What kit did you aspire to own when you were young and poor?

[shane]

A few years ago I found an old school excercise book from 1969. In the back was a list of my dream system with prices. Can’t remember the prices but the system was Garrard 401, SME 3009, Shure V15 mk2, Leak Stereo 70 and B&W DM70 Continentals. Probably would have sounded awful in retrospect.

By 1975, the dream had moved on. Nothing less than a Gale GT2101, Lecson AC1/AP3 and Gale GS401s in black and chrome. That probably would have sounded half decent, but with looks like those, who gives a stuff what it sounds like?

[fatmarley]

From memory they always a relatively affordable 1000 pound per separate reference system.

Ah, that makes sense.

Threw all my old mags out years ago too. Earliest one must of been around 1995 or whenever Kef coda 7 became flavour of the week. My amp was supposedly "Amp of the year" too.

[Primalsea]

As a kid I would drawl over the stack systems in the Littlewoods catalogue. These were the ultimate in hifi from either Sony or Pioneer. A graphic equaliser set with the sliders in the shape of a smile was a must, even though I had no idea why.

[Marco]

What about when you were young and reasonably affluent?

Marco.

[walpurgis]

What about when you were young and reasonably affluent?

Marco.

Dunno about others, but I was always reasonably skint when I was young.

[Macca]

What about when you were young and reasonably affluent?

Marco.

There must have been some stuff you fancied but couldn't afford?

[struth]

Dunno about others, but I was always reasonably skint when I was young.

tbh this was more on my mind than a stereo

now that's a nice bit of kit

[DSJR]

[Marco]

There must have been some stuff you fancied but couldn't afford?

Lol, yes, just joshing, but nothing I really LUSTED after. In my late teens, I had an LP12, with Creek amps and big Mission speakers in my bedroom, amongst various other bits of kit, including a Nakamichi tape deck, so never felt that 'short changed' with my system that I had to drool over other stuff.

However, I've always had a big passion for high-end Jap kit, the stuff that you hardly ever seen in the UK, but that was sometimes reviewed in magazines. If any of that had been available in the dealers I frequented back then, I might've owned some of it and learned a few valuable lessons, which I was set to discover much later in life!

Marco.

[alphaGT]

I wasn’t as well informed in my early years, I would have thought I had arrived if I had a Nakamichi amp and preamp. The only good speakers I knew of were Klipsch and Infinity, and a few others that were popular at that time like AR’s and DCM. I met a older guy through some friends who had a Pioneer turntable with the solid granite base, and huge S tonearm! Mirrors on the edge of the platter, I thought it was the shit! And then ads in the magazines for Threshold amps also impressed me as looking beefy.

A friend told me of an older guy he met that had a Phase Linear amp pushing Magneplanar panels, I never saw it but imagined it was awesome for an mid 70’s system.

Russell