How I got started way back when ...

[neveronfriday]

I had some time these past days to do some extensive Googlin' and actually came up with my first "stereo" that I was given by my parents for my confirmation, the first pair of headphones that also made that thing sound good ... and the second stereo I got for Christmas years later (I still had the headphones from the first then).

(01) My (own) first "stereo", a "Dual HS 130". I was 14 years old and "graduated" from a Grundig "radio recorder" to that set. My neighbors loved that upgrade as I - from that day onwards - "squeaked" music out my tiny room into the surrounding neighborhood. One could also stick a thingie in the middle that held a stack of LPs and made them drop down, one after another (much like a jukebox):

http://wega.we.funpi...5/dual74-19.jpg

(02) My (own) first pair of headphones, the Koss HV/2a ... which was, for me, the equivalent of a Ferrari sports car. Those cans were the shit and they lasted well into the 80s. It took me an entire year to "lose" the sound and get used to a different pair of headphones.

http://www.freewebs....28Medium%29.JPG

(03) My second stereo (end 70s) is, historically, an interesting set. It was built by Aiwa and marketed by BASF (a company known the world over for its chemicals (and, cassette tapes), not any stereo equipment). The second pic has all the components I had, plus speakers.

http://telefunken.te...basf65xx-01.jpg

http://telefunken.te...basf65xx-02.jpg

Anecdote: With that second stereo I became "party master". Those things easily fit into a smaller bag and were carried everywhere. The speakers had quite a bit of "oomph" and had a tendency to overheat once in a while, necessitating an interruption in partying for about 15 minutes until we could turn the thing on again.

***

I do get very sentimental looking at these old pics. I loved those things when I got them and my parents still smile when we talk about that stuff. Because I have been a music nut as long as I can remember, those "upgrades" were highlights of my life, other important moments not withstanding.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday

[A Lark Ascending]

I started in 1970 with a record player that looked something like this:

Portable so I could move it from room to room. Bought with my first wages in my first part time job washing dishes. It drove me mad as it randomly skipped so I sellotaped a penny to the cartridge!!!! I have LPs that still have the aural evidence.

On arriving at university (1973) I'd had enough but had little money - I bought a cheap 'stereo'. It too needed the penny treatment.

In late 1974, after having a well paid summer job, I bought a Garrad deck (without case) and got a friend to rip out the stereo deck and replace it. This Frankenstein's monster got me through university. A good summer job in '76 got me a reasonable amp which improved the sound...but the Frankenstein fell apart on the train journey to start my teaching course in Exeter. Fortunately I had enough summer money to buy a Pioneer deck which was my first proper deck.

When I started real work in '78 I bought some Wharfdale speakers and, a bit later, replaced the Pioneer with a Rega Planer (which drove me nuts for 18 months as everything seemed to be affected by terrible wow....turned out to be the cartridge I'd just moved from the Pioneer...all very Heath Robinson!).

That particular tale might explain why I am not a vinyl nostalgic. All I remember is skipping discs, inner groove distortion, flutter and wow and rice krispies.

My first CD player arriving in 1985 marked the start of comfortable listening! How I envy the students of today who can carry it all in their pockets and never have to worry about the balance of a tone arm and the effect it might have on the discs!

[Dan Gould]

I was in grad school when I started my journey into jazz and was fortunate that my second year roommate had a nice TT because I was buying a lot of used jazz at a couple of St. Louis record shops.

When I had no choice but to buy my own I was baited & switched at some stereo store and before I knew it I was walking out of there having put about $700 on a charge card, knowing I could hardly handle it. Fortunately, being out of the clutches of the asshole salesman, I wised up, never even took the components out of the boxes and brought it back the next day for a refund. So I am hoping I don't run into this guy, and of course they actually page him because he has to initial any refunds! (I guess that helps so there's no argument about "missing" commission payments and plus he gets another crack at re-selling you.) But I stood my ground and ultimately won. Years later I realized it was a bit like the Seinfeld where he returns the jacket "for spite".

So my actual first stereo came from an interesting source: Some catalog-based electronics retailer that had the brilliant idea of making their listing of wares look like a stereo review magazine. Funny, but everything in there was awesome, great or fabulous!

And I ended up buying an integrated unit with one of those front-loading CD players (that sit vertical), dual-cassette and TT. And it did sound awesome, great and fabulous! And about $350 less than the asshole salesman charged me!

God, to think I was once that naive.

