Do you have any gear that was outright given to you?

Yes, my dad offered me his Garrard 301 with SME arm and Shure cartridge when I was on a round-the-world business trip, just after my stereo has been stolen, and just after CDs came out.  I bought Quad electrostatic speakers on that trip and had lots of spare weight on the freight bill!  The amp and pre-amp were hand baggage.

Shocked at how much old Garrards are now worth, I have recently spent a lot of time ’fettling’ the Garrard (new bearings, idler, plinth internals, etc.) and it has got me back into vinyl.

He also gave me a Technics tuner, on the proviso that I never told mum how much it cost.  I had the change the mains plugs on everything to suit Australia, and stuffed up the Technics. In the end, it had to be sent back to Japan and came back six months later with a small plastic bag of burnt components plus a bill for A$30.  That’s good service.  I still have it, and it still works

Audio Gear: Gifts and/or Inheritances, I have been a lucky dog and I know it.

1. Wedding Gift Money used for 1^st system in college: Fisher 200T SS Receiver; AR-2ax speakers; BSR TT.

 

2. Inheritance: Fisher President II Console. (current speakers use it’s 1958 drivers)

 

Actually, sadly my Uncle Johnny died young without a will, so I didn’t inherit it, I helped my Grandmother clear out his NYC apartment, and she gave it to me along with his 2 Track Stereo Tapes and LPs.

 

3. Inheritance: Surprise money when my father died (hadn’t seen him since I was 8 yrs old). I bought a New Onkyo Integra System.

 

4. Gift: Thorens TD124 TT with SME 3009 II Tonearm and Fisher 500C Receiver

 

I helped an elderly co-worker replace his system and he gave me those 3 pieces, I made all the needed repairs, good as new.

 

5. Gift: Pioneer Stackable/Programmable TT

 

6. Gift: 50 Jazz LPs (my 1^st involvement with Jazz)

 

A friend was split from his wife. She wouldn’t even talk to him. He told me “if you can get her to give them to you, you can have them”. She said, sure, but they were in a flood. What a mess, but I had zero money, was paying school loans for 8 years, so I took them, washed them with dish detergent, dried them in the dishwasher rack, and learned what I liked/didn’t, enough to know what to buy when CD’s pushed LPs out of the stores.

 

7. Found: Fisher Console which had a Fisher 800C Receiver in it. (500C + AM) (just needed a few tubes)

Later, traded it with a member here for his unfinished project: Make a working Mitsubishi Vertical TT LT-5V out of 2 non-working ones. Awesome, playing in my office now.

8. Gifts: McIntosh MA2250 SS Amp and C28 SS Preamp.

Pre-arranged with Harvey’s McIntosh Lab Day, picked up the gifts, taxi to Harveys, lab said, you have an unusual specimen, it’s accurate to 305 wpc, all it needs is an LED, I’ll mail it to you.

9. Gift I gave myself. Turned out to be much bigger than I thought.

I quit smoking age 40. (37 yrs ago). I decided to give myself a reward to help me really quit this time. So, I decided to spend all my tobacco money on music or music equipment. A carton a week cost $700/year back then, so that was my budget. Next, I decided to give myself a rise in pay, as inflation rose, whatever a carton a week cost, that’s my budget. Now, multiply those increases with over 20 years, that’s a whole lotta dough, all music or equipment. Hot damn, never smoked again. I stopped that when I retired age 62.

10. Gifts: LPs, many friends gave me their LPs when they went ‘all CDs’.

 

11. Inherited 4,000 LPs, mostly Jazz, most played twice at most.

I talked to my good friend a few days before he died, he didn’t give me a hint, I thought he was going to give them to Tulane University (he lived many years in New Orleans). He was a full fledged hoarder, I had to make a path to get them. Later I helped his sister, also my good friend, clean the place out and get it ready for sale.

 

12. Gift: Columbia 8 Track Player.

I designed a lot of office space for CBS and it’s subsidiaries. I helped move Columbia Records division out of Black Rock and each and every employee, secretaries included had music systems on their desks or in their offices, dining rooms, conference rooms. It seemed like all they did was office betting pools and listen to music. Anyway, someone hands me a box with a music club branded 8 track player, it still works in my Garage/Shop system.

13. Gift of a sort: Early notice of items for sale at Harveys.

My friend Wayne at Harveys would call me and let me know:   …. is coming out of repair to the used shelf today. I worked 1 block away, and bought many great pieces, even if I didn’t need it, gave most of them away to friends. I visit one friends listening room, he has an active system, and a small museum, half the stuff I gave him.

 

14. DAT Recorder. I would never use it, so I asked my friend for permission to give it to my recording engineer friend as a spare to his identical unit.

    15. Used Tubes, many friends pulled tubes out of stuff and         gave them to me. Mitch, the super at my office building in NYC stopped wherever he was driving and gave me bags of tubes over many years.

 

     16. Oh yeah, my beloved Tube Tester, a birthday gift from my late wife Nancy.

I had an expensive home theater installed 26 years ago and the dealer gave me 2 Michell Transcriptor Hydraulic turntables, the turntable that was in the Clockwork Orange movie. It was a very nice turntable but I sold them for thousands after a couple of years. 1 of the guys who bought 1 traveled over a thousand miles to pick it up since he didn’t want anything to happen to it during shipping.

Now I see 1 on Agon for $12,000. I should have kept them.

Does inherited count? If so, I inherited my father’s Thorens TD-124 and his Bozak B-302 Urban speakers, and a Pilot amplifier. I refurbished the speakers by adding the 5” mids and having the woofers reconed. I changed out the 3-way crossover to a Bozak 3-way with the Pat Tobin (sp?) mod and refinished the cabinets. I had the Thorens completely refurbished with new motor, etc. and bought a Grado wooden tone arm for it that has a Shure V15 cartridge. The Pilot amplifier may be too far gone to restore as it had a mouse or two nesting in it for awhile. 

if inherited doesn’t count, then, no one has given me anything.

I inherit music.  As a few friends and neighbors know of my interest in music, and either wisher to shed their physical media or pass on their deceased loved ones media.  I had a neighbor whom I had only recently begun to become friends with who developed pancreatic cancer.  He had been a prominent advertising executive in Chicago and had written a few jingles himself.  He had learned of my taste in music and gear and a few weeks before he passed showed up at my house with a trunk full of complete opera boxes of LPs.  Opera isn’t my main interest and I didn’t have room the LPs, but I didn’t have the heart to turn him away.  These LPs were the most immaculate that I hade ever seen and I did play through them .  After he died I discreetly enquired of his daughter at the memorial service as to whether he had left a system behind, but it turned out that yes he had a high end system and had sold it off as soon as he was diagnosed because he didn’t want his family to have to deal with it.

  A family friend sold her home and moved to a Nursing Home before she passed.  She was a hoarder and the house was filled with stuff that she had inherited from others.  There were multiple refrigerators, sets of silver, etc.  Her kids insisted I take a reel to reel which I really didn’t want.  It wasn’t one of the prestige R2R brands.  So I tried to restore it, and bought a pre recorded tape from a resale shop.  The machine at the tape which became hopelessly twisted and broke off when I attempted to extract