Let's see what you had for a stereo in high school

stuart in mn said:

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:

You mean one of these?

I had one too at one point. I wish I still had mine. There are a few survivors listed on e-bay and they all work. 

In reply to Peabody :

My home made speakers look a lot like those above.   I think I measured a pair of Advents as a guide for mine.  

In reply to stanger_mussle (Forum Supporter) :

I still have a Superadio.

In the 80's we moved to the sticks and didn't have a lot of TV stations so we couldn't get the weekday hockey games. AM radio reception at night being what it is, we couldn't listen to them either. So we bought a Superadio, I built an antenna and we got all the games. We also used it for some primitive (but interesting) DXing.

We still use it for that at night when we go way up north.

This was my first stereo. It was my Dad's old one and he gave it to me when he got something new.

The Mighty Magnavox!

It was really old even back when I had it. Come to think of it, it wasn't really a stereo. It was what the called in the 1950s Hi Fi Monaural. One channel. But it really was loud and substantial. A solid piece of furniture with real vacuum tubes that lit up and enough metal in the turntable to build a Kia. I remember it later getting sold at our garage sale for $10. I wish I still had this monster. 

My very first was something like this

I took the cover off the bottom, tapped into the amp output, and ran wires out.  I would attach the wires to various speakers I built from scavenged automotive drivers crudely fastened into cardboard boxes full of whatever stuffing or insulation I could get my hands on. I would have been about 7 or 8 at the time.

In hindsight I guess my Mom was pretty patient and rarely complained when I said things like, don't throw that out, that's a good box, then took it to my room for later.

Stereo ?     In hgh school ?    Ha,Ha

I don't remember all the components but it could launch ping pong balls across a 20' room.

Grado SR60s were/are great though.  Now I wear hearing aids so it's all pretty crummy.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

stuart in mn said:

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:

You mean one of these?

I had one too at one point. I wish I still had mine. There are a few survivors listed on e-bay and they all work. 

They did sell a variety of models, but I have the exact one I showed in my post.

No pics, but a Technique (by Panasonic?) component system. Purchased a 45 or 50 watt/channel receiver, dual tape deck, & phonograph with 2 free standing Polk Audio speakers and 2 Polk bookshelf speakers.  A buddy's dad who was a Lt Col in the AF and an audiophile helped me pick the best bang for the buck components for a middle school kid budget and it was all paid for by my paper route $.  Ran an antenna wire into and around the attic so I could pick up WYYI 98 Rock from B'more as it was the best station for 200 miles. Not sure if it still is or even is still on air...

I had something like this in my bedroom, I don't recall exactly what brand, Google search of '90s and vintage 3 disc changer stereo shows a lot of stuff, but this is the closest I could find. 

It wasn't loud enough for my liking, so I canibalized an old pair of head phones, to make an adapter to fit the 1/4" plug from my Peavy Rage 158 to the 3.5mm jack on the stereo.  I just stripped the wires, and twisted them around the appropriate contacts on the Peavy's jack.

I could rattle the windows in the whole house.

I got a realistic SCR-15 for my birthday in between 1985 and 1987.  I think its still around up at my parents new house.When I was 16 or so my dad got me an old JVC silver face receiver and some speakers.  I had it for a little while until my dad asked me if I was willing to give it up to someone in need, and if I did he'd look for a replacement.  So the JVC went away, and a few months later a Pioneer SX990 with some realistic speakers replaced it.  I ended up getting an older Teac tape player, a CD player and a fisher turntable.  My parents had a Pioneer SX3700, BIC turntable and 2 sets of speakers, some Sansuis and a cheaper pair that got ultimately destroyed by cat spray.

In 2015 my parents were preparing to sell my childhood home so it came time to clean it out.  I had taken my stereo out a few months ago and found some pioneer speakers for cheap and set it up.  Instead of donating their equipment I took it back home with me, cleaned 30+ years of dust off and set it up with some speaker stands I found in a thrift shop.  I added a kyocera CD player and a bluetooth adapter so I can stream music from my phone.

Growing up my dad had a late 70's Marantz 30-ish watt receiver, a Technics turntable, and some massive Cerwin Vega's. In my high school years, I started using the Marantz and added some Infinity Alpha 20's. Later upgraded to a basic Onkyo surround receiver (TXSR 500aybe) and a Velodyne sub. Added random surround speakers and center channels throughout the years, later upgraded to a Demon receiver which was better sounding and more powerful than the Onkyo, but didn't last but a few years.

Still have the Infinity's and the Velodyne. Looking forward to when we can get into a larger home and the kids are a little bigger so I can setup a small stereo. Still have the old Marantz receiver, it always sounded great but needs some work at this point. I'd love to get it running.

Bought some Radio Shack speakers off a co-worker who's husband had passed and wasn't interested in keeping his stereo stuff. They have Lineaum tweeter and a small mid bass driver. I've ran them a little bit and for the $20 I have in them I am very impressed.

