In the 1980s we were all about the Boom Box/Ghetto Blaster. Here is a representation of mine:
I blasted '80s punk and ska all the time through that thing. Unless the parents were gone, then it was on my step-dads system. Wish I had pics of that but it had Bose 901s for speakers, a 450w Bose head unit, JVC tape deck, bunch of other top of the line stuff from that era. It berkeleying ROCKED!
I had the wood grain-trimmed, all-in-one combo: turntable (w/record changer), radio, cassette and, yes, 8-track.
I had a mix Akai, Pioneer and something else from my parents. Wish I still had it.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
My first real car, an Opel GT, had a Pioneer 8-track between and behind the seats. Darkside of the Moon and one other cassette in it. It was a '71 and I got it in '86.
I can't remember the details but in 1980 or '81, I saved and saved (as much as owning a TR7 would let me save) and bought an Onkyo amp and tuner, a Sony turntable, and some JBL L46 speakers. I got plenty of noise complaints when I took my system to the dorm when I went to college. The Sex Pistols, Ramones, and whatever other punk, alternative, and new wave bands WKNC was playing, plus the occasional hair metal album, sounded great! We still use the speakers and I think the turntable is up in the attic.
I never really had a stereo of my own during my high school years. My father had an old stereo with a 45/33/78 record player and an 8-track player. I think he got it when I was an infant or before since I have no memory of my childhood without it.
When my parents split during my senior year of HS, he took it with him and my mother bought a Sanyo semi-component system. I'm still using that system now. Eventually I will replace it, but it works well enough for my needs for now.
I had a small boom-box when I was younger, but it didn't last very long.
BenB (Forum Supporter) said:We still use the speakers and I think the turntable is up in the attic.
So, sore subject.
I inherited the 901s after my SD passed. I rolled up to New England from PA and lived with my dad and step-mother. I stored the 901s in their attic for quite a while, apparently too long.
One summer day my SM handed me a 20 dollar bill and said I sold your speakers at our yard sale...
They worth big bucks in '92 and I would still build a system around them if I had them today.
Powerplay!
Didn't own my own home stereo until after high school, but I can go downstairs and take a picture of it later today if you want to see it.
I wish I could find a photo, but it was a walmart sounddesign, had a dual cassette deck, EQ and radio in woodgrain with floor standing speakers
I had one of these powering a set of home built 3 way speakers with 12" subs. I also had a realistic turntable suspended from the ceiling on springs so loud music wouldn't make the needle jump.
Not long after HS I moved to a Onko system pushing a stupid amount of power through a set of Cerwin Vega D9s.
These things are why I can't hear very well. It was worth it though.
Got it in highschool, stayed with me through many college parties, then served as my work/garage radio for many years. I recorded about a million songs from the radio on this thing, and made stacks of mix tapes. It also had high-speed dubbing, so I borrwed and copied a ton of casettes from friends.
A Masterwork receiver, with some small Pioneer speakers. I got it in about 1971 used, so it was probably built sometime in the late 1960s. Masterwork stereos were a product of Columbia Records, I don't know who actually built them for Columbia but it was a pretty decent piece of equipment for its low price. I still have it and it still works, it's sitting on the shelf right next to me.
Not mine, but this exact model:
No pictures, but I was a budding audiophile, nursing Stereo Review magazine every month. I didn't have a car yet, so I could pour all of my work money into equipment. I had all Yamaha rack-mount items, digital tuner, Dolby (C?) cassette deck, 16 band EQ, a 300W? amp and finally a CD player. I also had a Yamaha turntable with some sort of higher-end cartridge on it (don't remember what.) Since I couldn't afford the Polk speakers I wanted, I sent off for speaker plans, and drew up my own speaker design. It was 18" wide by 18" deep and 42" high, built out of 3/4" plywood and glued and screwed, stuffed full of batt insulation, and had a (whatever) length bass port. It had 12" Pyle woofers, some French company 5 1/4" mids, and don't remember what tweeters. Each speaker weighed 80 pounds. They didn't sound like the Polks, but they blasted and were far cheaper. I finally ordered a 15" subwoofer from... one of those discount catalogs that always had stuff cheap.
I lived in the woods, so I could blast it when the parental units were not around.
Then I discovered headphones. My first (and last) pair were AKG-K240's. I hardly ever listened to the speakers after that. Those headphones lasted me 20 years, thousands upon thousands of sweaty listening hours. They got me through school, college, and years of work.
All gone now. For some reason I'm happy with a cheap pair of earbuds any more.
Right after school when I got my first place I had a set of Mag planers and a digital souce with I think a set of very rogue audio amp.
My first really big body sound system was a set of prodigy's from martin logan. Forget what am I was using at the time.
Now its all about the headphones and car stereo. I spend 90% of my time listening to music in the car or programming. Love my Grado's but I have a set of decent Astros that I use for gaming that I actually like a little more as they are easy to wear for 10 hours a day in front of a screen.
I had a garage sale Sony with 3cd changer and 2 tape players running through some 3-way pioneer floor speakers (tweet, 4", 15" iirc)
this was in 2001/02, so not fancy. But it worked!
Pretty much this without the built in CD player. I velcroed my OG DiscMan to the top. They expected you to because the boombox had a RCA adapter cord supplied with it.
I didn't have a home stereo until I moved to my own place in the 90s. But I had some car stereos!
My '77 Cougar came with the standard AM/FM stereo. Being a teenager in 1986, I had to have cassette. Fortunately, good old Radio Shack came though with a solution. You mounted this sucker under the dash:
Non auto-reversing, no rewind, just fast forward. But it was cheap and it worked. I ended up using it in 3 different cars before finally buying a Clarion cassette deck for my 85 Accord.
In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :
We had a car with a "fast-forward-only" cassette deck.
I was rocking a Zenith
But I was pining for a bitchin red Yorx Newave
I had a GE-3-5286a.
12.4 pounds before adding the eight D cell batteries!
I liked the Panasonics, but the GE had a roll bar.
Did anyone have Realistic Minimus 7's? My dad had a Magnavox amp and with those speakers I had a nice little hi-fi setup in my early teens. I also had access to a Teac reel to reel and recorded scads of songs off of FM. Fun times.
I had a GE Superadio II in high school. Well it was actually my parents but I commandeered it.
In my car, I had a modern for the time Pioneer Super Tuner 3. I graduated in 1999.
I took my music listening pretty serious from a young age. When I was young my Dad had a Forklift business but scrapped and parted out cars when he was slow. I had the OK to take any speakers I wanted from any of the cars that came ito te shop. So I was building my own primitive systems from about 8 years old.
At 14 I had a heathkit tube amp very similar to this
A Pioneer PL112D turntable
And a pair of speakers I bought with the first pay I got from a really good summer job. I can't recall the name of the speakers but they were a subsidiary of one of the large speaker manufacturers at the time, and looked an awful lot like these Dynaco's
I still have all of my high school stuff. Technics 15 W receiver, AKG headphones, Technics cassette deck, Pioneer belt drive turntable with a Shure cartridge (I still have my Discwasher brush too) and a pair of speakers I made myself in shop class with mahogany cabinets and using Radio Shack “Realistic” drivers. It all still works, the speakers got upgraded drivers, tuned ports and Marantz crossovers at some point.
One of my HS buddies was a serious audiophile and had rack mounted discrete components (SAE maybe?) with 400 watts per channel, a Technics direct drive turntable that was what the FM radio stations were using at the time and JBL speakers. The amp weighed somewhere around 20 pounds all by itself mostly due to the power supply transformer. Shockingly my hearing is still pretty good!
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