Back In the Day

There are far more product categories to upgrade in now, so that's a big factor. Depending on how far back in the day you go, digital was not part of the system, nor were high-end cables, room treatments, outboard power supplies, vibration control, platforms, purpose-built racks, and so on. Then again, there were tuners.

Yes; I was in Chicago in the 60s and a bunch of us would read the Chicago Tribune Sunday ads when it came out Sat night for the latest listings. I changed equipment much more then as things were A LOT cheaper. A pair of Quad 57s were under $400 including sea freight from England. A Stax tone arm was $37.50 including air freight from Japan, and so on. One thing hasn't changed; the audiophiles I knew didn't use Mac then either. The ones with money used Marantz 9s or 8b or Citation 2 or 5. The ones with less money [me] used Dynaco Stereo 70 or Mk 3s or 4s. I went to solid state in the mid 60s and never went back. Cartridges were $50 or less when they weren't a penny extra when bought with a turntable.

Damn, I am old. There were a lot of brands of good equipment that I am sure almost no younger audiophile has heard of. Hadley, Ge-Go, Fane, Goodmans, Sherwood, Scott, Radford, Transcriptors, Rec-o-kut, Gray, Hartley, Viking, Ampex, Braun, Bozak, Ferrograph. Some that I have mentioned lived on as cheap labels for some time; Warfedale is still around but not what it was when Gilbert Briggs ran it. There always was a "high end" if you use the term to mean gear significantly better than average; just not as pretentious as it is now.

Yes; I was in Chicago in the 60s and a bunch of us would read the Chicago Tribune Sunday ads when it came out Sat night for the latest listings. I changed equipment much more then as things were A LOT cheaper. A pair of Quad 57s were under $400 including sea freight from England. A Stax tone arm was $37.50 including air freight from Japan, and so on. One thing hasn't changed; the audiophiles I knew didn't use Mac then either. The ones with money used Marantz 9s or 8b or Citation 2 or 5. The ones with less money [me] used Dynaco Stereo 70 or Mk 3s or 4s. I went to solid state in the mid 60s and never went back. Cartridges were $50 or less when they weren't a penny extra when bought with a turntable.

I was just glad to get something I could afford that would put a smile on my face. All we had we magazines and brick and mortar stores, some who would look at your askance if you weren't their 'type'. Some even required an appointment just to browse and listen and attitudes were prevalent: I'm sure that could trigger another thread. But there were some who were quite the opposite and helped save this hobby.

Without the internet, we would savor our rigs and eagerly await the next issue of reviews. At least that's how it was for me. I had levels of incremental improvement that would seem glacial by todays standards. Come to think of it, I did enjoy the music so much more than I do now, being content with what I had. Now with all the immediate improvements constantly bombarding me, I'm constantly reminded that what I have is so passe, LOL.

Sites like A'gon and others have opened up avenues of pleasure and debt and along with it some pretty intense marketing but its the nature of the game.
Truth be told, advances in PCs, servers and DACs have benefited from all of this, lulling me back onto the merry-go-round.

There's much to be said about the here and now and the youth who will experience and enjoy some of the greatest improvements in sound reproduction and all that lies ahead, but I'd like to think that the learning curve and history we've endured is irreplaceable and alas, soon to be lost in some back issues on someone's server.