Remember when

Suitcase record players?

 

Reel-to-reel tape decks?

 

When I was a child, too young to smoke, cigarettes were $.10 in the machines on the airbase but $.15 in town.

By the time I was old enough they had gone up to .25 and quickly to $.50. Circa 1973…

Cartons of Salem’s were going for five dollars on the airbase in 1969. By 1975 they were $10 there. That was my mom’s business. I didn’t like menthols.

I never smoked cigarettes in those days. I was into mountain climbing, and I smoked a pipe, which was cool. Cigarettes were too easily crushed & too much pain to make on the fly. They took up a lot of room in your backpack if you were going to be out for several days.

I quit April 2nd 2008. I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would.

 

When I worked in the arco gas station I could buy a glass bottle of Mountain Dew and some peanut butter crackers for 25 cents out of vending machines.
Speaking of cigarettes,the cool guys in town would roll the pack up in their white t shirt sleeves.
My parents both smoked camel non filtered cigs till they both quit cold turkey when I was 10, my mother saved the money from not buying butts and spent the money on a down payment for a 1968 dodge coronet 440 wagon with a 318 engine. it rusted out in about 5 years in the salty road Vermont environment .

 

All this talk of cigarettes!!

My dad smoked - I never took up the cigarette smoking cause but I'd smoke once in a while, usually to cover up the other smells
Now, every time I smell cigarettes, it makes me all nostalgic and kinda makes me want one; the cost of a pack halts that desire real quick tho..

Used to be tobacco fields everywhere round these parts - now I haven't seen one in a few years

 

Who is old enough to remember when “longhair music” was Mozart and Beethoven?

Rockers had short hair like Buddy Holly and The Crickets. Danny and the Juniors.

 

Sony TC-558. Camp Henry PX, Taegu (Daegu) South Korea 1975-76

 

Suits and ties, too. Kind of like airline travel and baseball games.

 

I think it was the Beatles That had the longer short hair then I really never paid that much attention.

 

Well they did get enough attention to eventually evolve into the “big hair” bands.

Back in 1963 I was probably listening to a lot of Johnny Cash and such, which was popular on the AM radio in Phoenix.

 

Remember when freedom of speech was honored online

 

Like when being patriotic was seen as a good thing...

 

What's a dating app???

 

Were they those Califone players?
Had to be careful playing stereo records on them... The cartridges that came with them didn't have vertical compliance, and you'd burn out the side channel information, especially on those polystyrene 45's.

 

It tells you how much Carbon-14 is in an object....

 

You must remember putting a coin on the tone arm to play those warped/scratched records that skipped? So much for vertical compliance, eh?

I was in my 30s before I had a turntable with real balance & tracking adjustments.

I liked Audio-Technica carts with the fancy shaved diamond.

 

Well, most 45's were mono into the 70's. When I was a kid, I couldn't afford a stereo LP. I may have gotten them given to me as gifts, but there weren't many. I rarely played the stereo LPs on the Fisher Price. By the late 70's, I was rocking a BSR changer combo thing to stack both 45s and LPs, and that had a stereo cartridge, so no worries about burning out the vertical data at that point. I retired the Fisher Price and used that all-in-one AM/FM/cassette/changer thingy through jr high, and then got a job, which is when I started buying components. I upgraded to mostly Onkyo gear. I use(d) elliptical shaped styli, even on the styrene - no burn.

I lastly upgraded to a Dual 1225 when my father had no use for his. That's now my main table.

The 45's I still have from my elementary school years that I played on the Fisher Price are beat to piss. Kind of upset about that, because a lot of them are those old Power Records Superhero / Monster comics with the 45 in the back of them. I did tape the nickel onto the headshell once in a while on the Fisher Price, but not often.

I haven't used AT carts. I am (was) a Shure guy. Installed my last OEM stylus a few months ago. Might be time to ether change the cart or go with the JICO aftermarket stylus...

 

All this talk about pennies..

Anyone else ever read Guitar Player magazine BITD?

They had a Soundpage of the featured player each month. A square piece of thin vinyl you tore out of the magazine and play on the turntable. Had to tape a coin to the sides to keep it still.

 

My Thorens TD160 with Ortofon cartridge. (Not the original one.). Bought in '75 when my younger brother moved out of the apartment we were sharing and the sumbitch took his turntable with him.
Still in use to this day. Sadly, my Pioneer SX828 while I still have it, would need repairs to get decent sound out of it.


And just 'cause it seems I never throw anything away:

 

Very nice!!

Quite a lot of scratch for 1975...
I am shocked the phone number for the shop wasn't written as MUrray2-0203.

Your Pioneer probably needs it's contacts cleaned and some new caps... Not hard if you can solder. Those beasts were made to be repaired.