We had this in my house growing up
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My best friend had this (1980s) and he also had something I've never seen before or since: an 8-track recorder. We would make mix tapes on the thing and take them to parties - where we were extremely, extremely unpopular because our 8-track mix tapes had shit like Laurie Anderson and Ultravox and Jon and Vangelis songs on them. Also the tapes played back at 125% speed so everybody sounded a bit like the Chipmunks.
Personally, I find the current vinyl craze kind of amusing. I spent the first ten years of my listening life with LPs and the moment I got my first CD player that was the end of that shit forever. The clicks and pops and the physical PITA of taking records out of their sleeves and setting the stylus down somewhere to hear a particular song and then cleaning the record and putting it back was just so incredibly annoying. The only good thing about LPs was (is) the cover art; as a huge Yes fan growing up I should perhaps appreciate that more, but it wasn't enough to offset the negatives.
we had some classical LPs - gershwin, copeland, holst etc., and I remember getting them on CD and hooking that to the high fi. no flutter. no dust. no pops and hiss..... and all played at the right time, apparently our record player was 10-15% slow and no one knew.... blew my mind.
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
Buttons are an reminder of the luxury of space we used to have.
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Definitely going for this setup next month when I move ..just going Vinyl and speakers was too little. (I know it's sacrilegious to say this but Bluetooth speakers for the record player also let me connect my phone and gives me the other sources... Is it high Fidelity it's fine... I'm an audio engineer I can say that.)
It's the battery driven stuff that drives me nuts, nothing beats the "just push the button and it all works" kind of thing.
CDs are so small though, I'm tinkering with "USB stick playlists".
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Buttons are an reminder of the luxury of space we used to have.
The absolute smoothness of the giant volume knob and heft to it as you turned it.
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Buttons are an reminder of the luxury of space we used to have.
You can still buy brand new HIFI gear with buttons and VU meters, for example: https://nadelectronics.com/product/c-3050-stereophonic-amplifier/
The above unit has a ton more additional functionality such as room correction, streaming support, digital connectivity, a DAC, multi room support, and far better audio quality.
Sure, not all of it is cheap, however neither was a full stack like the OPs picture.
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Dude write that book.
I second it. Iām an amateur woodworker myself.
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
Those all-in-one audio systems were fantastic, I will not hear any more of this slander
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Those all-in-one audio systems were fantastic, I will not hear any more of this slander
wrote last edited by [email protected]All in one
You are looking at 6 separate pieces of equipment in a purpose built cabinet.
Idk what you mean all in one.
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The absolute smoothness of the giant volume knob and heft to it as you turned it.
wrote last edited by [email protected]You could spin it up like a fly wheel. It'd move after you let go.
All the way to 11.
It was great!
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
My ex had this. You can crank an astonishing amount of noise out of these things in a way a Bluetooth speaker paired to a device cannot. The first time I was over and he put it on as I was leaving, we were then outside his place and I still couldn't hear him talking.
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All in one
You are looking at 6 separate pieces of equipment in a purpose built cabinet.
Idk what you mean all in one.
They mean All the Things in One cabinet
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I have some bad news for you, your Dad didn't want you watching those cartoons...
So that explains all the getting up at 5am to milk cows, feed calves and steers and pigs, (my sisters fed the chickens, ducks and geese), shoveling shit, picking rocks, and pulling weeds..........
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
I'd have to ask how old this system is. Ours was black, made by Kenwood, and had a wooden cabinet. Tinted glass door. Tape player was a dual front loader. That looks like a CD cartridge loader. We had that too. Our cartridges held six discs and they swiveled out.
Wasn't mine, it was my mother's, and she still has it. It still works. The doors on the tape deck have snapped off (we were rough with them) but you can still snap tapes into it and they play.
I remember when my mother got it. She'd just gotten divorced, had a bit of money, walked into a Circuit City (this woulda been like 1989?) and asked for the best stereo they had. And I think either she or I asked about Sony, because I remember the guy saying Sony was for people who want people to think they have an expensive stereo. Kenwood was for people who wanted a good stereo. I don't know how true it was. Maybe he just wanted to make a commission. I think she paid a couple grand for it. I don't recall. I didn't pay for it. I bought my Super NES from that same Circuit City though, and I paid for that out of my allowance. $150. I didn't bring the tax though. My mother did cover the tax. But anyway.
But while it wasn't mine, I was the one who put it together, because back then you didn't have Geek Squad (which is Best Buy, but you get the idea). I think they might have had "professional home installation" but that has never been cheap or affordable. Plus, my mother's oldest son (me) was a computer guy. She figured, if he could put together a computer (that is, connect a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to a computer and turn it on ā I wouldn't start building them for another 15 years ā I could assemble a stereo. Which just meant stacking them on the shelves, and connecting them via the wires in the back. Two wires ā one red, one white ā connected to each component and plugged into the... switcher? Whatever it was called. Pretty easy. Did it again when we moved. And then again when it came from the garage, which was like a family room, to the living room when we turned the garage into a granny unit for family who would move in. And then, when I did that, I was able to connect the TV to it, which greatly improved our sound.
Oh yeah, OP doesn't show the speakers. Did that Sony kit include them? I'm sure it must have. My mother's Kenwood came with speakers as tall as the cabinets! Two of them. The speakers only lasted maybe 20, 30 years though? My brother, then grown, found her better, more modern speakers to hook up to it.
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Fun fact, recording stuff from the radio is not piracy. There's actually an exemption for broadcast recordings specifically.
Also, I have similar memories.
I too am old.
Now that you mention it, yeah I remember that now. You ain't old yet. Just getting your second wind.
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So that explains all the getting up at 5am to milk cows, feed calves and steers and pigs, (my sisters fed the chickens, ducks and geese), shoveling shit, picking rocks, and pulling weeds..........
Vacuum tubes hate that, so that's probably why they lost their vacuum on Fridays like clockwork...
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I was likely in uni when this came out. I am cassette, 8-track and LP old. The CD came out when I was in uni. I remember having to decide whether to get a Betamax or VHS tape player when they came out.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Did you have to hide from the T Rex on your way to school?
I kid. I started out buying records and cassettes, but 8 tracks were "outdated" by the time I was a kid. Though our huge old school "console"* could play 8 tracks and when I was 13 I found my mom's box of old tapes. She had Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Queen etc. It was quite the musical education.
- A console was a giant piece of furniture only slightly smaller than a coffin that had a radio, record player, and speakers built in. It's what got replaced by the "sleek, modern" units like the one in OPs picture.
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Vacuum tubes hate that, so that's probably why they lost their vacuum on Fridays like clockwork...
Them cows were getting milked TV or not. Dead or alive, there weren't no days off.
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My parents' cabinet (console) didn't even have the cassette tape unit, just turntable and reel-to-reel.
Ours has an 8 track, but no real to real, a later one has a cassette and 8-track (long after 8-tracks were obsolete.
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Those all-in-one audio systems were fantastic, I will not hear any more of this slander
They are*, plenty of them still around and pretty much all of them superior to soundbars.
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
That has a frigging CD player in it. Ours had an 8-track.
