The trip to San Diego to pick up the turntable was fun. It also served as an opportunity to hook up with a guy I'd been chatting with for several months. Yes Virginia— that kind of hookup.
Anyhow, I got the table back to The City in one piece and plugged it in. The seller had mentioned that the arm lift and automatic return function weren't working, but I figured it would be a simple fix. It turns out they weren't, but thankfully the table could be used in manually until I could get the problem looked at professionally.
And that led me to Joel Thorner, a god among men in the vintage turntable business. Sadly, Joel is no longer with us, but his apprentice at the time and I became (and remain) fast friends to this day. Joel affected a repair on the broken part that was causing all the problems and was nothing short of genius at its time. Nowadays acquiring a 3D printed replacement part made of a much sturdier material than the original is a simple matter; in the late 90s no such tech was available. (BTW, I still have that turntable, and while it is not currently in active use, the repair is still holding some twenty-five years later!)
My system didn't change much until fall 1999. Then all hell broke loose.
I discovered this little thing called eBay. On a whim, I started typing in model numbers of equipment I'd lusted over back in the day.
The SA-800 was my first eBay purchase. It slid into my system, displacing the beloved Yamaha A-700 amplifier. It had a few issues…there were a couple light bulbs burnt out and the switches were noisy, but it still sounded damn good. And since I got it for only $165, I really couldn't complain. (These things are now selling on the auction site for literally ten times as much.)
I found a source for the bulbs and got them swapped out, but I never did get those switches properly cleaned. Now, I would have no trouble accomplishing it but back then I just didn't have the knowledge or materials necessary to do it properly.
I turned around and eBayed the A-700 for enough to cover the cost of the SA-800.
About two months later I got another set of the Technics Micro Components. I just couldn't stay away from those bouncing LED power meters! They formed the basis of a new system for my bedroom.
For many years I'd been lugging around complete sets of Frank Lloyd Wright blueprints that my dad had found back in the 70s when we had been remodeling a house. I really didn't care about them all that much, but I knew they were historically valuable and couldn't just get rid of them, so that's why I held onto them. One night I thought, "What if I put just one set up on eBay and see what happens?"
Bids appeared immediately after my initial posting. Over the next seven days they kept rolling in. At the end of the auction the final selling price was around $3500. I was in shock.
And I had two more complete sets of totally different houses…plus several individual sheets that weren't tied to anything in particular!
Needless to say, for most of the year 2000, I was rolling in cash. Sadly, it was gone as quickly as it had come in. Because…audio, both vintage and modern. I didn't spend it all on audio equipment. I paid some bills and got stuff for the apartment that I sorely needed, but yeah…the majority of it went to audio.
I got into Minidisc. Loved the medium. Absolutely loved it. Even after mp3s started hitting the scene several years later I clung to those little jewel-colored disks.
I got another SL-1700MK2 turntable for the bedroom system. I got a pair of Cambridge Audio speakers for the bedroom and another to run into the bathroom. I bought a Pioneer receiver for my dad. I bought a Pioneer amp and tuner for my mom. I bought a (smaller) Technics receiver for my friend Rick. I was buying stuff that I didn't even want to keep; stereo equipment from my youth that I just wanted to use for a bit and then flip back onto the market. I even nabbed that dual 8-track receiver I bought back in high school just to see it again.
I am not proud of that period in my life.
Looking back now, it's obvious I was trying to fill a emotional void, to return to a happier time in my life, and yet, all the comings and goings of this old equipment from my youth failed to accomplish that.
In 2001, this madness all came to an abrupt end. I finally realized what I'd been doing and most importantly why. I'd sold my last Frank Lloyd Wright blueprint months earlier and had a new car payment to worry about. At the same time I'd grown weary of that big Technics SA-800 receiver with its noisy controls and longed for that elusive, seductive Yamaha sound. A seller in Los Angeles was offering the same A-700/T-700 combination in near-mint condition that I'd purchased fifteen years earlier at Jerry's audio in Tucson. We closed the deal, and with one last post-FLW hurrah, I drove down to LA and back to SF that same day to pick it up.
A few days later 9/11 happened.
A month after that, I was let go from my job.
And with the arrival of 2002, unable to find work, I found myself saying goodbye to San Francisco for the last time.
[to be continued]