My Dad bought an old Philco "AV system" in the late 50s, with an inoperative mono phono preamp, so I used to get one of my mom's fine sewing needles and taped it to the apex of a rolled up paper cone "speaker" and played 45s on it! By my teens I had migrated toward ham radio, listening to the world through a single-ended tube stage and a naked 5" full-range. Quite intoxicating. A few years later I made a horrible-sounding Heathkit ss receiver, and then designed a unidirectional speaker using a Utah (remember?) 3-way co-axial driver firing into a plaster-filled kitchen funnel, all mounted atop of 90lb clay sewer pipe wrapped in a brown Naugahyde sock. Lots of bass (but not quite approaching the huge pipe organs I played in various churches), but I never really understood that I had forgone the sweetness of the single-tube midrange short-wave setup! Then I discovered the opposite sex, and thirty years disappeared. Yet after two marriages and daughters I rediscovered speaker design a decade ago, along with NAD and Rotel, but gave it all up after running into you A'goners, assembling my ref system as it sits now. Thanks!
Do you rember your first?
I went over to Peter Edward's house, after school one day. He puts on a record by Simon and Garfunkel, called Sounds of Silence. Anybody ever hear of them,? Anyway, he puts, the song I am a Rock on and I'm blown away at what I'm hearing from his dad's Fisher reciever, Empire turntable(that was state of the art, at the time) and AR 3a Speakers. The bass was freaking me out. He played more and more and then let me groove with his dad's headphones. Whoa! This was big time for this 9th grader. I was hooked. After saving, and saving, (my parents didn't have the money, although, I believe they helped me a little) I bought my first hi end system. You've got to remember, this was a time I was listening to a Victrola, and my Mom's Zeneith reined supreme. I purchased a Lafayette receiver, Garrad turntable and the AR 4xs. I bought the Simon and Garfunkel album that Pete played for me, and I was in heaven. The rest is history. Thanks Pete.