We didn't have a lot growing up, but my parents splurged on a Sony 5 CD changer stereo for my 8th grade graduation...and it still works like a charm to this day!
It's the only remote I own that I could operate completely blindfolded, as in every single button/menu/setting. It owns so much. Mega Bass 4 ever
@tysontomko I told my parents I was saving up for one of these...they bought me a cheapo version for Christmas that year. Now I couldn't let on that it wasn't what I wanted nor replace it with an awesome one because it would hurt their feelings. sigh
@Cynamon I was just coming here to say that. Wasn't sure if Walkman covered diskman or not. Still remember the exitement of getting one with the "g-shock" protection and thinking portable music couldn't get any better.
@thismyusername Yep. Mine had two JL Audio 15s (15w4s?), Polk components up front, and a whole lot of piss off the neighbors crammed into a Suzuki Samurai with the back seat removed, and gas was 89 cents a gallon so I was in it whenever I wasn't in school. Good times.
@Thumperchick I used to be told all the time that I rounded corners on two wheels... The one time I actually noticed from the driver's seat, I made a right turn and actually got up on edge like a stunt driver. Had a clear road ahead so I had the presence of mind to cut the wheel back left, set it down on all fours and just stopped in the middle of the road. I got rid of it within a month.
You got me. Ai1 turntable/dual-cassette/FM/AM. It was cool that you could record from vinyl to tape and make your music portable. Woooowwww. Eventually I got a tape Walkman (might not have been actually Walkman brand). I still have the turntable, but it was cheap when it was new, and sound quality had fallen off considerably by the last time I fired it up. I intend to fit it with a stepper motor and use it as a rotating 3D scanner. If I ever get around to that project. Otherwise it's just another defunct piece of junk acting as an anchor for anxiety and regret as old age sets in.
I was in a band and had a couple old dilapidated Roland Cube-60 keyboard amps on homemade wooden stands in my "studio". They were hooked up to a mixer and I plugged my Mac and CD player into it along with my synths and other stuff. I had a purple neon clock and would turn off all the lights and listen to music loud. I thought it sounded amazing... It was really pretty terrible.
Nowadays I have a similar setup with some KRK studio monitors and LED light bars in a treated spare bedroom.
I know what you're thinking: Bitchin'! But what's it fucking cost?
That's the bitchin' part about it! It don't matter! If you can't afford it, FUCKING FINANCE IT!
So what if it's as big as a Subaru and costs as much? You'll never have to trade this in! This is gonna be with you for the rest of your life! And when you die, they can BURY you in it!
My folks had this all-in-one TV and radio/phonograph unit. I could play a vinyl disc on it or listen to the radio. The good part was that my dad ran a vending machine company, and I could get any 45 rpm record from a returned jukebox, so I had a great library of music to play.
I had a Philco AM radio and found that I could attach wires to the speaker and plug the other end into my mono reel to reel recorder. Somewhere I still have early recordings of WABC in New York with Cousin Brucie and HOH (Herb Oscar Anderson).
A big Zenith radio/turntable console in the living room of my parents' house. One of those things that looked like a piece of Danish Modern furniture, with a top that had sliding doors to access either the record player side or the AM/FM radio side. It was from the 60s, then was still around in the 70s when I was doing the teenage thing, and that's mainly what we had. Otherwise, the car radio or a little transistor radio my dad gave me (Channel Master).
@PinkysMom My aunt still has two of those; one from the '60s that no longer works (its a credenza for all practical purposes) and one from the '80s that still does. They both have the sliding top doors. Both are about 25" color TVs, the old one has AM/FM and a turntable, the newer one has that plus an ultramodern 8-track and cassette player/recorder combo. Neat!
@craigthom Come to think of it, I believe it did have those record-rack things in it, to store albums. The compartment was quite deep and I can picture the thick wire shapes that looked as if they could hold enormous slices of toast!
@nadroj not really. Cassette players in vehicle stereos were common into the 2000's - whereas the discman was very much the standard for portable music in the 90's. I think they could have combined them, but without listing it, it needed to be mentioned.
