In the 1970s, how many people listened to music radio in stereo?

King Biscuit Flower Hour.

 

FM stereo was common in the 1960s.

Doug

 

KRST and KRKE(?) in Albuquerque, mid 70's, in stereo

Then KGB, KPRI in San Diego, late 70's, in stereo

Odd question - as if the 70's were in the distant past just barely out of stone age...well...maybe I am that old!

 

1970 is about to be 45 years ago.
I'm about to be out of high school 39 years myself,
and after just watching several Merv Griffin Shows from 1962-1986, yes, all that was missing were actual dinosaurs.

 

My earliest memories place Stereo FM it to the late 1960's (Los Angeles).
Along with being amongst the first households on the block to have a color TV in the 60's, we also had a stereo FM 8Track Turntable furniture monster. My Dad's best friend was a Curtis Mathes vendor:
Circa 1969, I can nostalgically remember that channel change thunk noise and white noise when changing between 93KHJ AM and KLOS 95.5 FM as my earliest music education:



In the late 1970's, when this monster got moved into the garage, I refinished it in dark walnut, removed the middle spindles over the speaker grills, replaced to correct speaker grill black cloth, and upgraded replaced the built-in speakers. It was used in the garage up till the 1990's. I bet it still works...

 

1979 Summer

 

My portable radios were all mono until 1972 when I got this suitcase sized 8 track stereo portable, that also had stereo FM on it, the speakers would detach and spread about 3 feet, IIRC they had 6" full range in them. Unfortunately when running on batteries you could only play 1 or 2 tapes before the batteries would run down, I also did not care for the 8 track format.

I mainly used it plugged into the wall outlet in the house for a while until I got a Radio Shack stereo receiver about a year later 1973.

This is similar to the portable I had, this is Radio Shack, mine was from Sears:

 

I was a teen in the 70s and remember the smooth FM broadcasts when I would spend the summers in Denver with my older brothers quad Kenwood.At home I was stuck with a am radio in a small town.Quite lush as I recall that FM.A whole different game now.

 

In the early 70's I owned a Panasonic receiver - stereo - with a built in record player on top. It had separate speakers. In 1976 I upgraded to a Pioneer receiver and a separate TT.

 

The whole world was great in the 70s, then the MBAs got to it and it started to suck. We should shoot all the MBAs.

Seriously, MBA thinking has been the ruin of innumerable things. Japan's twenty year malaise can be traced to when they started importing American MBA thinking.

But as far as stereo, by 1970 it was more or less ubiquitous. Most of the cars had it, if they had FM at all, and most did. And the portable radios big enough to have two speakers became quite common by the mid-70s.

 

That's a Zenith Allegro system. They were better than you would expect and rivalled some budget real separate systems.

 

The good old home stereo system. I'm not sure what is being asked in this thread. Most people had a home stereo system in the living room (or some other room). The stereo system could be an all in one console like in some of the pictures up thread, or it could be a receiver with turntable and speakers. This was very common by the 70s.

Scott

 

My Dad first had stereo in his car in 1971, when he bought a '69 Continental Mark III with a factory AM/FM stereo radio. His family had stereo in the house before, I believe through a good part of the 60's.

 

With most of the consoles, it was SINO-stereo in name only-because the speakers were too close for real stereo imaging unless you were right in front of it. The consoles were generally not cheaper than a real system, but they were furniture and there were no cables to hook up. Things were different then.

 

Burt,

My dad had a console system in our living room for most all of the 70s. It had a AM/FM tuner, turntable and left/right speakers built in like in the pictures in this thread. From what I remember the stereo image was actually there. No, it wasn't a stereo image to the degree that you would get with separate speakers that you could place for optimal effect, but it was enough that it was there.

Scott

 

My parents had a KLH- late 60's with FM stereo. My siblings had stereo systems with FM stereo well before I did. My first stereo I purchased in 1975.

 

Not only did I listen to FM in stereo, but also in (simulated) quad.

Courtesy of a Pioneer QX-8000.

 

Stereo.

 

Along with Velcro and other wonders developed because of space research, ICs (integrated circuits) became more commonplace after 1970 or so. Once that happened, stereo was found in many new cars as the ICs made the technology reliable and cheap. My first home receiver was an Olsen Electronics job with about 15W per channel. Really not too bad. That was 1968 and the first time I heard stereo FM regularly. There were late night stations that played prog rock and some college stations. I remember hearing Tom Rush, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, Procol Harum for the first time on late night FM.

The first time I heard Dark Side all the way through was on a car 8 track though. I never owned an 8 track because I thought the technology behind it was poor, but some of them sounded pretty darn good, especially in a car. My first car stereo was an under dash Craig cassette AM/FM stereo in 1976. You could also record with a provided mic in mono. It had 20W per channel, maybe a bit more. Kicked butt with some oval 2-ways in the rear deck panel. I listened to my tapes made from LPs, but also to WMMS, WNCR and college stations around Cleveland, OH. Great album rock, progressive. It was a great time for rock 'n roll on FM.

 

My parents had a console stereo since the 60's or as far back as I can remember.

I got a stereo system around 1970 and eventually took it to college. Other than a transistor radio in the 60's and a clock radio in my bedroom, pretty much always had a stereo system in the house.

 

Just out of a few years in the Navy, I was listening to San Francisco's KSAN on the (FM only) Sony ST-5000F tuner (designed to rival Marantz tuners of the era),



a Sony TA-1120 integrated amplifier (both Sonys picked up overseas),



and a pair of Acoustic Research AR-3a speakers (special ordered at a serviceman's discount).

Just didn't get no better.

 

I found this card inside a '70s console hifi at Goodwill... "Always Beautiful Stereo Music."

I'll bet my dad subjected me to this station in the car. He loved the muzak stations because he could sing along (badly).

 

Hmmm, I don't remember seeing those until the '80s.

This is what I remember in the '70s:

 

yes
and quad (FMs stereo radio - AM radio - TV)

 

Oh no, far from it, see my prior post with the FM stereo 8 track portable from 1972.