Post photos of your systems/rooms here! (Part 15)

Whew, I'm relieved that your priorities are in the proper order!

 

Old school. REAL old school. There's a certain charm in it.



Over the years I've enjoyed building up my parents' stereo because mine get too big with dozens of reel-to-reel, minidisc, and cassette recorders and such...just for the fun of it. With theirs I can keep it at the basic level.

My father bought a Sansui 2000A receiver in Vietnam in 1969 and a pair of Sansui SP-1500 speakers. He also bought a Garrard Lab-95 turntable and a Sony TC-630D reel to reel along with a pair of Pioneer 2-way headphones. Along the way added to this system at one time or another came a Realistic SCT-25 cassette deck, a Kenwood equalizer, a Teac W-440C cassette deck, an Akai GX-4000D reel to reel, a Sony CDP-35 cd player, an Optimus cd player, a Sharp cassette deck, a Craig portable cd player used at one time as a source component, a Realistic LAB-1600 drawer-type turntable, etc...

Out of that entire stereo system, what components do you think are STILL in use to this day in my parents' living room?

The Sansui receiver and speakers.

The original turntable and reel to reel in that system died LONG ago: the Garrard bit the dust around 1983; the Sony TC-630D around 1981. All the other components listed above died relatively quick deaths in just a matter of a few years. The Sansui speakers and receiver have been all over the country over the last 44 years as my Dad was in the military...dropped, stored for a year in a warehouse in the humid jungle of south Florida...

Those Sansui components are the ONLY ones that have lasted...and survive to this day.

Over the last decade or so as I said above I've augmented my parents' system for them. I got them a black Teac X-700R reel-to-reel (interfaced with a Teac AX-10 echo control), an Audio Source EQ-11 eq, a JVC TD-R462 cassette deck, a Sony MXD-D4 cd/minidisc combo deck, and a replacement Realistic LAB-1600 turntable as the original one purchased in 1986 croaked a few years back. I also purchased and restored another Sansui 2000A receiver to go with their original and the system now runs 6 speakers (original SP-1500s still in use for the rears) off the two receivers with some smaller Sansui SP-30 speakers on top of the entertainment center (crossed over at around 200hz). My Dad purchased some Realistic 40-1310A aluminum super tweeters around 1980 that are still in use. Two Realistic Optimus T-120 tower speakers were purchased in 1986 but the only original components in those that remain are the tweeters; the woofers and mids as well as the original spring terminals went to speaker heaven a long time ago; I restored those towers about 10 years ago now. An XM radio and an ipod dock were added in the last few years, mainly for recording to the Teac during Christmas time to make a yearly Christmas reel. This past Christmas I made a 6 hour tape...one song at a time, with transitions between every single damn song from old family Christmas movies and what not...every song with correct eq, level settings, etc...old school recording, some segments literally seconds long that took 10 minutes to set up...that 6 hour tape took about 40 hours to make but it's seemlessly edited and recorded perfectly. Old school. But, I digress...

The system also contains a full old-school video dubbing set-up along with a former (in the early 2000's) TOTL JVC 32" CRT. A hard drive recorder, JVC HR-XVS44 super vhs/dvd combo, and a JVC DR-M1 vhs/dvd recorder combo are connected to each other directly to record any combo imaginable...vhs to s-vhs, s-vhs to dvd, dvd to dvd, dvd to vhs or s-vhs, s-vhs to vhs, hard drive to anything, etc...too bad hi-def took over as this system performed beautifully on old CRT televisions with the processor in the DR-M1 doing an amazing job cleaning up old vhs tapes for dvd transfer. But, I am getting off the topic.

The point is...out of all that, the ONLY things that have outlasted them all is that original Sansui 2000A and SP-1500 speakers. A few more years and they will have lasted HALF A CENTURY.

HALF a freakin' CENTURY.

 

I just wanna add...thinking back a few weeks...that last Christmas reel I just made about killed me. True old school hands-on time consuming recording but that's not the hard part...it's the real-time microsecond at a time hands-on editing and on-the-fly mixing and gathering things from every source you can imagine: LP, FM, XM, minidisc, CD, 8mm movies, YouTube, cellphone mics, Hi-MD, BluRay, hard drive, DVD, Android, NetMD, VHS, Hi8, 78s, AM, cassette, reel-to-reel, MP3s, 45s, TV, SD cards, S-VHS...about the only thing I didn't source something from was SACD, 8-track, laserdisc, or Beta. That 6 hour tape took about 50 hours to make but it's seemlessly edited and recorded perfectly. But man oh man is a computer a billion times easier...but not NEARLY as fun...and not NEARLY as rewarding.

Old school!

 

Time to share a pic...

 

My subs for my 5.1 music. Just tried this combination this morning. I like it. I have problem getting the bass sounds clean with sub on left and right. Stacking them clean up the bass.

Bottom is SVS pb12-nsd with port sealed. Top is Emotiva Ultra 12 sub. Both with 12" woofers. Emotiva original amp no longer works, just connected to external amp yesterday.

 

Little update for 2017...

 

Wow! Me like!

 

NICE!

 

With all due respect, I'd reserve this space for your extensive collection of old master paintings.

 

Again.....love that stack of Naim gear! ...and saw the Focals in that ...electric orange...? isn't that what they call it?

 

Yup... it's electric orange. love it or hate kind of finish, but I thought it would be ok to make a statement with the speakers as the electronics are relatively understated in design... and I wasn't real fond of the walnut finish in the Focals which is what I would normally have gravitated towards.

 

Well...I for one..love it!

Can you give us a color pic of the room? Not that I don't love the Black anWhite, for I am,..was.. a Black and White photographer and dark room printer but...have grown very fond of color in the digital age of photography. ....and in my home fi you notice my postings in this thread.

 

Here ya go...

 

LOVE IT!!!

I spy Diana Krall...Verve "Quiet Nights" on vinyl?

 

Good catch

Love me some Diana Krall

 

Yep...me to.

"All for You" from 96 is probably my favorite.

"Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You" and one of the best ever versions of "If I Had You"...ever. Just her and her piano.

Love the simplicity of the jazz Trio/ Quintet on that album.

My wife's favorite singer/pianist for sure.
We saw her last summer down here at Red Rocks. . Great show!

 

Just a magnificent room, fantastic components, shelving, and those speakers, oh boy, sitting and listening in that comfortable chair must be rewarding. Thanks for sharing.

 

I hope you've seen this. If not...it's a must I feel. Her at Newport in 99. Would love to have caught her in this era.

At about 39 minutes in, she kills "Peel Me A Grape". ..but, the whole things great.

 

You know... within the context of that room, it works.

 

The speaker/wall color combination reminds me of the Gulf Porsche Racing colors. Very nice!

 

Frickin' awesome man!

 

Thanks... I'll check it out. All for You is a great album. I've got the ORG pressing... it's excellent. I'm also very fond of The Girl in the Other Room. I'd really love to see her put out another album of original material.

 

Now i can store both my vinyl records and the stereo gear in the same IKEA-system. And the wife is happy.

 

Do you worry about your gear overheating?

 

Not that much, when I play vinyl the door is open. The Rega amp (in the door-less space) doesn't get significantly warmer than it did when I had it on top of the cabinet.