I was a teenager in the late 70s; I didn't have my own stereo eqmt until I was in college. My parents did have a pretty decent (I think?) component system, incl turntable for listening to jazz records. I fell hardest for Miles Davis, Ray Charles, & George Shearing.
@MrMark I found mine in the garage a few months ago and handed it to my kid, with a cd I'd found, and told him to figure it out. I wish I had recorded it. He didn't even know what it was or what would happen when I pushed play. The look on his face when the music started was great!
Really, where's the handheld CD players? I'm a mid to late 90's kid; just old enough to remember the final cassette tapes, but growing up for the most part on CD-players, crappy headphones that would make anyone today laugh, and large packs jammed with custom CDs labeled with sharpie.
Mine looked a lot like this. This may in fact be the model. Whatever it was, it was a Consumer Reports best buy and might have had some other rating even from one of those high-end audiophile mags (yaknow, for what it was). It had good sound, really. And I was all into the recording of shit off of the radio and from my vinyl.
I used to read Stereo Review and dream of one day having a nice component system. My older brother had a decent one that he let me use. He also had an impressive collection of albums.
I had a horrible, kludged-together collection of components from three different stereos that were wired together in an unholy mess that also involved a VCR, an off-brand Discman, and a Commodore 128 (so I guess it would kind of count as a media center, but this was before that was a thing). My mom was amused; my dad was afraid I was going to burn the house down with the rat's nest of RCA cables and splitters that made it all (somehow) work.
We had a Zenith portable stereo turntable. It looked like a suitcase; you unlatched the speakers that opened outwards like double doors (and were detachable with long wires), then the the turntable folded down from the back of the case. No radio in it; we just had a tabletop unit (with tubes!)
Those long speaker wires were great; we put one out a side window and one out the front to play the Disney Sounds of the Haunted House on Halloween...
That mostly got us through teen years; components and better stuff came later, though I did put an AM/FM/cassette stereo and 2x40 amp in the Challenger, with triaxial 6x9 speakers in the rear shelf that was pretty sweet (relatively speaking!)
I definitely had a boombox, larger format Panasonic with cassette. I remember I had to occasionally open it up to replace the tape drive belt which would snap pretty much on the regular.
I had a walkman-like cassette player (not sony), and a later, a Sony Discman (which I actually found in my basement recently).
Band Camp
@Moose no Zune tattoo though, I hope.
@Moose 60% of the time, works every time.
@Moose I still use Zune's music player software on my PC. It just works really well, and it's... well, free.
I just reinstalled Windows recently and it was still there. I was actually surprised, but maybe other people feel the same way.
We didn't have a lot growing up, but my parents splurged on a Sony 5 CD changer stereo for my 8th grade graduation...and it still works like a charm to this day!
It's the only remote I own that I could operate completely blindfolded, as in every single button/menu/setting. It owns so much. Mega Bass 4 ever
@tysontomko I told my parents I was saving up for one of these...they bought me a cheapo version for Christmas that year. Now I couldn't let on that it wasn't what I wanted nor replace it with an awesome one because it would hurt their feelings. sigh
@chellemonkey This is why I've started discouraging purchases of anything I'd be inclined to buy for myself, particularly electronics or camera gear.
The speakers on my computer or my discman.
Yes the discman! Why isn't that an option? I feel like everyone at meh is over 35 or under 25. Or I could just blame the goat.
@Cynamon I had one! Except it wasn't a Sony. It did have some sort of bass boost and skip protection, though.
@Cynamon Gary Gulman gushes over the Discman on Conan
Cc: @jasontoon: today's write-up reminded me of this.
@Cynamon I was just coming here to say that. Wasn't sure if Walkman covered diskman or not. Still remember the exitement of getting one with the "g-shock" protection and thinking portable music couldn't get any better.
Components. Pioneer 6-tape changer, Yamaha preamp, 110w/channel Technics amp, and 3-way floorstanding speakers with 15" woofers.
spot the rich kid
My dad's Dynaco amp and pre-amp with AR-5 speakers and Sony reel-to-reel tape deck. Groovy.
@heartny Gotta love Dynaco. sigh.
