Stereos

[waltesefalcon]

I know a few of you on here appreciate a decent stereo. I have had, for some years now, an old MacIntosh 1700 hybrid amp/radio that I picked up at a garage sale, a Thorens TD145 turntable I bought from a buddy, and a pair of Norman Lab Model 10 speakers that I think I found through a newspaper ad. I also have my blue ray player hooked up to it for movie night. CD players, cassette players and 8Tracks have come and gone, but those three components have been the heart of my sound system for awhile. This week though I bought something revolutionary for my stero, a bluetooth receiver.

I have thousands of songs on my phone which I usually listen to in my car but now through the magic of bluetooth I can listen to my phone through my stereo! Now I don't have to get up to go turn a record over or put another CD in the player. I can just sit in my lazy boy and enjoy the sonic beatitude of Dark Side of the Moon followed by Brothers in Arms without so much as a pause.

 

[NutmegCT]

Looks like ol' Blue Eyes had a pretty good setup too ...

No Bluetooth - just sweet tooth.

 

[glemon]

I have a little Bluetooth thingie that plugs into the cigarette lighter I put in my TR250 and plays tunes over my Pioneer Super tuner AM/FM pushbutton cassette.

We don't really have a home stereo anymore, just a nice Bluetooth speaker.

But I love the look and sound of quality hi Fi, used to be you could pick it up really cheap, but starting to become collector's items.

 

[Mickey Richaud]

Still have the speakers I bought when a Radio Shack manager - Optimus T100 - and the Realistic Miracord turntable. Have those connected to a Yamaha surround sound receiver in the den. Also have an STA-120 receiver, an SA-2000 amp and TM-1000 tuner, all vintage Radio Shack. Then I acquired a Pioneer reel to reel, another turntable from Pioneer, and Pioneer speakers for the STA-120 that keep me entertained in the garage.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Glemon, I assembled my stereo long enough ago that I got everything fairly cheaply. Just like old cars old stereo components are becoming collectible and I could probably sell my amp and turntable for a tidy profit but then I'd probably not be satisfied with whatever I replaced them with.

A good hifi system is one of the few things I can't live without. I've been lugging this stereo around for years and it'll continue on with me probably until I'm turning up daisies.

 

[Basil]

I have a Sansui QR-4500 which I've owned since I was an airman in the 70's. I am currently sans speakers (I had 4 behemoth Sansui speakers which I sold). One of these days I'd like to get a set of B&W speakers and fire this thing up again in my office.

 

[AngliaGT]

Here's mine - Pioneer SX1280 with a pair of Sansui speakers.
I have it in my den,but the room's too small to get good sound
quality,so I think that I'll put it all up for sale.
I also have a Pioneer SX 424 that I use in the garage.I bought
it new.

 

[YakkoWarner]

I picked up a McIntosh 1900 receiver from a Craigslist seller for $80.00 several years back - paid more than the purchase price to have it worked over by the authorized McIntosh service place (yes they still make new stuff and their techs get training on everything even back into 1950's tube gear). Made it sing like new again and have all the internal lamps back now. Some of the switches are a little noisy and need an occasional shot of DeOxIt but those parts were no longer sourcable. Its not a high-power unit but I have it driving a pair of british Wharfdale E-50 3-ways that I really like, and since those are designed for high efficiency they work well with the 1900. I couldn't bring myself to connect a computer to a nice piece of vintage gear like that, so I picked up one of the original Squeezebox devices that can read the music off a computer that is elsewhere in the house. No video display, just a blue LED readout and a remote that looks more like a TV controller than a keyboard. I thought about a decent quality bluetooth receiver but I don't have a bluetooth source, and the machine where the music is stored is too far away for bluetooth to reach anyway. The Squeezebox device communicates either over WiFi or a hard wired ethernet. I don't get internet service at the house so there is no need to try to set up a streaming device of any sort.

 

[waltesefalcon]

My McIntosh came from a yard sale where I got it for $10 because it didn't work. At the time (mid 90s) I worked at a music store and the electronics repairman we had was top notch. I gave it to him, and he cleaned it up and fixed it. Turns out the only thing wrong with it was a blown transistor and cost me something like $5 in parts. For his labor I had to pay the usual fee everyone in the shop charged each other, dinner at Red Lobster. When it was all said and done I had a McIntosh 1700 in beautiful condition for less than $50.

 

[DrEntropy]

I've half a dozen one channel stereo receiver/amps here, meaning to repair 'em "sometime". They are just dust collectors, mostly. I "bit the bullet" and got a yard sale Sony STR-D915 cheap, a number of years ago. It died and got replaced with the same unit from E-bay. Easier & cheaper than changing around all the input devices!