[neveronfriday]

I started in 1970 with a record player that looked something like this:

Portable so I could move it from room to room. Bought with my first wages in my first part time job washing dishes. It drove me mad as it randomly skipped so I sellotaped a penny to the cartridge!!!! I have LPs that still have the aural evidence.

On arriving at university (1973) I'd had enough but had little money - I bought a cheap 'stereo'. It too needed the penny treatment.

In late 1974, after having a well paid summer job, I bought a Garrad deck (without case) and got a friend to rip out the stereo deck and replace it. This Frankenstein's monster got me through university. A good summer job in '76 got me a reasonable amp which improved the sound...but the Frankenstein fell apart on the train journey to start my teaching course in Exeter. Fortunately I had enough summer money to buy a Pioneer deck which was my first proper deck.

When I started real work in '78 I bought some Wharfdale speakers and, a bit later, replaced the Pioneer with a Rega Planer (which drove me nuts for 18 months as everything seemed to be affected by terrible wow....turned out to be the cartridge I'd just moved from the Pioneer...all very Heath Robinson!).

That particular tale might explain why I am not a vinyl nostalgic. All I remember is skipping discs, inner groove distortion, flutter and wow and rice krispies.

My first CD player arriving in 1985 marked the start of comfortable listening! How I envy the students of today who can carry it all in their pockets and never have to worry about the balance of a tone arm and the effect it might have on the discs!

a) That "thing" looks (cool and) exactly like one we had in one of our guest rooms. Ours was (yuck) an ugly light gray/dark purple (looked like something Foose (know him?) could have cooked up) and was the machine I heard my first Charlie Parker on!

b) I have the same problem with LPs that you allude to. For too long I had cheap crap that made it all sound like 2012. To be brutally honest, I turned into a CD fan because I simply didn't want to have to adjust turntables (I also often thought I was too dumb to do it correctly), buy phono pre-amps and do the out-of-the-bag-back-into-the-bag dance every effin' moment. Stupid, I know, but that's the way it was.

I didn't really get interested in much better sound (= became an audiophool) until I got my first decent wage in the early 90s. Until then I spent my time furnishing my various new places and buying useless stuff like fridges, a bed and book shelves (books .... another passion of mine).

Thanks for chiming in, Bev.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday

[neveronfriday]

When I had no choice but to buy my own I was baited & switched at some stereo store and before I knew it I was walking out of there having put about $700 on a charge card, knowing I could hardly handle it.

I remember the first day I dared walk into an "audiophile" shop when I had secretly saved (didn't need to, as it turned out, as my wife then revealed that she was also interested in getting a better setup [so I would shut up, I guess]) enough to perhaps buy into a decent stereo setup.

The owner (someone I still buy stuff from 15 years later) remembered what it was like for him and also baited me with a set way above what I could afford. The difference (they don't come like that anymore): He offered me to pay up whenever I had the cash ... and take it all home right there and then. I guess I looked trustworthy. I paid up within 12 months .. and he got a customer for life.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday

[BillF]

I remember Phil Seamen congratulating me on the superior sound quality of a Dansette portable record player I was using for interval music in a club in Leeds in the sixties. He must have been taking the piss!

[neveronfriday]

I remember Phil Seamen congratulating me on the superior sound quality of a Dansette portable record player I was using for interval music in a club in Leeds in the sixties. He must have been taking the piss!

"Superior" does sound a bit exaggerated but, in retrospect, every upgrade I went through in my life was a serious step up the ladder. That first stereo I posted above probably sounds like crap today, but it was pure bliss for me in comparison to what I had owned before. Maybe Phil Seamen had a crappier machine at home? Just a thought.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday

[jazzbo]

I want to forget the first stereo I bought myself, it was from Radio Shack, a Lafayette receiver with some small shitty speakeres. I ended up making my own speakers out of some wooden boxes and some coaxial speakers for car audio that were better. I had a real cheap Garard turntable that at least didn't damage my records, many of which I still have today and don't sound too bad.

But i'm not at all nostalgic for that system. I was never really happy with that setup as my Dad had a Dynaco system that an electrical engineer friend of his had built right before he was transferred to a European job for GE. That Dynaco preamp, tuner, amp and AR turntable was a gold standard of sound for me for a long time. It took me a long time to get the sort of fidelity that I remembered in that system, I got a different sort of fidelity when I got a Proton preamp and very nice dueal mono amp with one hellacious power supply section. But I really got the sort of sound my Dad always had first by getting a 1959 EICO integrated tbe amplifier coupled with a set of Bose 10.2 speakers (both amp and speakers bought separately very cheap) and then when I started my Decware ownership with the 27th amp Steve Deckert built.

