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About lovehifi
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Member:
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Stan
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Epinions.com ID:
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lovehifi
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Location:
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USA
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Member Since:
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Jan 20 '06
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I have always had a fascination in the field of audio.
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Activity Summary
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Reviews Written: 156
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Member Visits: 2,369
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Total Visits: 72,142
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About lovehifi
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I Grew up during the 70's & 80's, wherein great strides in consumer audio/video took place. At one time or another I owned several good quality stereo components such as high end cassette decks, high end turntables, receivers, large floor standing speakers, etc. Unfortunately, due to financial means, in order to buy something new I had to sell something I owned. I wish I would have kept some of what I had. Too bad ebay wasn't around then. Selling by word-of-mouth offered limited results and poor returns on investment. Employing a consignment based shop specializing in audio/video electronics resale proved to be rather expensive as well.
In those days, 'stereo' was king. 'Quad' systems enjoyed some following. Boomboxes became very popular moving into the 80's. Large, floor standing speakers were everywhere. The bigger, the better, was the attitude. Receivers could weigh in at over 100 LBS! Huge power supplies with enormous, heavy transformers and large heat sinks. Each new amplifier boasting more and more output. Speakers became enormous. DOLBY noise reduction. Lights, dials, meters. Brushed aluminum panels. Those were the days of Hi-Fidelity which so intrigued me.
I became interested in sharing my knowledge of audio through mediums such as Epinions because I realized that much of the equipment of that past era is misunderstood and misrepresented. Stereo receivers, large speakers, cassette tapes, boomboxes, etc, all hi-fi components of yesteryear, are now becoming relics of the past, sometimes auctioned as collector's items.
I also realize that some of the electronics of the present day are not as of good quality as I believe can, and should, be attained.
It saddens me to see some of the backward steps which have been taken in audio equipment. In the 80's, I owned a PIONEER stereo receiver boasting 85 watts/channel delivered over the entire audible range, with a rated distortion of only 0.09% THD! And, while I loved that receiver, I knew then that its rating was not even all that great (at that time). I just could not afford better. Other receivers and amps on the market had boasted higher outputs, with distortion ratings as low as 0.005%<, which dwarfed my receiver's specs by almost 20 times the better, or more. Compare these ratings to modern home theater specifications. Many boast 10% THD (that's over 100 times worse than what I owned some 30 years ago!)and would have been ridiculed during my day. Current systems which are priced in the upper mid-price range still may only claim distortion ratings of just under 1%, and it may be rated at only 1kHz, not the entire audible range of hearing. During my day, 1% THD was still considered as not meeting high fidelity standards, according to the Institute For High Fidelity and other sources. If the audio range was any less than maybe 40Hz-20kHz, it was looked upon as not really high fidelity. How times have changed. While features and other aspects, such as 'surround' sound have emerged, other important facets of audio have taken a back seat.
During my time, the cassette tape was the way to go, just as the CD replaced it and now electronic memory is replacing the CD. Some amazing recordings could be made on tape if you were lucky enough to own a good machine and knew what you were doing. Recording with the use of peak and average analog VU meters, higher and higher end cassette tapes, DOLBY noise reduction circuits, specialized 'windows' which optimized your noise reduction and recording levels and so on. Recording was very tedious, but a great deal of fun. By comparison, recording onto CDs is fairly mundane. Now, it is popular to 'crunch' your music collection and minimize its fidelity in order to squeeze out more recording room, such as is the case with MP3 and IPODS. The mentality was exactly the opposite in the 70's and 80's. You looked for vinyl albums with large wide grooves, which meant the audio was probably better, wider and more dynamic. Albums sold on TV were notorious for squeezing too many songs on a side, making the grooves very narrow and the resulting fidelity only mediocre.
Owning vinyl records was still a hot commodity. Sometimes, I'd buy special 'anti-static' sleeves for my favorite records. My PIONEER turntable featured quartz accuracy and strobe lights on the side which allowed visual monitoring of the turntable's speed. Double and triple built-in shock absorbers helped prevent record skipping when someone walked by. I'd pay $100-$200 for a turntable diamond tip 'needle'. You handled that needle with the utmost care. Special brushes and cleaners kept it playing like new for months. When a favorite record 'skipped' or you heard that awful scratch noise, you immediately assumed one of your younger siblings had been playing with your collection and scratched your recording. How dare they handle your records with their bare hands and not wipe off the oils which their fingers left behind? I watch how young people today handle their CDs. They're tossed into piles, one sitting on top of another, or shoved into a compartment in their car. After a time, those CDs are all scratched and scraped. For what it's worth, I did know people who handled their records the same exact way. I never let them play those records on my turntable. I wasn't about to ruin my 'needle'.
