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What were your humble beginnings on the path to high end audio?

Recently there has been a discussion as to the “price point where mid fi tops out and hi end systems begin”. I’d be willing to bet that there are not many folks who started out in this field of interest spending $100K, $50K or even $10K. Going back to your very beginnings, what was your first serious audio system?

I’ll jump in the wayback machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman and give you a look at my beginnings.

My journey began at around age 13. I started out with a Lafayette KT-630, stereo tube amp that I built from a kit in my 9th grade, “electronics shop” class. The speakers were built at home from plans in the 1968, July issue of Mechanix Illustrated. I upgraded the cabinet construction from plywood, to solid mahogany. The twin woofers in each cabinet were also upgraded to 5” from the specified 4” units and the tweeters were also upgraded from the specified 2-3/4” units to the deluxe 3” units. The inductors in the 6db per octave passive crossovers were hand wound and the caps, terminal strips, L-pads, magnet wire and grill cloth were from Lafayette Radio Electronics as were the woofers and tweeters. The turntable was a purchased Garrard SL72B with a Shure M91E magnetic cartridge.

Check out the amp specifications on page 42 of the Lafayette 1968 summer catalog #648.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Allied-Catalogs/Lafayette-1968-Summer.pdf

The raw speakers are shown on page 55 of the Lafayette 1971 catalog #710. Woofers, 99-F-01554, figure D. Tweeters were at the bottom of page 55, 99-F-00499. The Garrard SL72B is on page 69 of the same catalog.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Consumer/Lafayette-1971.pdf

I still have the speaker systems and the amp and they all still work! Alas the SL72B is long since gone. I mowed a lot of grass and shoveled a lot of snow in the neighborhood to buy all that high end gear at age 13! :-D By todays standards, not very impressive, but to a 13 year old in 1968, it was awesome!

So to reiterate, what was your first serious audio system?

P.S. - If you are interested, check out some select old Lafayette, Allied Radio, Heathkit, Radio Shack, Olson and other old catalogs from what I think of as the “good old days” of electronics and my youth.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Electronics_Catalogs.htm

vintage_heath
chattaudio's avatar
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chattaudio
35 posts
 
Growing up in Communist time USSR, hi-fi, mid-fi or even low-fi was hard to come by. Started out with a Soviet-made Melodia turntable receiver with stock speakers (see link below if you are having hard time imagining turntable receiver).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/macmad/6833766576/sizes/l/in/photostream/
It was nowhere near as nice as the one in the pic, but knowing what I know now, it actually sounded pretty good. Later on added a Hitachi dual well cassette deck (similar to D-E1, but dual well). We went through hell and back to get our hands on that thing. Great deck, a real workhorse. One must mention a couple of Soviet tube reel to reels, Astra and Yauza, the latter was a somewhat decent copy of a Telefunken.  The smell of an old tube reel to reel (mix of smells of oil, hot metal, hot tube glass, tape flakes and rubber belts) is the very definition of "smell of analog" to me.  I need to get me a tube reel to reel just to smell.  I am getting side tracked... I think I'll start a topic on that.  What's your smell?

A bit later dad came across some Technics 3-way speakers and a Pioneer integrated amp. That combo stood the test of time and sounded very good.  Don't remember model numbers...think classic silver Pioneer and fake wood finish on the speakers.  I do remember they were sealed and had at least an 8" woofer.  Very similar to pic below:
https://reverb.com/item/8004771-technics-sb-3030-3way-speaker-system

The crown jewel of the system came last, right before I moved to US - it was an Akai tape deck, pretty high up in GX series, 65, I think. My dad still has it, it’s close to 30 years old and still sounds magnificent and never needed anything. That’s when I fell in love with Akai and just last week picked up a fully restored GX-635D reel to reel. But that’s another post...

mg16's avatar
mg16
117 posts
 
1972. Got a steel related job just outside of Pittsburgh. Had my draft board number, but wasn't called up for Viet Nam war duty, although some of my friends were.
They needed men to work in the mills. We ran thousands of miles of dull, flat, army green , sheet steel, for ammo boxes. I was against the war, had my flag ,peace sign on my old 64 buick, and here I was making ammo box material for the Vietnam war. Had to make a living, and no money for college. 
I was making $2.25 per hour, but I managed  to save  for 6 months or so, and visited a place called The Audio Warehouse on Saw mill run Blvd.
Plunked about $600 down for large advents, a sherwood receiver, and dual turntable with a shure md1ed.
I can remember getting it home, setting it up in my bedroom, and the first record that  I played on it. Neil Young Harvest. Just freshly bought. I still have it in my collection. I heard the orcheastra in "A man needs a maid". After using a cheapo Capehart all in one unit for years, I was mesmerized by how gorgeous it sounded to me.
Hardly high end by todays standards, and I now have Proac, Quicksilver, and Oracle, ARC, (and it sounds leagues better), but its kind of like the first time you get a really good buzz, or make love.
Somehow that initial thrill is never recaptured.
Pity.
Mg16

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wownflutter
7 posts
 
My first system besides my Panasonic all in one system, I thought it was so cool because the turntable was separate,and the 8 track player was built in,but that got me interested in audio , so I saved my money and got an akai receiver and a pioneer cassette deck, onkyo turntable, which I still have by the way and a pair of EPI T-120 speaker, later upgraded to Advent legacy speakers, nothing really high end but at the time it blew away my friends realistic  boom boxes, I remember I used to stare at the RadioShack catalogues, wished I could get a pair of the big minimus speakers with the 15" woofers 
jhaud
8 posts
 
My first "audiophile" system in 1979 consisted of a Marantz direct drive turntable (model number forgotten) with an Audio Technica cartridge, a used Sony integrated amp from the early 70's, and pair of EPI 110 speakers. A Magnavox CD player was added in 1985. I used those components until about 2000 and then began upgrading...
harrylavo's avatar
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harrylavo
345 posts
 
Summer of 1956 as a soon-to-be senior in high school, I built a system starting with a modest Electro-Voice SP-12B in an Argus bass reflex cabinet.  A Garrard RC121 with a Norelco moving magnet cartridge and an Eico HF-20 amp (built from a kit) completed the system.  I also bought my first two LP's at the time (through the Capital Records Club): Rimsky-Korsakov's "Le Coq D'Or", and  Stan Kenton's "Kenton in Hi-Fi".

The following year I added an Eico FM tuner (again from a kit) and built an equipment cabinet to take the rig to college with me.  The year after that I replaced the speaker with a 15"Jensen Triaxial installed in a corner horn built from plans from somewhere, and this system remained with me through my last three years of college and two years of grad school.

I must admit that my system was adequate, but still a let-down from my father's system that I grew up with - a large JBL corner horn (C-31) fed by a Newcomb 25wpc williamson amplifier with umbilical preamplifier. The electronics in turn were fed by both a Garrard RC88 with GE variable-reluctance cartridge (for the family) and a Rek-O-Kut turntable and (I think) a Grey tonearm and Fairchild cartridge.
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