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I'm curious, what was your first *true* stereo system?

Posted by John-from Seattle on March 9, 2000 at 20:09:20

I'll jump in and start.

My first *true* stereo system came about in 1978 when my Dad bought me a Hitachi "compact" stereo system (a misnomer if I ever saw one) as an early Christmas present-but w/ one caveat, I had to pay for half of it (total cost of said atereo was $113 US). I was in the 8th Grade then.

This thing was about 27" long, 17" deep, about 12-15" high (including dustcover) and contained all the "components" in this one rather large box-exclding the speakers.

it contained a BSR record changer, PLL (phase locked loop) AM/FM tuner, seperate bass and treble, volume, balance and input selector controls. It had the capability of playing either 1 or 2 sets of speakers at the same time, had a loudness switch and a cassette tape recorder/player. Total wattage was something like 8 watts a channel.

The speakers were a pair of 8" whizzer cone woofers in a ported bass cabinet. Sound wasn't hi-fi but it wasn't terribly bad either if I remember right.

I had this thing for 7 years, sold it in 1984 at a church garage sale w/ only one light bulb still working in the tuner dial. I then bought a Sansui rack system for my second stereo.

I used that rack system for a couple of years before I started upgrading and adding to it. The cassette deck was a joke and was eventualy replaced with a "better" cassette deck. I "upgraded" the speakers in the late 80's with a cheap pair of jensen bookshelf speakers. And in 1992-93 I had the integraded repaired, the tuner started crapping out in 1994 (it would drift out of tune badly), I finaly replaced the integrated nearly 2 years ago and last spring the cheaply made direct drive turntable. Twas interesting that I was able to get nearly 15 years of use out of the integrated and TT.

And this leads me into my current system. A 2 year old Sherwood receiver, vintage early 70's Soundcraftman EQ, Pioneer CT-40 2 head cassette deck, Sanyo 2 head cassette deck (both mid 80's vintage), vintage early 70's Sansui speakers, vintage mid 80's Kenwood turntable (belt drive) and a 3 month old Denon CDP.

Anyway, this shows you my "upward"(sic) progression in the audio world... Nevermind the fact that it has detail and depth and good sound that I never had before.

John.

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