Boomboxes were everywhere. I remember walking into any one of several hi-fi stores of that time and seeing literally walls of boomboxes, each one larger than its neighbor. Just moving from boombox to boombox and auditioning them all could take an hour or more. It really annoyed the salespeople. I owned or knew someone who owned several of the boomboxes which are now considered hot collector's items by some. The JVC RC-M90, the AIWA CS-880U, the RC-M550, The JVC PC-5 and PC-55, the SONY MK-II, the PANASONIC RX-DT75 and RX-DT690 and others by CROWN, AIWA, SONY, REALISTIC, TECHNICS and so on. I also owned several of the LASONICS which came out much later and were reminiscent of the classic boomboxes in their basic looks and features, although not nearly as high-fidelity. I always got rid of them because something newer came out. I never expected the boombox craze to end. That's how popular they were.
Large floor standing speakers were everywhere as well. Back then, Radio Shack competed with Lafayette, another electronics store. Both carrying many speaker system and hi-fi component choices. Large speakers, sometimes standing 4 feet or more in height, with dual 12 inch woofers, 15 inch woofers, high end dome midranges, exotic tweeters. I remember going to an audio show and auditioning INFINITY REFERENCE floor speakers. Man, what a sight and sound extravaganza. The columns stood as tall, or taller than I, and featured maybe a dozen EMIT midranges and a dozen or two dozen EMIT tweeters. In the bases you'd find half a dozen high end poly 12 inch woofers with the see-thru cones which were becoming so popular. The sound was amazing, as was the price, which was quite a few thousands of dollars. You could buy a car for the price of those speakers. I always imagined what that system would have sounded like at home.
Building your own speakers was popular then as well. Building speakers for hi-fi purposes actually began much earlier. But, in the 70's/80's, it became more realistic, as many local electronic stores began offering decent quality components to build almost anything you wanted. I built a pair of huge speakers standing 6 feet tall, each consisting of dual 15 inch woofers and a combination of several midranges and tweeters, both cones and horn types. I employed good quality multi-component crossovers. The sound was never right and eventually I tore the speakers apart and sold the individual components. But, it was fun. And the bass from these speakers would rattle the whole house (which consequently forced me to dismantle them).
Miniature speakers from Radio Shack, such as the acclaimed MINIMUS-7 and similar speakers from BRAUN are probably the ancestors of the modern mini/micro speakers employed in home theater sound. Some, such as the MINIMUS-7, offered fabulous sound and received fantastic reviews. Others were simply cheap imitations, both in appearance and audio quality. Such mini speakers also became extremely popular in automobiles. They could be seen on rear decks, mounted on walls and ceilings of vans and almost anywhere they could be made to fit. I owned several pairs of the MINIMUS-7's. I placed them on the floor in corners of the room. If you were careful not to turn up the bass too much, you could derive really nice sound from those tiny boxes. I also had a pair on my car's rear deck. Bass was not real low, but the overall sound was very good. The problem was, they were in sight and consequently were stolen on a regular basis. I also owned a pair of MACH ONE speakers. They sounded great. I'm so sorry I sold them off. Surround sound speakers of today can sometimes sound really good. But, many times the sound is too chopped up. The music doesn't always flow as it did from the old large speakers. All that computer processing. I'm still not so sure it's better. Just different.
Owning audio equipment during those times provided a lot of enjoyment and entertainment. Bragging about specs and features. Displaying your components on custom racks. It was a very different mentality than is now the case.
I still enjoy owning, testing or playing with audio and video equipment. I offer honest opinions of their virtues and will not hesitate to point out their flaws. From what I've seen in a/v electronics, quality does not always match technology. Since we cannot seem to count on the manufacturer and/or always expect the high quality to which I was accustomed, then we must look to one another for opinions and advice concerning consumer products.
I sometimes miss the old days of audio. Some improvements have been great. But, I had always expected the components of those days to just become better and better. The different turns in technology came unexpectedly. I did not think you could really improve on the cassette tape. I didn't think the CD would last. I laughed when I first heard of 'digital' recordings. They would never replace pure analog. Computer bits replacing actual music notes. Never! Oh well. For what it's worth, I'd still take a yard wide boombox with 8 inch woofers over an IPOD anyday.
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