How old were you when audio gear first caught your interest?

Age 8, I heard ’Short Fat Fanny’ and I was instantly hooked on a little transistor radio I got my hands on, ’Purple People Eater’, ’Battle of New Orleans’, I’m Your Handy Man’ ...... are jumping out of the recesses of my mind.

Decent Gear, that started with some Wedding Money, age 20, off to Sam Goody’s near Grand Central Station, NYC, up that long escalator got a Fisher 200T Transistor Receiver, AR-2ax Speakers and a BSR Changer with I don’t know what cartridge.

Age 30, Inherited my Uncle Johnny’s Fisher President II Console

https://www.audiogon.com/systems/11420

That was a big leap up

TT, was given a Thorens TD124 and SME 3009, both needing repair which I promptly did. I’ll never forget writing SME, asking about the rubber sleeve that isolates the counterweight section. I expected a response: send us $____ for this part. Instead, I promptly received the part, with an invoice which they trusted me to pay. Those were different times. 

I worked on 44th Street, NYC, between 5th and 6th avenues: surrounded by Stereo Shops, and Music Stores: so many lunch time trips to see/hear/find this or that.

When Cassettes pushed 8-Tracks out of the stores, one shop has 6 for $5. I decided I would take a chance on music I would never pay full price for, maybe listen when I retired. I had no idea the foam pressure pads were dissolving the whole time they were in storage. Oh well.

Did you ever take an 8-Track apart? You scratch several body parts trying to figure: how can it come off of the inner small circumference wheel, and wind onto the outer wide circumference wheel? It defies physics. Finally you realize, it's the slip sheet, the tape is constantly slipping backwards inside the cartridge as it winds, tightening toward the center, which of course puts a lot of pressure and stretching force on the tape, not to mention getting yanked up off the inside hub, over the reel of tape, constant wear on the bottom edge of the tape. The were designed for Radio Commercials, have just enough tape for the commercial (never a lot, never a heavy amount to pull), throw them out at the end of that AD campaign. But, convenience, ability to travel, in cars, to friends players was revolutionary.

I started with a Realistic turntable with accompanying speakers, then graduated to a Craig 3-in-1 (with 8-track). The thing that got me into wanting high end gear was my cousin’s Pioneer SPEC gear (with Oscilloscope, Equalizer, Cassette, and R2R). He had a Bang & Olufsen Beogram 4002 that was fascinating. Sounded great, too. Today, one of my systems has this turntable paired with a SPEC 1.

Let's not forget the DAK catalog!

@jl35 

Oh yeah, good syuff

I recently restored two pairs of AR-2ax (I had them in my College Days, late 60’s)

https://www.audiogon.com/systems/10092

And I had a Fisher 800C (500C but AM also) (sometimes called the ’Executive’) which I traded a member here for his Mitsubishi Vertical TT, LT-5V seen in one of the photos in that link above.

I’ve got One 500C ready for sale, one other just needing to have the FM aligned, and a 3rd for parts, and maybe a spare faceplate, the width chopped down to fit inside a case 

@wharfy 

I started smoking full time age 10; drinking beer age 13, so all my newspaper route money and recycling bottles for 2c and 5c for quart bottles, and coat hangers 1c for 2 hangers, went for beer and cigarettes.