Your first stereo system

My first real system was in 1982-3, CDs were still a new tech, wax ruled the audio salons. I got Rega Planar 3, moving coil cartridge, Musical Fidelity integrated amp and Heybrook HB1 speakers. Karl at Victors stereo in Chicago soon convinced me to get Spendor SP1 3-way speakers, and later Linn LP12 turntable, can't remember what cables I had then. I remember my friends from the clubs would come over to my "pad" and play records they all knew...New Order, Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy etc and watch their jaws drop as they heard things they never heard before (from their technics table and yamaha receivers, hehehe....) Later on I branched out to classical and other music. Oh yes clubs were Neo, Exit, Lucky Number et al......regards Sam

My first real system was a top of the line Dual 1219 turntable with a Shure M91ED cartridge driving a Dynaco Pat 4/Stereo 120 combo through Dynaco A-25 speakers. The whole smear cost $440 via mailorder plus $9.15 for UPS from Dixie Hi-Fi. Bring back any memories? One time I borrowed another pair of A-25's and ran both pair in parallel in the dorm lounge. The room was quite large and it rocked to Hendrix and Cream for about two hours. Then in the middle of Holst's The Planets I cooked all the output transistors in the Stereo 120. Dynaco made me spring for the amp repair but when it came to cooked woofers, they always fixed them at the factory in Philadelphia for free, while I waited, and no questions asked! About 10 years later, the Pat 4 had become a SAE P102, the Stereo 120 a Hafler DH200, and the A-25's were Big Advents. My ex kept that whole system and blasts it every day 1,500 miles away to her heart's content. The Dual 1219 still spins like a dream in my current system and has never skipped a beat!

fun question; ah the pre-craziness memories. i purchased my first system in '88 or '89: it consisted of a denon 45 watt receiver, nak's entry level tape deck, a phillips cd player and a pair of klipsch kg4 speakers. i cannot even remeber the cabeling. i absoluetly loved it. in my pursuit of loud and louder music i must have replaced the horns in one the kg4's a couple of times--i kept turning the dennon up so loud that i was sending nothing but crap through my speakers! the kg4's were the best buy of the lot; i only replaced them within the last year. i dropped the nak tape deck a few years after i purchased it, no need. thereafter, the denon was first to go, in favor of a carver 150 watt offering. then the cd player was replaced with cal's icon mk ii. that configuration lasted until about 3 years ago. at that point i added cj's pv10al pre-amp and dumped the carver in favor of cj's mv55. that was my first move out of mid-fi and should have been my move into a padded cell. i'm now a cj/wadia/jm labs kind of guy. i can't even begin to guess what's next and/or when. tweaking is fun. and you know what, when i turn up the volume now the music does not get louder, it gets bigger. and i no longer send crap through my speakers.

first system circa 1973 - klipsch heresys powered by a 65 watt per channel sherwood 8900 (fm only) receiver. the heresy retailed at $248.00 - the sherwood on sale at the time was $285.00 (closeout). my turntable was a pioneer - somewhere in the area of $200.00. norm .