Growing up in Communist time USSR, hi-fi, mid-fi or even low-fi was hard to come by. Started out with a Soviet-made Melodia turntable receiver with stock speakers (see link below if you are having hard time imagining turntable receiver).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/macmad/6833766576/sizes/l/in/photostream/
It was nowhere near as nice as the one in the pic, but knowing what I know now, it actually sounded pretty good. Later on added a Hitachi dual well cassette deck (similar to D-E1, but dual well). We went through hell and back to get our hands on that thing. Great deck, a real workhorse. One must mention a couple of Soviet tube reel to reels, Astra and Yauza, the latter was a somewhat decent copy of a Telefunken. The smell of an old tube reel to reel (mix of smells of oil, hot metal, hot tube glass, tape flakes and rubber belts) is the very definition of "smell of analog" to me. I need to get me a tube reel to reel just to smell. I am getting side tracked... I think I'll start a topic on that. What's your smell?
A bit later dad came across some Technics 3-way speakers and a Pioneer integrated amp. That combo stood the test of time and sounded very good. Don't remember model numbers...think classic silver Pioneer and fake wood finish on the speakers. I do remember they were sealed and had at least an 8" woofer. Very similar to pic below:
https://reverb.com/item/8004771-technics-sb-3030-3way-speaker-system
The crown jewel of the system came last, right before I moved to US - it was an Akai tape deck, pretty high up in GX series, 65, I think. My dad still has it, it’s close to 30 years old and still sounds magnificent and never needed anything. That’s when I fell in love with Akai and just last week picked up a fully restored GX-635D reel to reel. But that’s another post...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/macmad/6833766576/sizes/l/in/photostream/
It was nowhere near as nice as the one in the pic, but knowing what I know now, it actually sounded pretty good. Later on added a Hitachi dual well cassette deck (similar to D-E1, but dual well). We went through hell and back to get our hands on that thing. Great deck, a real workhorse. One must mention a couple of Soviet tube reel to reels, Astra and Yauza, the latter was a somewhat decent copy of a Telefunken. The smell of an old tube reel to reel (mix of smells of oil, hot metal, hot tube glass, tape flakes and rubber belts) is the very definition of "smell of analog" to me. I need to get me a tube reel to reel just to smell. I am getting side tracked... I think I'll start a topic on that. What's your smell?
A bit later dad came across some Technics 3-way speakers and a Pioneer integrated amp. That combo stood the test of time and sounded very good. Don't remember model numbers...think classic silver Pioneer and fake wood finish on the speakers. I do remember they were sealed and had at least an 8" woofer. Very similar to pic below:
https://reverb.com/item/8004771-technics-sb-3030-3way-speaker-system
The crown jewel of the system came last, right before I moved to US - it was an Akai tape deck, pretty high up in GX series, 65, I think. My dad still has it, it’s close to 30 years old and still sounds magnificent and never needed anything. That’s when I fell in love with Akai and just last week picked up a fully restored GX-635D reel to reel. But that’s another post...