Ahh the days when you would sit in class dreaming of a fancy car stereo.... simpler times....
@thismyusername Yep. Mine had two JL Audio 15s (15w4s?), Polk components up front, and a whole lot of piss off the neighbors crammed into a Suzuki Samurai with the back seat removed, and gas was 89 cents a gallon so I was in it whenever I wasn't in school. Good times.
@djslack ah yes, the Suzuki Summersault!
@Thumperchick I used to be told all the time that I rounded corners on two wheels... The one time I actually noticed from the driver's seat, I made a right turn and actually got up on edge like a stunt driver. Had a clear road ahead so I had the presence of mind to cut the wheel back left, set it down on all fours and just stopped in the middle of the road. I got rid of it within a month.
@djslack My sister had one - that thing was awesome on inclines and scary as shit if there was any hint of wind.
@djslack I saw a Samurai this week, but it had a hard top up from and an open back, like a pickup truck.
Tinny music on a Japanese 6 transistor radio.
Great for ballgames in the back of class, though.
You got me. Ai1 turntable/dual-cassette/FM/AM. It was cool that you could record from vinyl to tape and make your music portable. Woooowwww. Eventually I got a tape Walkman (might not have been actually Walkman brand). I still have the turntable, but it was cheap when it was new, and sound quality had fallen off considerably by the last time I fired it up. I intend to fit it with a stepper motor and use it as a rotating 3D scanner. If I ever get around to that project. Otherwise it's just another defunct piece of junk acting as an anchor for anxiety and regret as old age sets in.
I saved the money from my dishwashing job and got a Maramtz receiver and a Technics turntable south Shure cartridge for about $450.
That was all the money I had, so I listened with Sennheiser headphones for a few months until I found a pair of Bose 301 floor models for $180.
That continued to be my system, with the addition of a cassette deck, through college.
That was a lot of money for a part time job at around $2.30 an hour.
@craigthom Marantz.
I was in a band and had a couple old dilapidated Roland Cube-60 keyboard amps on homemade wooden stands in my "studio". They were hooked up to a mixer and I plugged my Mac and CD player into it along with my synths and other stuff. I had a purple neon clock and would turn off all the lights and listen to music loud. I thought it sounded amazing... It was really pretty terrible.
Nowadays I have a similar setup with some KRK studio monitors and LED light bars in a treated spare bedroom.
Check it out, my man! The Dominator X-10. Thirty inches of thigh-slapping, blood-pumping, nuclear brain damage!
I know what you're thinking:
Bitchin'! But what's it fucking cost?
That's the bitchin' part about it! It don't matter! If you can't afford it, FUCKING FINANCE IT!
So what if it's as big as a Subaru and costs as much? You'll never have to trade this in! This is gonna be with you for the rest of your life! And when you die, they can BURY you in it!
@MehnofLaMehncha
No love for the 8-track?
One of those plastic all-in-one turntable/8-track/radio units
My folks had this all-in-one TV and radio/phonograph unit. I could play a vinyl disc on it or listen to the radio. The good part was that my dad ran a vending machine company, and I could get any 45 rpm record from a returned jukebox, so I had a great library of music to play.
I listened to Cousin Brucie on a desktop AM radio next to my bed.
@sligett You da man!
@sligett And I'm listening to Cousin Brucie on Sirius in my car.
@pooflady Cousin Brucie, Siriusly. I didn't think he was still around.
@sligett 60s on 6. I think he recently moved to California.
I had a Philco AM radio and found that I could attach wires to the speaker and plug the other end into my mono reel to reel recorder. Somewhere I still have early recordings of WABC in New York with Cousin Brucie and HOH (Herb Oscar Anderson).
A big Zenith radio/turntable console in the living room of my parents' house. One of those things that looked like a piece of Danish Modern furniture, with a top that had sliding doors to access either the record player side or the AM/FM radio side. It was from the 60s, then was still around in the 70s when I was doing the teenage thing, and that's mainly what we had. Otherwise, the car radio or a little transistor radio my dad gave me (Channel Master).
