Your first amp?


What was it, when did you get it, and what did you really want?

I'll start, 1977, really wanted a Pioneer SX650 ( a powerhouse at, I seem to recall, 35wpc) but just didn't have the dough. Wound up with an SX450 (15 wpc) and gotta say, within it's power limitations, it was pretty decent.

Ah, back in the day when musical happiness was a receiver, a turntable, decent speakers (the JBL 100 Century was real nice), and to splurge, a cassette deck. In fact, I would say, in 1977, my 'dream system' would have been a Pioneer SX850, the L100's, a Philips GA212 turntable with a V15 type 3, and a Tandberg cassette deck.
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I bought a 90wpch. NAD DC amp that blew one of my new B&W DM7s in 1978. My first lesson on headroom. I promptly traded it in for a pair of Meridian 105 monos with matching pre.
I have very fond memories of a Heathkit W4AM mono-blocks with matching preamp. Very cool set up modified to push pull at 50W a channel. Class A at 27w. We were the proud owner of these through Junior High School. We received them as a gift from my uncle and dear ole dad. I later migrated to a Realistic STA 2000D receiver with 75 watts a channel, rotel turntable and AKAI tape deck. Very SPOILED high school kid(lol) who worked long hours at fast food to get all of this. We also managed to build custom made speakers for both systems. I have been happily engrossed with the hobby ever since. I think I will enjoy our Wyred for Sound seperates now. Haven't been this exited since then.
Sansui AU-555, 1970. Dual 1219 w/Sure V15type II, Pioneer DX63 speakers, Teac 4010s reel to reel. Purchase in Okinawa while in Navy.
Something from RadioShack; integrated w/quad option. $59.95 back in 1975. Thought it was very cool.
Sherwood S-7800 receiver.
For those of you old enough and local enough, from MisiCraft in Morton Grove Illinois.