I wouldn’t call myself an audiophile per se. I mean, I don’t go to CES and attend private listening sessions of $30K speaker systems in rented hotel suites, but I do appreciate—even with my age compromised ears—good sound and well-made, reasonably priced hardware. And if you’ve spent any time at all on my blog, you know I have a passion for—some would say obsession with—vintage stereo gear. As I’ve documented previously, this began in high school with the encouragement of my friend Ken, and has continued unabated to this very day.
It started innocently enough, with a Panasonic receiver/dual 8-track player combo in 1972. Yeah, I know this wasn’t “hi-fi” by any stretch of the imagination, but it was all I could afford after saving up my household allowance for God knows how long. Ken—despite his seemingly endless financial resources—never snickered at my purchase, but always told me what was most important was how it sounded. But still, when I think of the thousands of dollars I’ve spent (and honestly, wasted) over the past fifty years in pursuit of good sound, it boggles my mind.
But surprisingly, it wasn’t always this way. My home has not always been a revolving door of equipment coming and going. In fact, from 1985 thru 1999, my system was stable. I thought it sounded great and felt no need to change out or improve anything. It consisted of a Yamaha A-700 amp, a Yamaha CDX-730 CD deck (models that are in my current system), a Yamaha K-540 cassette deck, a Technics SL-1700Mk2 turntable that I’d owned since the late 70s, and a Phase Tech PC60 satellite/subwoofer speaker system.
And then I discovered eBay, and along with it—and for possibly the first time in my life I had more than a little disposable income—the trouble started.
My first purchase was a Technics SA-800 receiver. I remembered drooling over this whole line of receivers back in 1978. The styling was so different than anything else on the market at the time the first time I sawthem I got whiplash walking past. Gone were the typical blue or green on black backlit tuning dials, replaced by soft, indirect lighting shining down on brushed aluminum.
But sadly, at the time, they were out of the range of my limited budget and I was still snobbishly hanging onto my Sony V-FET amp that regularly blew up and was repaired because “V-FETs sound better.”
But there it was in 1999, the second-to-top-of-the-line 125 watt-per-channel monster I’d drooled over twenty years earlier for $165 plus shipping. If they show up for auction today they can’t be touched for less than $1000, not that I’d want one again after having owned one.
Anyway, I had it delivered to my work and was amazed at how pristine it looked. Yeah, a couple bulbs providing that indirect lighting were burnt out, but it was otherwise flawless. I had to drive downtown to retrieve it that night since there was no way I could haul the beast home on the metro, and once home, I hooked everything up and was in heaven. Yeah, a few of the switches and pots were noisy (something I now know is an easy fix, but back then vexed me no end), but otherwise it sounded great.
A month later, my faithful Yamaha A-700 was my first eBay sale.
It took me a little over two years to tire of the Technics receiver. The burnt out bulbs got replaced, and I did my best to clean and lubricate the noisy switches, but it just didn’t sound as good as my old Yammie.
Another A-700 (along with its matching tuner, the T-700) showed up on eBay in September 2001. It was located in Los Angeles. I corresponded with the seller and he said everything was in perfect working order; it was his office system and he needed to downsize. $188 and a day-long drive down to Woodland Hills and back, and it was mine.
I got home around 10 pm that night, and while exhausted, disconnected the Technics and hooked up the Yamaha. I put on a CD and…nirvana. Absolute nirvana. The difference in sound quality was like night and day. I swore I’d never get rid of it.
Unfortunately the Universe had different ideas. Shortly after moving back to Phoenix, I got my first cancer diagnosis and suddenly found myself out of work and short of cash. Up on the auction block it went.
After I’d finished my treatment and found work again, I replaced the Yamaha with a Kenwood KR-7400 receiver from 1974. I’d always liked this model, and was very happy with it. Why didn’t I try to find another Yamaha? No fucking idea. I’m sure I had my reasons at the time, but I have no memory of what they were.
I kept the Kenwood until 2018, when another bit of nostalgia from my youth reared its ugly head on eBay: the Technics “Concise” series of mini components. By this time I knew myself well enough to hold onto the Kenwood, so it was merely retired.
And then, in 2020 (foolishly thinking we’d come out of that year relatively unscathed) the fire happened.
The firemen—to their absolute credit—moved the entire entertainment center out onto the front porch and I was able to salvage everything. The Kenwood was also spared, stored in a closet that didn’t get wet.
But y’know, when it came time for us to go through the house and pull out or mark for the restoration company those items we absolutely wanted to keep, I looked at the Kenwood that had previously been giving me tuning dial illumination issues, and I just left it. Or maybe I told our landlord to take it. Honestly at this point I don’t remember. It was one of those items that just went missing—just like my DVD collection and like banker box of CDs I’d kept for sentimental reasons.
Over the next couple years, I made a couple more questionable purchases until in 2023 I said fuck it, and sought out another Yamaha A-700. It’s been with me since and I’m not going to get rid of it unless it comes down to keeping it or not living on the streets.
And don’t even get me started on the tuners, CD Discmans, CD decks, MiniDisc Walmans and MiniDisc decks I’ve shuffled in and out of the house over the past three years…
I think I’m finally to the point where I’m satisfied. I’m feeling the same way I felt about my original Yamaha setup I kept from the mid 80s thru the 90s. The difference betwen then and now is that I’ve now managed to own (and/or turn around and sell) pretty much every bit of nostalgia that’s gripped me since I got back into this “hobby.”