(not mine but same unit)

 

[YakkoWarner]

I'd pretty much given up on any of the consumer gear these days except the McIntosh stuff which has some sentimental value for me. My big system is running a pair of Behinger A500 small PA amps (chosen because they have passive cooling) and a Mackie 1200 that you could probably do some light welding with but the fans aren't all that quiet. I needed amps that could take 4 ohm and 2 ohm loads, either have to go to hyper-expensive audiophile gear or go into the sound reinforcement equipment. Plus I'm using the guts of my old analog reinforcement rig as a preamp, so having the balanced in/outs and such on the pro grade amps is nice and if I ended up needing to pull them for a live sound gig I could.

 

[PC]

......Now I don't have to get up to go turn a record over .....

The irony is the digital generation has discovered records. Collecting LP's is all the rage now. I never gave up my record collection and recently found one of the teenagers in our family started listening to records so I passed a few her way.

I met a gentleman at a party before the bug. He'd been a record mastering engineer at a major record label back in the day. He retired (basically put out to pasture) in the eighties when CD's took over. A couple of years back they called out of the blue and begged him to come back. Records were selling again and nobody was left who knew how to make them.

Now he's training the young guns, kids who know digital production inside and out but weren't even born when LP's were the norm. And they love records. To them, he's a rock star.

 

[GregW]

Jack White bought all new presses for his record store. Adam says at the beginning of this video that hasn't happened for decades.

 

[mikephillips]

Yea I see LP albums for sale all over the place these days. Now for the younger set I'm not a dinosaur with all the ones I have from my youth, but a futuristic elder...

 

[DrEntropy]

When I built the living room cabinetry I made two drawers to accommodate LP records, internally lit (Microswitch controlled). Both are full of the records from our youth through to the end of the LP era. Even a few monaural ones my dad had. Glen Miller, Artie Shaw, some show tune ones.

 

[mikephillips]

You know, the one thing I regret is back in the mid 70s a hardware place where I grew up went out of business. They sold albums on the side for years. I could have bought a number of unopened early Elvis albums going back to the late 50s for $4-$5 each. Not being a fan of his work I passed on them, not really thinking about them as future collectables. Ah well, we all fail to swing at the ball sometimes...

 

[Mickey Richaud]

When I built the living room cabinetry I made two drawers to accommodate LP records, internally lit (Microswitch controlled). Both are full of the records from our youth through to the end of the LP era. Even a few monaural ones my dad had. Glen Miller, Artie Shaw, some show tune ones.

Have the very same "Rumours" album in my collection. Along with Dad's big band albums and even some 78's.

 

[DavidApp]

My Dad built a stereo setup in the late 1950s. Made the cabinet from the new fangled particle board (much better back then) Used Cascamite dry powder urea resin glue to hold it together along with the veneer. He also built the valve amplifier and speaker. I till have the test record he bought to demonstrate the stereo effect.
It was a long time before I realized what an achievement that was as he had no work shop and limited hand tools.

David

 

[DrEntropy]

My Dad built a stereo setup in the late 1950s. Made the cabinet from the new fangled particle board (much better back then) Used Cascamite dry powder urea resin glue to hold it together along with the veneer. He also built the valve amplifier and speaker. I till have the test record he bought to demonstrate the stereo effect.
It was a long time before I realized what an achievement that was as he had no work shop and limited hand tools.

David

Similar experience to my youth, David. My dad built HiFi and later, stereo amps and pre-amps from discreet parts and sheet aluminum back then. Vacuum tubes and transformers on power supplies for 500W per channel. We had stereo recordings of trains and ocean waves rolling through our living room from Altec Lansing "Voice of the Theater" speakers. Your stereo demo record is likely similar. Dad's brother-in-law built the cabinetry though.

 

[YakkoWarner]

Similar experience to my youth, David. My dad built HiFi and later, stereo amps and pre-amps from discreet parts and sheet aluminum back then. Vacuum tubes and transformers on power supplies for 500W per channel. We had stereo recordings of trains and ocean waves rolling through our living room from Altec Lansing "Voice of the Theater" speakers. Your stereo demo record is likely similar. Dad's brother-in-law built the cabinetry though.

I almost bought a pair of Voice Of The Theatres. I didn't have any room for them which is why I didn't and I still regret it. I got to see/hear a set of the full size units in their original movie theatre setting and they are very accurately named. Around 50w per channel with just a simple left/center/right configuation behind the screen, and they filled a 1000+ seat room. High wattage amplification was uncommon when they were made, so efficent design had to make the difference.