The first stereo you personally owned?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Krankenstien, Nov 4, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Krankenstien

    Krankenstien Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    United States
    Mine was one from Sears. I asked for it for Christmas. It was a mid-eighties, black, all in one with dual cassette, tuner and turntable. I’m not sure if it was Seats branded? I’d sure love to see a picture of it. The first song I remember hearing on it was Walking on Sunshine. I was probably 7 at the time.
     
  2. Willowman

    Willowman Senior Member

    Location:
    London, UK
  3. Krankenstien

    Krankenstien Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    United States
    What were you running that bad boy through?

    Edit: Actually I see the volume and tone on it. I’m not familiar with this kind of kit. Did it come with speakers?
     
  4. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    Can some sleuth identify these? These were the headphones I had as a kid.

    [​IMG]
     
    Krankenstien likes this.
  5. Erik Tracy

    Erik Tracy Meet me at the Green Dragon for an ale

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Can't recall the specific model numbers.

    Was in Albuquerque, NM c. 1974-75. A very low end Lafayette receiver/speaker(full range single driver) combo. A cheap Radio Shack stereo cassette deck and my dad's hand-me-down Garrard TT.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2017
    Krankenstien likes this.
  6. Ron Scubadiver

    Ron Scubadiver Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    AR 2aX speakers, AR turntable, Fischer tube receiver, not certain which model, all new. Yeah buddy, I am ancient.
     
    Old Rusty, bhazen, The FRiNgE and 2 others like this.
  7. Aftermath

    Aftermath Senior Member

    My dad's hand me down 1960's 10 WPC Magnavox receiver and a JVC LA-11 turntable.
     
    The Pinhead and Krankenstien like this.
  8. Krankenstien

    Krankenstien Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    United States
    I think they were Chromium: Earsweats MKIII. I kid, I kid.
     
  9. Mister Charlie

    Mister Charlie "Music Is The Doctor Of My Soul " - Doobie Bros.

    Location:
    Aromas, CA USA
    Early 1970's: a Pioneer SX-something with Garrard turntable and hefty but generic loudspeakers.
     
    Bruno Primas likes this.
  10. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend

    Location:
    The OC
    My first stereo was actually a Webcor mono suitcase style record player with a tube amp and an 8" speaker. I inherited that when my dad got his Lafayette component system. We got the Webcor back in the 50s and I remember playing my Chipmunks album on it.

    I put in a stereo cartridge and ran the extra channel to my Melody guitar amp which also had a tube amp and an 8" speaker. There was no RIAA eq but the tone control did a good enough job for a while. This was in 1966 when I was 14.

    In June 68 I got my first store bought stereo. It was a GE with an AM/FM stereo tuner and a drop down turntable. It had detachable speakers, each with an 8" woofer and a tweeter. This unit sounded far better than everything else I found in it's price range so I finally settled on it. It cost me $149.

    I was in a bad car accident in that month and collected some insurance money. That's how I was able to afford it.

    That lasted until I moved away to college in 1970, and the first real hi-fi system I got was a pair of new AR-6 speakers with a used Kenwood KA-2000 integrated amp. I got a Garrard SL-95, also used, and the whole system cost just over $200 which was quite a bargain.

    This system blew away all of my friends systems, and most were shocked that I had such small speakers. Many had 12" 3 way speakers but they didn't sound nearly as good as my little system. When I moved out of the dorms, I set this up in the living room of my first apartment and people came from all around to hear it. I set the speakers up in the middle of the room, about 8' feet apart, and elevated by putting them on top of their boxes so the tweeters were at ear level. Of course there were no room boundaries anywhere near them which no doubt contributed to how good they sounded.

    That system only lasted a year or so, before I upgraded to a pair of AR3a's, a Thorens TD-150 turntable and a Marantz 2270 receiver. That cost me about $1100 which was a small fortune for a 20 year old, but boy did it sound great.
     
    GyroT, Old Rusty, longdist01 and 6 others like this.
  11. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    my first record player was when I was 4 i remember it having a felt platter! ...then a few years later on I got my parents Admiral Consul Stereo...it was all wood and sounded great...I can still remember playing Meet The Beatles on it in STEREO!
     
  12. Gramps Tom

    Gramps Tom Forum Resident

  13. Krankenstien

    Krankenstien Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    United States
    So what year was it that you dropped $1100? I assume somewhere like ‘72? That’s pretty heavy for the seventies!
     
    clhboa and longdist01 like this.
  14. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Last year of junior high; I'd finally started getting the money together for my own stereo system! I was all over town auditioning speakers and other components, learning what to look for, deciding which pieces I should buy first, and how long it would take before I had it all sitting proudly in one room! [SCOOBYVILLAIN]And I'd'a gotten away with it...if it weren't for those meddling PARENTS![/SCOOBYVILLAIN]...

