Your first amp?


What was it, when did you get it, and what did you really want?

I'll start, 1977, really wanted a Pioneer SX650 ( a powerhouse at, I seem to recall, 35wpc) but just didn't have the dough. Wound up with an SX450 (15 wpc) and gotta say, within it's power limitations, it was pretty decent.

Ah, back in the day when musical happiness was a receiver, a turntable, decent speakers (the JBL 100 Century was real nice), and to splurge, a cassette deck. In fact, I would say, in 1977, my 'dream system' would have been a Pioneer SX850, the L100's, a Philips GA212 turntable with a V15 type 3, and a Tandberg cassette deck.
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I have very fond memories of a Heathkit W4AM mono-blocks with matching preamp. Very cool set up modified to push pull at 50W a channel. Class A at 27w. We were the proud owner of these through Junior High School. We received them as a gift from my uncle and dear ole dad. I later migrated to a Realistic STA 2000D receiver with 75 watts a channel, rotel turntable and AKAI tape deck. Very SPOILED high school kid(lol) who worked long hours at fast food to get all of this. We also managed to build custom made speakers for both systems. I have been happily engrossed with the hobby ever since. I think I will enjoy our Wyred for Sound seperates now. Haven't been this exited since then.
Sansui AU-555, 1970. Dual 1219 w/Sure V15type II, Pioneer DX63 speakers, Teac 4010s reel to reel. Purchase in Okinawa while in Navy.
Something from RadioShack; integrated w/quad option. $59.95 back in 1975. Thought it was very cool.
Sherwood S-7800 receiver.
For those of you old enough and local enough, from MisiCraft in Morton Grove Illinois.
In 1966, when I was 19, I bought a Dynaco SCA-35 kit and very slowly, very carefully soldered it up. When I bought the kit the dealer told me to bring the amp back before I powered it up and he'd bench test it. It tested better than spec and I was on my way. Of course, I didn't yet have any money for a turntable or speakers but the fine folks at High Fidelity in Austin took pity on a poor college student and somehow I got a new AR turntable and a pair of AR speakers that were gathering dust on a store room shelf. Wonderful little amp, wish I still had it.