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what was the first piece of hifi you bought

Alex S

Alex S

carbon based lifeform
I was a bus conductor at the time, two weeks wages got me an LP12. I’m afraid I was a child of the flat-earth. Got it from Grahams when they were in Pentonville Road selling Naim alongside toasters.
 
Some Mordant Short coffins, a Cambridge Audio amp and CD player from Richer Sounds, somewhere in London about 24 years ago. No idea how much they cost but not a lot.
 
An Eclipse 101 CD player, Cambridge Audio A1 amp and a pair of Wharfedale speakers (I forget which model but they were stand mounts about twice the size of Diamonds. Laser 50? Deltas?).

The start of a slippery slope :D
 
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Bought whole system from Studio 99 near Finchley Road in North London:

Rega Planar 3 (with s shaped arm)
Ortofon VMS20E cartridge
NAD 3020
Acoustic Research AR18s

Classic combo. Loved it. Still have the Rega, though not in use.
 
A Sharp RT12 cassette deck I think, or possibly a Sony TA-AX2 amp. Used with home-made speakers featuring surprisingly decent Audax woofers and tweeters. Actually I tell a lie - the amp and CD player were probably Christmas or birthday presents. In which case maybe first thing I bought was a pair of Sennheiser HD400 headphones - the lightweight ones with yellow earpads. (Do headphones count?)
 
Pioneer PL12D. It went with a Pioneer SA-7300 and AR4x's. I think I had a Shure M75II. The cheaper version of a typical HiFi system for 'serious' music listening. In the continent, I mean. It was 1975.
 
In 1960 a mono Tripletone valve amp, and an SP25 from Brown’s on George IV Bridge feeding a speaker from an old radiogram on a 4 by 3 foot baffle across a corner. Not really hifi, but a real step up from my flatmate’s Dansette. The amp had 4 inch long rods on each pot so a second amp could be attached to the rear of each pot to make a stereo pair - a new thing at the time. I stuck with mono.
 
A Goldring G101, brought from Comet in Croydon (in 1973 I think) for £25. It fed an old reel to reel tape recorder with built in amp and speakers via a very cheap step up transformer!
 
First setup was from Richer Sounds original London Bridge store after leaving home and moving into a young persons hostel.

Toshiba I think basic automatic turntable. Likely to be cheapest they had but certainly better than parents Alba record player.
Sansui I think integrated amplifier. Again likely to be cheapest they had at the time.
Unbranded single driver with whizzer cone floor standers. Actual OK for the money, but replaced with first proper speakers from I think Sound Organisation store Camden Town next door to the Camden Palace. Memory may be wrong on the store name. Speakers were Wharfdale 504's, gown up Diamonds with metal tweeter.
 
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Also from Richer Sounds:

Sherwood receiver; Philips CD (500?); Ariston TT (Revolver Rebel clone); JPW mini-monitors - the latter two I kept long after the other kit had gone.
 
A complete system second hand; Lenco 75, Quad 33, 303, JR149s and a Hitachi D550 cassette deck. The result of a lot of saving and coming into a couple of hundred quid in a will. 1978, I’d have been 15. I could pretty much build that system today, just with a 124 in place of the Lenco!

PS There is a first system thread somewhere, though it will be a decade or so back in the archive at least!
 
First item of hifi I purchased out of my own money (birthday/working with dad over summer) was a Walkman DC2 and Koss Porta Pro headphones, previously had a selection of Aiwa/Panasonic Walkmans but saw the Sony in What hifi magazine and knew I had to have it, parents tried to talk me out of it but eventually let me spend a small fortune. Couple of years later it fell out my pocket whilst riding my bike and broke into pieces. :(

https://walkmancentral.com/products/wm-dc2
 
mine was an itt music centre! late 70`s. i remember it actually sounded good! then early 80`s i remember reading about the inca tech amplifier which got me into separates but at the time i just couldn`t afford one so i settled for getting a cyrus 1 integrated amp and mission speakers :)
 
A pair of Acoustic Research AR18 speakers, heard at a HiFi Exhibition, bought there, and carried home on the bus.

Prior to those, I had a Bush combined TT/amp unit with bog-standard speakers.
 
First piece of HiFi...
Likely a Leak Stereo 20 (with a pre amp and the umblical connector cable) and some Warfdale Speaker kits, one built quite quickly, and the other much later os had mono from the Leak with a large resistor on the other chanel. That would be the late 1960's...
 
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