" woofers in the Jensen's did the trick. Thank God for warranties, There were many Mondays after all-nighter weekends taking them back to Flanners for service. Those two knobs on the back were fried, you couldn't turn them. If I remember that Pioneer only put out 70W. If you remember Flanner's they are now mostly a TV store. Audio Emporium in Brown Deer is one of the only High End stores. 
Retired, physically limited, home too much, too much time on the computer obviously. Beats watching the news.

I resemble that sentence (grin).

Additionally, as mentioned by "dsper", "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"  was one of my first album purchases. Later, I saw the Iron Butterfly in concert with Stepenwolf -- good time! 

In my pre-teen years, my fascination with improving sound found me buying raw speakers and trying to installing them in empty car model boxes. Before installing the drivers, I would poke in sound holes and spray paint the boxes.  Along with aesthetics, the paint stiffened the boxes. Obviously, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. But they sounded better than the speaker installed in my Hallicrafters short wave radio.  Placing the in-box speakers in various containers like waste baskets, seemed to also improve the sound (go figure)!

I lusted for my own in-bedroom record player. But alas, my dad thought the console stereo in the living room was sufficient.  For some reason my dad allowed an AIWA 3” portable reel-to-reel recorder to be bought. I used that to record songs from AM radio. 

Additionally, I convinced my dad to allow me to tear into out TV.  My plan was to patch into the TV's speaker wires to directly connect my AIWA recorder (a direct connect was much better than using a lapel mic). The goal was to record the Beatles' U.S. premier on Ed Sullivan.  It worked like a champ. 

In high school and college, I poured over the stereo magazines of the time. I found myself sending in the manufacturer card at the back of the magazine’s to request literature. I couldn’t afford any equipment. But boy did I have fun dreaming about Marantz receivers with their beckoning glowing displays and FM tuning wheels and McIntosh's gorgeous blue glowing displays seen at a local electronic store.  But both, particularly McIntosh, were unobtanium. 

Still having only the AIWA, I met a fellow student who returned from the Navy bearing a Pioneer quad system he bought while overseas. For obvious reasons, I sought him out as a roommate. He introduced me to many new groups and albums; not the least which were Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” and The Moody Blues “In Search of the Lost Chord” and Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album using the "Emerson, Lake & Palmer" name.  All 3 remain some of my favorites, with the tune "Lucky Man" being frequently used as an audition track.

Within a year after acquiring my first job following college and married, I saved up enough for my first system. It consisted of ESS Heil AMT-3, “Rockmonitor’s”, a JVC Integrated 80w/ch amplifier and Dual 1229 TT with a Shur cart. I still remember hearing Pink Floyd's DSOTM at the audio dealers.  After I got home, I called and asked what the heck was the album I heard and the rest as is said, is history...

After this, I just listened to music and remained with the same ESS Heil speakers for many years. A Tandberg reel-to-reel was added. But when we were burglarized, the Tandberg was taken, along with the JVC Integrated. A Revox B77 replaced the Tandberg and a Phase Linear 400 amp and 4000 "Autocorrelation" preamplifier replaced the JVC Integrated.

Thereafter, with family expenses, equipment stayed static for quite some time. In middle age with more disposable income, I jumped back into the highend audio world with vigor. 

Since then, I’ve acquired many different items, finding several small boutique manufacturers in the process.  But I have not strayed far from the original Heil AMT (Air Motion Transformer) sound, moving to panels and then electrostats.