Show us your former equipment/kit !!

[gmgraves]

On 3/17/2019 at 1:29 PM, Ralf11 said:

What you used to have - as a child/teen/or any larval/pupal stage...

 

related thread:

 

I have catalog pictures. My dad built the speaker cabinets, and the bookshelves for the system, as well as the stand and plinth for the record changer. I was about 16 when I had this system. There were two of the mono integrated amps and two of the speakers. Not shown are the two horn tweeters that I bought from Lafayette Radio. Most of these components came from Allied Radio in Chicago. The exception is the Koss Headphones. I bought those from Audio Fidelity in Richmond, Virginia.

[gmgraves]

18 hours ago, Ajax said:

Below is my first "real" hifi purchased in 1984 from Graham's hifi in London.

 

Although a very simple system it cost me a years salary at a time when I was struggling to feed myself. However, it provided me with some 15 years of unbridled joy in various incarnations including adding a Linn LK1 & LK11 Pre-Power Amp and Tannoy 15" Ardent Speakers. The Linn LP12 turntable was the consistent thread throughout until I stupidly traded it for a pair of very ordinary speakers in the early 2000s. 

 

- Linn LP12 turntable with Ittok arm

- Naim Nait Amp

- Linn Kann Speakers ... combined later with a Tannoy Sub

 

Just superb.

 

 

Nice system! Naim amps are really good and a Linn LP 12 Is beyond reproach! I’ve heard good things about the Kann speakers too but I’ve never auditioned them, personally!

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

Here are photos of some of the pieces I had in my system in the years 1976 to 1980, at ages 14-18 years old.  Note that the pics are not of my actual units--I just grabbed them off Google--but they are the actual models.  Some of these pieces--and a few others, I still have in my "audio museum."  I also had a few different reel-to-reel decks (various Revox, Tandberg, Teac, Akai), and several other Nakamichi pieces, most nattily the wonderful 700MkII.

The speakers, HK amp, and Kenwood turntable all got heavily modified.

 

The HK Citation 12 (above and below) was dual-mono.  Its chassis and transformers became the basis for years of experimentation and reach among the Hovland gang--in the two decades before we became an official company with our own products.

 

I still have my Marantz 20B tuner in walnut case.  Dick Sequerra designed--and custom tweaked by Bob Hovland.  Considered one of the best sounding tuners in the world. (And its for sale! $1,250 plus shipping.)  No radio stations worth listening to where I live.

 

 

 

This was American-made Marantz at its finest.  I also have the even better Model 19 (seen below).  It too works and looks perfect (I use it daily in our workshop and is for sale ($1,600).  These are heavy beasts.

 

This pic is from my media vestibule a few years ago (when we were short for space I turned it into a bookkeeping office for a part-time hire.)

 

I had a Citation 12 for years. l bought it as a kit. When I worked for Fujitsu Semiconductor, I replaced the bipolar output transistors (2n3055s IIRC) with FETs made by Fujitsu. The Citation 12 sounded much better with the FETs.

 

As for your Marantz Model 20 tuner, there are no FM stations in the United States period worth listening to. They are all so heavily compressed and hard limited as to be virtually unlistenable on good equipment. I was in Boston a couple of years ago, and I figured that the Boston classical station WCRB would probably sound good because they have what is probably the highest-FI of any Internet Radio Station with their 192 Kbps mp3 streaming, but their FM signal did not impress. 

 

I too have a highly regarded FM tuner, the fabulous Yamaha T-85. It sets in a closet, forelorne and unused because there hasn’t been any FM worth listening to in decades. When I bought it, this was not the case. I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time and there were three great sounding classical stations (KPEN, KKHI, and KDFC) as well as a great jazz station, KJAZ.

 

KPEN, KKHI, and KJAZ are gone now, and KDFC has become a mere shadow of it’s former self. I live in the Reno Nevada area now. When I first moved here in 2015, there was no classical music or jazz station here but two years ago, station KNCJ went on the air, it plays classical during the week and Jazz on weekends. I have my car radio tuned to it perpetually, and I am thankful that we have such a station (many much larger radio markets have no classical music FM or jazz FM for that matter). Unfortunately, it too sounds extremely mediocre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

George, I'll take that T-85 off your hands.

I don’t even know what it’s worth, but make me a decent offer and I’ll take you up on that offer. Send me a PM.

 

[gmgraves]

I found a picture that I think I took accidentally  about 2006 of a previous system.

 

* J A Michelle Gyro SE with JELCO 750 arm and Grado Reference Phono Cartridge.

* Sony SCD XA-777ES SACD/CD player

* Audio Research SP-9 MKII

* 2- VTL - 140's Power amps

* Yamaha T-85 tuner (not shown)

* Otari DTR-8 DAT recorder (not shown)

* Pair of Martin Logan Aeon-i speakers

* Pair of Aethena P-9 subwoofers (not shown)