Great thread! Back in the BMX days (young) we used to ride to the local stereo shop 'Bry's' ( still there). They had a downstairs 'Loud Room' to show off the latest Audio stuff. Went down there one day, the dude says' Wanna Rock Boys'?. He pushed the buttons on a new JVC JR S501 Receiver and a pair of Klipsch Cornerhorns.... Boston's latest I think it was 'Rock & Roll Band came on..... holy moly I was running up the stairs as fast as I could! My chest was quivering, never heard anything so loud. (Later I discovered Nitro!). Fast forward 25 years a guy at our paper mill asked me to help him move, and as a reward gave me a ( you guessed it ) JVC JR S201! it is a bit under powered compared to the big guy, but has been in all my shops since then. It lately quit powering up, so it's in 'stereo jail' and in the mean time I e'bayed 2 JVC JR S401's, the 85 watt version. They are thumping the shop right now! I have been switching them out, repairing some bulbs and doing a good cleaning, but still hooked on those units after all these years!
Yah know Bob I cant for the life of me remember what the heck I did with it either, its been gone for awhile I remember going to Peaches Record and Tapes to buy an album or whatever, and Peaches always had a killer sound system built into the wall by the checkout counter, HUGE amp with watt meters, I'd always fixate on that LOLOL. I'd wander into Tokyo Shapiro or other audio stores and check out the equipment, all the stores smelled the same, warm electronic equipment, man Am I weird
Recently restored a pair of 1966/67 AR2ax speakers. Powered by 60's vintage Marantz amps and Fisher pre-amps. Love the warm sounds tube amps put out!
I have the same Techniques system that Storm1 mentioned with bose speakers I think they’re 501s & 201s
I have my old Marantz 2245, Marantz speakers, Dual 1229 turntable, & a Teac A450 cassette with dual VU meters. It has outlasted a Onkoyo and a Yamaha. Ran Bose satellites with the newer receivers. But....Nothing like the old school heavy duty amps & cabinet speakers. They still rock.
Growing up my friend Dean Skuza's parents had Marantz audio, I was in awe everytime I saw or heard it. His Mom would blast Elton John's "don't let the sun go down on me" Dean would blast Van Halen's "Running with the devil" I lived across the street, that thing sounded sweet
My Dad had a Bell amp, and Bell tuner, they were tube, and in a console, it had these HUGE speaker cabinets, they seemed like 4 feet wide, 3 feet tall, and 3 feet deep that housed a MASSIVE 15" speaker, it may have had a tweeter in the center. In 1975 I ordered an album off TV, "Truckin' On" one of the country artists on it did "Ramblin man" I'd put that album on his Gerrard turntable, and crank it, HOLY COW, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM , the amp was only 15 wpc, but it was a clean 15 watts, and those speakers just pumped out the bass. I imagine the clean sound was because the amp was a tube type. Sometimes you'd get shocked by it too! This looks like what he had
How did you restore them? Re-cone the drivers? I think I need to do that to my Cerwin Vega's pretty soon.
Since my first job out of college I also ran a Factory Built Dynaco SQA 80Q, with AR Speakers, 2AX in the front and 4AXs in the rear. I still have the Dynaco somewhere. Guess I should throw it on ebay... In the 80's I replaced it with a B&K Amp and Preamp, EX 442 and Pro 5. The Pro 5 lost its RCA connectors in 2 years and the factory replaced them for free with the gold ones. I picked up a set of JBL L100 Century speakers from a friend. The foam grills are long gone, but the sound is amazing. I use a Technics turntable and a Kyocera CD player. I have a cassette player and an equalizer, but usually run the signal straight through to the B&Ks. My home theater system is all garage sale stuff, Yamaha, KLH, no name. I just added 2 12"subs to the self powered Polk 12" and now we are shaking the house when Anakin and Padme return to Naboo!
Luckily they did not need a re cone, and they have the cloth surrounds which were in great shape, but the pots needed to be rebuilt, new caps and some cosmetics. Not bad for a freebie from craigslist.
Realistic STA-95 in the garage from my older brother....still going strong! These were from around 1980??
I built my Hafler 500 from a kit in 1975 and it still runs fine. Had the bias adjusted recently, but that is all it needed. I use an Audio Research SP-6 from 1978 and Tympani I-C speakers from 1975. Sounds OK to me, I guess, but others may not like it. Cheers!
High School and college I had a Dynaco ST-35 amp/Dynaco pas 3x pre amp. I also had an Elac Miracord turntable. I cobbled together speakers with some AR boxes. When I had money I went to the Carver M-1 amp, and Carver M500 pre amp through Bose 901's. Went through a few Sony and Denon Integrated AV stuff with Bose surround. Today, I have settled on the Onkyo 9110 integrated Amp with Klipsch RP-160M speakers and a Klipsch sub-woofer. The Onkyo/Klipsch isn't the loudest, but it really sounds great in a normal room environment. Better than the others. So good that I am now considering getting a turntable again.
Gave it all away ( mistake). If by chance I’m forced to start dating again I’m going to need a vintage system, a hot tub and a mustache of course