@PinkysMom My parents had something just like that, except there was record storage inside the sliding top as well as the radio and turntable.
It had those little Danish Modern legs, which matched the rest of the furniture.
@PinkysMom My aunt still has two of those; one from the '60s that no longer works (its a credenza for all practical purposes) and one from the '80s that still does. They both have the sliding top doors. Both are about 25" color TVs, the old one has AM/FM and a turntable, the newer one has that plus an ultramodern 8-track and cassette player/recorder combo. Neat!
@craigthom Come to think of it, I believe it did have those record-rack things in it, to store albums. The compartment was quite deep and I can picture the thick wire shapes that looked as if they could hold enormous slices of toast!
@PinkysMom I bet it's the same one. They got it in maybe '62 or '63, after we moved and had more room. They kept it possibly into the early '80s.
Would a "Diskman" fall under the "Walkman" option?
@Tystix I think they are 2 different time references and should have their own entries.
@Thumperchick well, then car stereo should likewise be split out by AM/FM, cassette, CD, etc.
@nadroj not really. Cassette players in vehicle stereos were common into the 2000's - whereas the discman was very much the standard for portable music in the 90's. I think they could have combined them, but without listing it, it needed to be mentioned.
@Tystix
I was a teenager in the late 70s; I didn't have my own stereo eqmt until I was in college. My parents did have a pretty decent (I think?) component system, incl turntable for listening to jazz records. I fell hardest for Miles Davis, Ray Charles, & George Shearing.
Pioneer SA-7100 Integrated Amp, PL-12D turntable and JBL speakers. Sounded really good too, as long as you didn't turn it up too loud.
Discman with 10 second electronic skip protection and a tape adapter. Cruising the road.
@MrMark I found mine in the garage a few months ago and handed it to my kid, with a cd I'd found, and told him to figure it out. I wish I had recorded it. He didn't even know what it was or what would happen when I pushed play. The look on his face when the music started was great!
@jaremelz
Kinda like those videos on YouTube where they give a group of kids stuff to use and they have no idea what it even is, let alone how to use it.
Really, where's the handheld CD players? I'm a mid to late 90's kid; just old enough to remember the final cassette tapes, but growing up for the most part on CD-players, crappy headphones that would make anyone today laugh, and large packs jammed with custom CDs labeled with sharpie.
Mine looked a lot like this. This may in fact be the model. Whatever it was, it was a Consumer Reports best buy and might have had some other rating even from one of those high-end audiophile mags (yaknow, for what it was). It had good sound, really. And I was all into the recording of shit off of the radio and from my vinyl.
I used to read Stereo Review and dream of one day having a nice component system. My older brother had a decent one that he let me use. He also had an impressive collection of albums.
I had a horrible, kludged-together collection of components from three different stereos that were wired together in an unholy mess that also involved a VCR, an off-brand Discman, and a Commodore 128 (so I guess it would kind of count as a media center, but this was before that was a thing). My mom was amused; my dad was afraid I was going to burn the house down with the rat's nest of RCA cables and splitters that made it all (somehow) work.
Good times.
(In fact, I think the "VCR" was actually an old VHS-based camcorder with a bad battery. Even classier!)
We had a Zenith portable stereo turntable. It looked like a suitcase; you unlatched the speakers that opened outwards like double doors (and were detachable with long wires), then the the turntable folded down from the back of the case. No radio in it; we just had a tabletop unit (with tubes!)
Those long speaker wires were great; we put one out a side window and one out the front to play the Disney Sounds of the Haunted House on Halloween...
That mostly got us through teen years; components and better stuff came later, though I did put an AM/FM/cassette stereo and 2x40 amp in the Challenger, with triaxial 6x9 speakers in the rear shelf that was pretty sweet (relatively speaking!)
A few come to mind...
I definitely had a boombox, larger format Panasonic with cassette. I remember I had to occasionally open it up to replace the tape drive belt which would snap pretty much on the regular.
I had a walkman-like cassette player (not sony), and a later, a Sony Discman (which I actually found in my basement recently).
computer with speakers, it is actual for me even now
I went from Walkman to disc man to this... my first mp3 player