The final defining items for me were the Radial speakers Deckert and Zeigler design. . . they make feel as if all the systems I've had before were just marking time til I got the real deal.

I can still picture myself in my basement bedroom with that crappy little system. I was so unhappy in those years, returned from Swaziland to live in a small Ohio town out in the country where my Dad had was the minister of the church on the town square. So glad that I eventually rerouted my life.

[neveronfriday]

It took me a long time to get the sort of fidelity that I remembered in that system [...]

I don't know about you, but I've had my problems with "accepting" better-sounding systems in comparison to my my old stuff because my ears had gotten so accustomed to the sound I was hearing (both from speakers AND headphones, the latter having always been the more difficult to replace).

I remember walking into that above-mentioned audiophile shop and frowning at a, f.ex., a $40.000 setup saying ... "Doesn't sound much better than what I had".

Because of this experience, I usually remain very quiet when people (I'm also often guilty of this) lament about the "younger generation" not having an ear for what "sounds good". Hell, I was "conditioned" (is that the right word?) by past systems I had and am very aware of the problems this can cause. I have had hundreds - if not thousands - of students at the school I teach at that have always had this benign smile on their faces when I started talking about "good sound". If I get the chance to play stuff for them on a good system for longer (!) periods of time, they might get with the program (and I'm glad I managed to "convert" some), but many, in my eyes rightfully so, say that "what I have is good enough for me."

I don't mind at all because a) I was like that myself and b) am happy about anyone actually listening to music, no matter what it is and what it sounds like.

Still, much like that NYT article quoted elsewhere on O., I do agree that we are experiencing a cultural change by ways of which "good sound" might, in the long run, not be recognized anymore .... simply because there are increasingly fewer venues/situations to experience it in.

That's why I keep yelling and screaming all the time.

Call me Jekyll.

Or Hyde.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Can't find a pic of my first one, which was an HMV semi-portable table model, 1958 vintage. Semi-portable because it was bloody heavy!

That lasted five years and fell apart, through being ported about too much, so I got a second hand Dansette, as illustrated by Bill. I bought it from Anne Nightingale, later a well-known Radio 1 DJ.

MG

[Dave James]

When my twin brother and I turned 10 years old, my folks bought us a 1948 Seeburg jukebox similar to the one shown below. It was filled with 78's from the likes of LIttle Richard, Fats Domino, Elvis and, of all people, Spike Jones. This machine, known affectionately as the "trashcan" is what first lit my musical pilot light.

Stereo-wise, I got my first real system when I was in college. It was made up of a Sony integrated amp, a pair of 8" JBL speakers I mounted in some prefab cabinets I bought at a long gone shop called Lafayette Hi Fi & Recorder and, my pride and joy at the time, a BSR 810X turntable.

[neveronfriday]

[...]This machine, known affectionately as the "trashcan" is what first lit my musical pilot light.

[...].

Holy sh*t.

R2D2.

I'd love to have myself one of those.

[jazzbo]

It took me a long time to get the sort of fidelity that I remembered in that system [...]

I don't know about you, but I've had my problems with "accepting" better-sounding systems in comparison to my my old stuff because my ears had gotten so accustomed to the sound I was hearing (both from speakers AND headphones, the latter having always been the more difficult to replace).

The only problems I've had with "accepting" a better-sounding system has been financial! I've heard lots of great systems I'd love to have. But all the system I could afford for a few decades were modest solid state systems with multi-driver speakers that just don't have the type of fidelity that a zero negative feedback class A tube amplification and a single-driver or simpler designed speaker system can provide. It's not that I couldn't accept their sound, it's just that their sound wasn't what works for my brain and ears as well as the sound of tube amplification in general. Or so I think, I don't THINK that my ears were so accustomed to that seminal sound. There were many sounds in between. (The same applies for guitar and bass amplification, the clear winner for me is tube amplification).

Discovering that sound got me close to the type of sound my Dad's stereo system had (better, but similar) and I relaxed into music in a way that hadn't since then. It's what makes redbook sound blossom for me.

There are many sensational audio systems out there, and one man's meat another's poison etc. I'm glad I found what works really well for me.

