It was 20 years ago today. . What was your system?

I was in Australia in 1983 and had a Linn Sondek (Valhalla) with the LVX arm (really wanted an Ittok but could not afford it) and one of the truly great MM cartridges, the Garrott P77.

The preamp was a hybrid design by Russell Woolcock out of Melbourne using a single 6SL7 and transistors with a separate power supply and independent volume controls for each channel. It was an interesting design with no circuit boards, lead-to-lead wiring of components, and the network sort of floating on lightweight suspension devices. It had a beautiful open sound, full of life and colour.

I was using one of Kostas Metaxas (before he became the master of bling) class A transistor amps that was originally 50w but had been revised to 100w.

The speakers were Yamaha NS1000s on stands.

The system was fantastic but I did not have a big enough room for it.

I still have the gear (except for the Yammies) in storage at my Mum's place in Australia.

Regards,

Back in 1978 my system was comprised of a GAS Son of Ampzilla amp, GAS Thedra Preamp, Celestin Ditton 66 Speakers, JVC Direct Drive Turntable with a GAS Sleeping Beauty Moving Coil Cartridge, and a Teac A-450 Cassette Deck. My speaker wires were Mogami and interconnects were from the dreaded "M" company.

The only thing I have left from that system is all the vinyl.

B&K M-200 amps.
Adcom GTP 400 preamp tuner
Acoustat Spectra 33 speakers
Magnavox CD 550 player (I think)
Audio DDE v 1.0 DAC

Carver receiver
DCM TF 350
Magnavox CDB 650

I noticed some people going back 35 years but I'll stick to 20 years because it was the same as 35 year. 20 year ago I was only a couple of years out of college and I was struggling with a landscape business. I had a Technics receiver, tape deck and turntable with Genesis two way speakers. I also had some really nice Pioneer headphones. I beat the living daylights out of that system and it took it like a champ.

1993 was right about when I spent $2000 on one of the early in dash CD players. Funny thing was I had it installed in a 1978 Ford pickup truck I bought for $800. It sounded amazing, it was a great truck and my girlfriend was a great soul and she was smoking hot.