Upon arriving back in Phoenix in 2002, I lived with my Dad for a year while I found work and put money away to move into my own place. When I did get moved into my own place, I was almost immediately hit with the cancer diagnosis and was summarily let go from the contracting job I'd been at for the previous nine months.

This of course caused a tremendous financial strain and forced some tough decisions while I was undergoing treatment and scraping by on unemployment. (Looking back on it now, I'm thankful I wasn't working during the treatment because I never would have been able to keep that job because of the effect the radiation had on me.)

It was obvious I was going to have to sell some of my audio equipment. Both my mom and dad offered to give me the equipment I'd given them over the past couple years; an offer I readily accepted. And as much as I would've loved to have kept my Yamaha gear, keeping my mom's Pioneer amp and tuner for my own use and selling the Yammies and Dad's Technics receiver made more financial sense. I sold one of the 1300MK2 turntables as well as the Technics Micro Components. Between this and the generosity of friends and family, I was able to stay afloat until the treatments were long behind me and I'd actually started working again in the spring of 2004.

Two years later, I was again solvent enough that I had some "play money" in my budget. It was then that I picked up a receiver I'd longed for since initially getting into this hobby—the one my friend Gary had let me use some twenty five years earlier—a Kenwood KR-7400.

Three months after acquiring the Kenny, I was visiting my friend Lee (whom I'd given my Infinity 1001A loudspeakers to—the ones I'd bought upon graduating high school.)

They weren't connected to anything. He was using them as plant stands. I offered to buy them back, but instead he simply gave them to me. The veneer on one had lifted from water damage, and the surround on the subwoofer had disintegrated, but otherwise both still worked.

After returning home, I sanded the top down, and realizing the veneer had been damaged beyond repair, I ordered some black oak vinyl and resurfaced both speakers. I replaced the grille cloth and sent the damaged woofer out to be refoamed. Once I got that back and put everything back together, the sound was as good as I'd remembered it. I sold the tiny Cambridge Soundworks satellites/subwoofer system I'd been using.

There's no denying I liked the sound of the Kenwood. I liked it so much in fact that it stayed with me to Denver and back, through a less-than-ideal LED dial light swap, and was in continuous use until 2018 when—feeling nostalgic—I picked up a another set of the Technics Micro Components as a birthday gift to myself.  In a fit of madness, I didn't bother retrieving the Kenwood from the house after the fire, leading me to pick up another one last year (but I'm getting ahead of myself).

The Infinity loudspeakers were retired for good in 2000, shortly before the fire. They were replaced by a pair of JBL 166s that absolutely blew them away. The Ininitys were in storage until a few months ago when I finally ripped the bandage off and took them to Goodwill. I thanked them profusely for all the good memories and four decades of service and relinquished them back into the universe.

The year after the fire was obviously an emotional one, and Ben and I both gave each other great latitude when it came to spending. The Technics Micro Components, the SL-1300MK2 turntable, and the JBL loudspeakers had been saved from the fire, but I'd grown weary of the sound, and found myself wishing that I'd held on to the Kenwood.

I went on eBay and the only ones available were pretty beat up. I got to thinking what about the KR-7600, the model that replaced the 7400 the following year? None of those either, but there were a couple KR-6600s available, one of which—while not having been completely recapped—had just been serviced otherwise and looked minty fresh. At around $300, it was a steal. I bought it.

I did want it recapped, however, so that meant locating a tech who was familiar with vintage gear. My search led me to Randy in Prescott (about a ninety minute drive north from Phoenix). The Kenwood worked great so it wasn't a priority, and—not having any experience with this guy—didn't want to entrust him with my newly acquired toy without first making sure he knew what he was doing.

So I had him service the Technics Micros.

[to be continued]