Edited May 16, 2010 by jazzbo

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

When my twin brother and I turned 10 years old, my folks bought us a 1948 Seeburg jukebox similar to the one shown below. It was filled with 78's from the likes of LIttle Richard, Fats Domino, Elvis and, of all people, Spike Jones. This machine, known affectionately as the "trashcan" is what first lit my musical pilot light.

Stereo-wise, I got my first real system when I was in college. It was made up of a Sony integrated amp, a pair of 8" JBL speakers I mounted in some prefab cabinets I bought at a long gone shop called Lafayette Hi Fi & Recorder and, my pride and joy at the time, a BSR 810X turntable.

Cor!

Did you have to put your pocket money in it to listen?

Savvy parents who like quiet Saturdays buy their kids a Seeburg jukebox. Set the price yourself! Alternative supply of Dick Haymes recordings available on request.

MG

[neveronfriday]

[...] that their sound wasn't what works for my brain and ears as well as the sound of tube amplification in general. [...]

Forgive me, but I was counting the minutes until a "tube" comment would pop up.

I should have bet this month's wages on this one.

Would have doubled everything.

I'm not a tube fan.

Too much "coloring".

Sorry.

Please take a solid swing at me.

Edit: Let me explain (no idea if anyone will post re this comment in the meantime). Upon recommendations here and elsewhere, and because I'm holed-up at home for the time being, I was able to try seven different tube setups (not replacing my Dynaudio 1.8 Mark II speakers, mind you). All of the ones I tried had the following problems:

a) They add too much warmth.

b) They don't follow my credo of "what goes in must come out"

c) They need a whole new system to "tame" that sound (which I like, at times!)).

I would have to trash everything I have to go the tube route ... and don't have the cash to do so.

Hope I could "tone down" my initial statement somewhat.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday

[porcy62]

I am sorry, neveronfriday, but you were too slow. Jazzbo and I just sent a letter with your photo and address to a P.O. Box in Tijuana where a guy known as the Vacuumer will collect it. Unfortunately we already payed half the contract to a trust account at the Palacio Associated Bank. And Vacuumer is a damn painstaking man.

The best we can do at this point, is asking Vacuumer to finish the job on Saturday.

Edited May 16, 2010 by porcy62

[neveronfriday]

I have three kneecaps and a very robust sternum.

I can take it.

[porcy62]

I have three kneecaps and a very robust sternum.

I can take it.

Wear a robust helmet too!

[jazzbo]

Well, I don't know what you heard but there's always work to match speakers and amp etc. If you love your speakers and none of those tube amps did it for you okay. But there's likely a tube amp out there that would. But yeah, people hear things differently.

But I won't let your statements go unchallenged re: too much warmth and not everything coming out that goes in. This happens in solid state as well as tube. I have tube amps that have no added warmth at all and have such a simple circuit (just a resistor and a capacitor in the signal path, hand wired, star grounded, nearly the only wire in the amp is the lead wire on the parts themselves) and there's no loss of detail. I've heard solid state amps like this, but they cost about three times as much.

Glad you have something that you are very happy with. I do too, and it's tubes. The system I have now reproduce tapes I recorded in my garage apartment of the eighties with two bands I have recorded with more realism and accuracy than any other system I've had. This is music that I performed in and recorded in my very own room. I know what it sounded like, and I get no additional warmth or reduction of detail. I'm very happy. Until I win the lotto, I'm set.

[neveronfriday]

I have three kneecaps and a very robust sternum.

I can take it.

Wear a robust helmet too!

[photo removed]

My haircut, exactly.

I'm in the clear.

Well, I don't know what you heard but there's always work to match speakers and amp etc. If you love your speakers and none of those tube amps did it for you okay. But there's likely a tube amp out there that would. But yeah, people hear things differently.

But I won't let your statements go unchallenged re: too much warmth and not everything coming out that goes in. This happens in solid state as well as tube. I have tube amps that have no added warmth at all and have such a simple circuit (just a resistor and a capacitor in the signal path, hand wired, star grounded, nearly the only wire in the amp is the lead wire on the parts themselves) and there's no loss of detail. I've heard solid state amps like this, but they cost about three times as much.

Glad you have something that you are very happy with. I do too, and it's tubes. The system I have now reproduce tapes I recorded in my garage apartment of the eighties with two bands I have recorded with more realism and accuracy than any other system I've had. This is music that I performed in and recorded in my very own room. I know what it sounded like, and I get no additional warmth or reduction of detail. I'm very happy. Until I win the lotto, I'm set.

I call this a "no contest".

Let's leave it at that.

Edited May 16, 2010 by neveronfriday