No pics. 
I too was a budding audiophile. I worked at a audio shop in Detroit. I built a pair of what he called S-15s that had 15" Eminence drivers and a horn-loaded tweeter. The same stuff we installed in bars and roller rinks across the metro Detroit area. Had a few different amps to power them. I actually ended up working as a  DJ because I had these beasts. 
in the 25 years since I've had many, many speakers. 

My grandkids are always asking me what was it like to walk among mastodons...  We had a single channel unit with tubes from the 50s, but by my senior year in high school I moved up a notch, a small notch.  In the 70s moved up to 40 watt per channel Technics and Advent speakers...

Started in high school with a Sansui receiver and speakers, Akai cassette deck, Technics turntable, and Teac graphic EQ.  By end of college had upgraded to Carver 6200 receiver, Onkyo CD changer, and Bose 601's.  Stored in attic after kids were born 15 years later for 5 years, found out SWMBO had donated to Goodwill when we were packing to move.  Ugh...

I had a couple of different systems. Since it was the 90's, I had a minisystem. Mine was a Sony like this:



While I can't find pics of the exact one, it had a 6-disc changer and that broke about a year into ownership, so I had to hook up my Discman to the Aux port for CD's. 

I also had started dabbling in old-school audio. Some neighbors of ours who were moving out gave me one of these to start:


Technics SA-200. I had it paired with some old school Mirage 250's and ran a Fisher-branded BSR turntable:



It got me into collecting vinyl records back then, which I still do now. Today, I still have the SA-200 and those Mirage speakers, but the turntable crapped out long ago. I retired the receiver after it started making some odd noises and the switches decided to get finicky, but I still have it. The speakers are nearly 40 years old now and still sound great! 

In the car, my first good stereo in a high school ride came in the form of a Pioneer DEH-1000 in my 1987 Mercury Cougar XR7:

Man, I loved that thing. Sounded great with a pair of JBL 10" subs in the back! I ended up selling it to a friend when I got a new car and upgraded to an Alpine CDM-7871 and someone stole it out of his dash. 

I got one of these for Christmas 1984  I thought I was the man. I wonder what people thought when they saw a bunch of white kids on bmx bikes blasting Run DMC and LL cool J.

After months of consideration and deliberation and comparison of everything from separates and mini systems, this was my big purchase in 2003. 
 

I just found it in my inlaws basement. Not sure how it ended up there, but I was happy I found it as I thought I gave it away. Pretty sure that it is the newest piece I own, everything else is vintage. Even my DVD player. 

Realistic by Radio Shack.  Am/Fm 8 track, like this.

Got rid of it about 10 years ago.  Still worked fine.

Wow!  A stereo in high school?  Not a chance.  I was lucky enough to have two different transistor radios, and my pride and joy, a monaural cassette tape recorder with which I could record my favorite songs off the radio.  I was most of the way to my Bachelor's before I had enough scratch to put together a modest system.

Impressed with how many of you come from money.

 It was my Dad's. From my bedroom, NW of Montreal, I could pick up WABC in New York City and listen to Cousin Brucie in the evenings, or the home games of the Fort Wayne Comets. How that thing received signals from those distances is beyond me.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

I listened to 77 WABC almost exclusively back in the early 70's before graduating to FM stations like WNEW, WPLJ, and Philadelphia's WMMR.  WABC's Bruce Morrow, Dan Ingraham, Ron Lundy--I remember them well.  They pushed a crazy amount of watts and were easily the strongest AM station 60 miles west of NYC in the New Jersey piedmont, so I'm not too surprised that you were able to pick them up.

1988RedT2 said:

Wow!  A stereo in high school?  Not a chance.  I was lucky enough to have two different transistor radios, and my pride and joy, a monaural cassette tape recorder with which I could record my favorite songs off the radio.  I was most of the way to my Bachelor's before I had enough scratch to put together a modest system.

Impressed with how many of you come from money.

Who said anything about coming from money, I sure as hell didn't.  I think I paid $15 for my first stereo.  

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

 It was my Dad's. From my bedroom, NW of Montreal, I could pick up WABC in New York City and listen to Cousin Brucie in the evenings, or the home games of the Fort Wayne Comets. How that thing received signals from those distances is beyond me.

It's called  skywave propagation.  A big part of the attraction of DXing, and something the GE superadio excels at and is well know for, though all AM radios are capable to some degree.

1988RedT2 said:

Wow!  A stereo in high school?  Not a chance.  I was lucky enough to have two different transistor radios, and my pride and joy, a monaural cassette tape recorder with which I could record my favorite songs off the radio.  I was most of the way to my Bachelor's before I had enough scratch to put together a modest system.

Impressed with how many of you come from money.

I didn't come from money either. I had a job delivering papers as a kid from age 10-15, until I started working at a grocery store, where I worked throughout the rest of high school and into college. I saved up and bought the things that weren't hand-me-downs or freebies myself! I worked my butt off for that stuff!