    The next Christmas, they could hardly contain themselves, when they proudly presented me with one of these: :doh:


    :shrug: Whaddya gonna do? It was so much nicer than the phonographs my older brother and sister had...and the guy at Woolco told 'em, this was a pretty good brand... I gave them three years before telling them "I'd grown out of it..."
     
    nick99nack, clhboa, milankey and 8 others like this.
  15. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    It was a Technics. I finally got a job, after graduating law school and celebrated by buying a stereo. 1980
     
    The Pinhead and snowman872 like this.
  16. Matt Richardson

    Matt Richardson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Suburban Chicago
    My parents bought me this baby when I was about 8 (1973).

    Montgomery Wards
    [​IMG]

    First set-up I bought myself was in 1984: Bose 901/Onkyo TX-45 receiver/Technics turntable/Philips first generation CD Player
     
  17. ls35a

    ls35a Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eagle, Idaho
    First was a Sears record player. Then a Magnavox that had two speakers - stereo!
     
  18. PhxJohn

    PhxJohn Forum Resident

    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    My first stereo was a KLH Model 26 or 27(I forget) compact stereo. It had no tuner if that helps identify the model. It had the ubiquitous Garrard turntable with Pickering cartridge. The KLH amp was built in. The speakers were KLH of course with 8" woofers and common KLH tweeters. I paid all of $236 for it back in 1971. Brand new. It had quite a life. It lived with me in PA, a best friend in FL, a niece in DC, and finally back to my sister in FL. I did a simple upgrade when I had it. I replaced the conical stylus with an elliptical. It made quite an improvement.
     
  19. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    The speakers were smallish Lafayette floorstanders but I don't remember the model. The TT was Dual. I just can't remember what the receiver was, perhaps Sansui. The sound was warm and pleasant but revealing enough that I discovered the sonic difference between first pressings and repressings with it.
     
  20. BIGGER Dave

    BIGGER Dave Forum Resident

    Around 1970 my parents bought me some suitcase thing (possibly GE) for me to play my Monkees records on. A couple years later they bought me a Sony system that was a turntable / AM FM combo. Around 1976 my parents bought me a Pioneer TT, a Superscope cassette deck (wow and flutter was probably around 100%), a Marantz 2238B receiver and a pair of JBL 4311B speakers. Used that system for many years. Still have the Marantz and the JBL’s.
     
    seacliffe301 and Dave like this.
  21. Marcev

    Marcev Sit back, Relax, and Enjoy the Music

    Location:
    New York
    As a kid I had a Panasonic stereo with a built in record changer and cassette deck. The record player ran so fast I had to keep a stack of records on the platter to slow it down. It also came with what Panasonic called Thruster speakers, a full range speaker with a passive radiator underneath. Spent many a nite cranking up Zeppelin and Floyd on that system with friends...
     
    timind likes this.
  22. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    Mine was a Mini-System from Pioneer. It wasn't really good but it was the best I could have back then.
     
  23. TheIncredibleHoke

    TheIncredibleHoke Dachshund Dog Dad

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    Mine was similar, but from JC Pennys. Spent a lot of time waiting for the right song to come on the radio so I could tape it. Mix tapes took a lot of effort back in the day!
     
    Carraway and Krankenstien like this.
  24. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend

    Location:
    The OC
    It was actually $1113 on Mar 22, 1972 from Dow Sound City in San Diego. Yes, this was a lot of money, and I was actually still 19 at the time, but right or wrong, I had made music and audio the top priority in my life. In hindsight, it was not as foolish as it may have seemed at the time.
     
  25. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    [​IMG]
    It was exactly like this. Not a picture of the actual one but a picture of the model that I found it on the Internet. It was a Magnavox console stereo. I used the built-in turntable until it died, then connected a different turntable. It sounded fantastic. Got it in 1978 for $30 at a furniture store. What I have now is much better but I still miss this damn thing. When the family moved from Vermont I just left it in the house, there was no place for it in the new, much smaller house. Still pisses me off that I had to let it go. It sounded fantastic and my friends all envied it. My big brother had a component system that he built and he confessed he was a bit pissed that he paid much more for his system and it didn't sound nearly as good.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine