The first stereo you personally owned?

My first was, IIRC, a Ross tuner, 8 track and turntable integrated system with no name speakers.

It played the Sex Pistols loud so I was happy.

 

I think the detachable speakers bump it into audiophile territory!

 

I remember going to Kmart and liking their weekly selection of top 40 45s. (used to love listening to Kasey Kasum's top 40 each week). I rocked out all the good stuff on that - Love A Rainy Night, Dedoodoodoodedaadaadaa, Stroke Me, Tom Sawyer(and YYZ on the back), Back in Black, etc. The first album I bought was Kiss Hotter than Hell, the second was Double Platinum. I dont remember what happened to that system, but then I got into cassettes. I remember recording from the Zenith to a small Sony portable cassette (set about 4" from one of the Zenith speakers) and trying to make sure everyone in he house was quiet as it recorded. Good times!

 

I used to record from a microphone placed in front of a radio, so that I could make cassette tapes of songs.

 

Ditto but so noisy on playback so was so happy in 75' to get a Pioneer 3 in 1 stereo to make quality dubs!

 

For me, the hardest part of doing this successfully was trying to keep my younger brother and sister quiet while I was recording from the radio!

 

Mine was a Panasonic, one of those with the turntable on top and a radio. The Speakers were hard wired in. I added a Radio Shack 8-Track player and I was in heaven. This was in 1971 or 1972.

 

Back about the same time, I added an 8-Track recorder, so I could make copies of albums for my car.

 

I think it was 1976 when I finally added a Marantz 5120 Cassette deck and I started making tapes for the car. By then I had a little nicer stereo with a receiver and turntable. I still own both of those original decks and both still work, although I don't use them any more.

 

I did the same thing with my dad's Norelco (late 60's) portable cassette player.

 

My original cassette was a portable, back when I was 12.

I think my first car cassette was back in 1977. I bought my first recording cassette deck back around then.

 

K-Mart brand compact system, from around '74 or '75. Cost about $120, if I remember correctly. I think it was made by Sanyo, which I only know because I partially dismantled it at some point, or maybe there was a label on the back. Mini turntable, receiver, and cassette player, plus plastic speakers. I bought it because I had already started to collect cassettes rather than 8-tracks -- I had started out with a portable cassette/radio unit -- and it was one of the very few compacts I saw at the time that had a cassette player rather than an 8-track. This was before cassettes started to overtake 8-tracks in popularity. That turntable was horrible. I remember taping coins to the headshell to get it to track decently. So, the next thing I bought was a BSR turntable, which I plugged in to this unit, which amazingly had line inputs. Learned an early lesson about phono preamps -- had to buy an inexpensive pre-amp unit from Radio Shack to get the setup to work. Eventually, I got a Kenwood integrated amp and some Realistic speakers, and ditched the K-mart unit altogether. And we were off to the races.

 

Did your dad's Norelco have a power pause switch on the microphone to pause and continue recording?

I seem to remember that back in the 60's, the handheld microphone was a light tan color and the switch area was a darker brown.

 

Kenwood 4070 receiver, Technics SL23 Turntable, My Dad gave me full size Realistic speakers...1978. Man those were good days. Used to purchase new LP releases for $4.89. Still have most of them.

 

I had some giant, mid-late 90s Sony monstrosity. It could play very loud. When I bought it my old man was trying to tell me how to gauge the quality of a system by how well it could play softly but, yeah, ef that. It could play loud.

 

I believe it was a black mic with silver inlays. It had a red button or slider switch. I can’t remember what it’s function was.

 

Mine was similar to the OP.....SEARS Silvertone I inherited from my brother. Semi portable as the turntable folded up and latched and 2 of the 4 speakers folded closed to the others so you could transport if you wanted. Once set up you fold out the speakers detach the 2 and spread out that STEREO sound. I used that sucker in a little 8x10 room with my first drum set. Cranked that lil thang for endless hours learning Steppenwolf, Jimi, Iron Butterfly....It played on admirably.......

 

Mine was made by Siemens. I spent my summer job wage on it and I think it did cost about 12.000 Austrian schillings, a little less than € 1000. It was
a complete set of speakers, turntable, cassette deck, cd-player, equalizer and amplifier, but every component at least came in it's own box. It didn't have
volume knobs, it was all buttons, which I always regretted. It had the great advantage that every component I replaced sounded a lot better after upgrading.

 

Heathkit GD-107 portable stereo.

Got this as a Christmas gift from my parents in (I'm guessing) 1966.
The picture is not my actual unit, found the picture on the web.

I think I understand now why most of my old records sound so scratchy....

 

When I was about 11 or 12, I received the Panasonic SC-PM54 as a Christmas present. It was an inexpensive all-in-one unit with 5 CD changer, cassette deck, AM/FM radio and "three way" speakers - woofer, tweeter and piezo beeper

Considering its small size and slightly insubstantial build quality, it actually sounded quite decent.

 

Not all 8 track is limited range, sir. Ever heard of Akai? And their CR-80D, CR-81D, CR-82, and CR-83! Not to mention Pioneer, Wollensak, Technics, Sony, JVC and a few others. Which could actually deliver comparable sound or even a bit better than cassettes did in the same era. I am running an Akai CR-80D recorder. Which is actually very excellent sounding and surprising performance.

 

They are all limited range LOL

 

Mine was a Philips (? I think) thing that looked like an attaché case when put together for transport. The speakers detached from one half, revealing the record player, and tone/volume/radio controls (am/fm) on the right side. This was given to me when I was sent to Portland, Oregon for a year of boarding school. This device was responsible for my initial memories of so many cool records from that '68/'69 period: the "white album", Axis: Bold As Love, Heaven Is In Your Mind, Disraeli Gears, Wheels Of Fire, The Who Sell Out, S.F. Sorrow, Da Capo, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, On The Threshold Of A Dream, Crown Of Creation, A Saucerful Of Secrets ...

Did it sound any good? Hard to say from a half-century's distance, but I had no complaints. The music still wove its spell.

 

Name me a non Nakamichi cassette deck in 1973 or so which had frequency response any better. Many of the less expensive open reels could not even do better than 15,000 Hertz then at 3 3/4 IPS. Consider the times. The Akai CR 80 is good to 16,000 hertz response, sounds as good as many if not all but a small handful of cassette decks out there in the wild. CD even is limited range by many of the detail at all cost audiophiles.

 

Panasonic boombox to start. Then in the early 80's my audiophile father got me a NAD integrated and a jvc dual cassette. I wired 4 - 6x9 car speakers into my bed frame! A few years later he gave me his Thorens tt.