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Anyone here use old home stereo gear?

U

Unknown_K

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These days people stream music from their phones, but I grew up liking home stereos.

I find that while my computer equipment gets slightly newer with time, I still use my old stereo gear from the middle to late 1990's with a few additions.

Technics SA-DX1040 5.1 stereo with Sony 5.1 speakers (mostly just listen to it in stereo mode).
RS-BX501 tape deck that replaced my RS-TR355 dual tape deck (still have it might need a new belt).
SL-MC400 110-disc CD changer replaced my SL-PD827 5-disc changer that quit outputting for some reason.

Still have my first purchase Technics 80W Stereo receiver in the basement somewhere, along with a bookshelf AIWA system I would use in the lab.
Also have a Tascam CD-A500 single CD player + tape deck I found at a recycler and snagged it for free (works).
I also have a Panasonic DAT tape deck that I use with my old computer video editing gear.

If I had space and extra money, I would probably have collected 90's stereo gear as well as computers. No idea where I would have put all those Cerwin Vega, Infinity, JBL speakers I used to go look at in stereo shops.
 
I'm partial to Sony's line of component stereo hardware form the late 90's and early 2000's. I have pretty much the full setup now but it's starting to fail from capacitor issues.....

There's a late 80's Pioneer receiver and a pair of speakers I move between warehouses at work.
 
Now you've hit my sweet spot!!!

This was in my living room right up until a short time ago. I bought it when I was in high school. It still works, but there was a space constraint that required I temporarily retire it.
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This is in my office

1730126999820.jpeg

and this is in the basement

1730127062634.jpeg

As you can tell they are all Sonos S1 driven.
 
Still using a Sansui 2000A receiver and a pair of Dyna A25 and a Sony CDP-102 CD player in my office. All work just fine and are 50+ years old (except for the CD player, which is going on 40)
Early 90's? Well, I guess I have a 90s Sony receiver in my living room, but it's connected up to a pair of University 3-ways from the 1960s.
 
The 90's were pretty much the peak of car and home audio in my opinion, after that everything was geared toward home theater and the downward spiral of quality.
Chuck(G) said:
Still using a Sansui 2000A receiver and a pair of Dyna A25 and a Sony CDP-102 CD player in my office. All work just fine and are 50+ years old (except for the CD player, which is going on 40)
Early 90's? Well, I guess I have a 90s Sony receiver in my living room, but it's connected up to a pair of University 3-ways from the 1960s.
Click to expand...
Those A25's have rubber surrounds, quite a few speakers had foam surrounds that break with age.
 
I would prefer to but I don't know enough about what is good and what's crap to pick the stuff up cheap at estate sales.
 
My reciever is a late '70s JVC JR-S301. Bought it on Cragislist as a basketcase (filthy, dead bulbs, arcing power switch) and rehabilitated it. Most of the other components are newer (mid-80s Technics linear-tracking turntable, '90s tuner and tape deck). I recently bought a very modern 31-band equalizer to slide in because apparently every garage band buys them for their equiment rack and they're worth nothing used.
 
My Technics collection includes an SL-1600MK2 turntable (complete with it's box), SA-T670 receiver and RS-M233X DBX tape deck that I have owned since new.
A good buy as I worked for a Technics Centre reseller.
Unfortunately hasn't seen much use since grandchildren came along and destroyed all my "now impossible to obtain" EPS-207 stylus stocks.
 
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I still have some Tandy stereo amps, plus speakers from the 1970s. There's also a turntable and a cassette player. There's a JVC stereo amp with radio tuner inbuilt (AM/FM). I think there's still a Tandy graphic equaliser packed away too.

Even if I knew how to play music on the phone I wouldn't do it, as I prefer listening to the old gadgets.
 
I still have a Marantz Quadrophonic in my shed. Sounds surprisingly good even now.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I figure that I could hear any degradation--and I'm not. Regardless, the woofers could probably be replaced easily enough.
Click to expand...

you know what breaks with age? My ears :) I'm way over-speakered for my current hearing ability.

If you're in the Seattle area there's a used stereo place (Hawthorn Stereo, no affiliation) that I used to haunt every time I got the bug to go retro.

Hawthorne Stereo - Home

Offering quality new and used hi-fi stereo systems and accessories, including turntables, speakers, and amplifiers from Naim Audio, Rega, Luxman, Spendor, ATC, Harbeth, Pro-Ject, Marantz and more.
www.hawthornestereo.com www.hawthornestereo.com

The funniest one was many years ago we got this little amp for one of the offices but when we got home we noticed that it smelled like cigar smoke. We started calling it Smoky Joe.
 
DougM said:
you know what breaks with age? My ears :) I'm way over-speakered for my current hearing ability.
Click to expand...
I'm still pretty good for my age. I attribute this to never having attended a rock concert.

I thought that my office system was circling the drain when a CD I played exhibited peak-level distortion. I took it to my living room system--nope, the CD was bad. Sigh of relief.
 
Not really sure how good my hearing is. While I never went to a concert that blew my eardrums out (and I love rock music), I did put a stereo system in my car in the 90's that was a few hundred watts with 12" subs.
 
Sansui 7070 receiver, Garrard Lab 80 with Shure SuperTrack cartridge and homemade 3 way speakers.


Larry G
 
Ironically, although I have a couple of nice turntables and a fair amount of vinyl discs, I probably haven't listened to one in perhaps 4 or 5 years. Heck, I have a box of shellac 78s that hasn't been touched in perhaps 25+ years.
 
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