The first system I had was in 1971 and it was far from HiFi but it did start me on the HiFi road. I lived in Yorkshire but worked around London as a Contracting Electrician. London had the highest pay scale and as work was scarce in Yorkshire I had to work away from home so you may as well go for the highest pay. I needed something I could take from town to town on public transport easily so I bought an Elpico car 8Track and car speakers I was working on a school in Clacton during the summer holidays at the time. The only 240-12v transformers you could get were for Cassette Players and did not have enough power to operate the solenoid on the 8track so I had to change tracks by hand. In our refurbishment of the school I came across a Big Arzed transformer from the fire-alarm system that was no longer needed so a plan came to mind. 4 diodes a bit of wire and some crimp-on spade connectors and we had constant music. This thing was lethal, I remember having it on a building site one tea break when one of the spade terminations came off and I burnt my fingers pushing it back on, should have used insulated crimp-ons. Well now you know more about me than my wife does, if I tell you any more I will have to kill you.
Fast forward to 1973, still relying on public transport, I think I was working on a job at Ford's plant in Langley along the M4 and one Saturday I caught the train into London to go and buy a real hifi system. I have the feeling the shop was in the Wimbledon area, I found it in a HiFi Magazine and the owner was very helpful. I came away with a Garrard sp25, a Nikko amp, and a pair of Dynatron??? speakers the shop owner said for the same price I should be taking a pair of AR? speakers but not knowing anything at that time I said my fiend has a pair of these and they're OK. How the hell I got this lot back to Langley or where-ever on public transport I don't know. I can remember setting it up in the digs and listening to The Who Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy with a friend. At the end of Happy Jack we heard a voice say "I saw Yer" and we both thought it was Wally one of the other Electricians on the job. It wasn't until we went out of the room looking for Wally and not finding him we replayed that track and there he was again.
Alan
Fast forward to 1973, still relying on public transport, I think I was working on a job at Ford's plant in Langley along the M4 and one Saturday I caught the train into London to go and buy a real hifi system. I have the feeling the shop was in the Wimbledon area, I found it in a HiFi Magazine and the owner was very helpful. I came away with a Garrard sp25, a Nikko amp, and a pair of Dynatron??? speakers the shop owner said for the same price I should be taking a pair of AR? speakers but not knowing anything at that time I said my fiend has a pair of these and they're OK. How the hell I got this lot back to Langley or where-ever on public transport I don't know. I can remember setting it up in the digs and listening to The Who Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy with a friend. At the end of Happy Jack we heard a voice say "I saw Yer" and we both thought it was Wally one of the other Electricians on the job. It wasn't until we went out of the room looking for Wally and not finding him we replayed that track and there he was again.
Alan
