Feeling Blue, and Happy About It

Here's my basement stereo. It's a hodgepodge result of thrift stores, garage sales, eBay, and memories of my youth.

The receiver is a Marantz 2252 B. It was produced between 1977 and 1979. The Marantz brand was a big deal when I was in high school. Some of my friends' dads had Marantz receivers, and we were only allowed to look at them.

Name this movie:

I married Daphne in 2002. At that time you could find a vintage receiver at Goodwill for very little money. Daphne didn't quite understand my excitement when I brought this Marantz home and exclaimed, "I got it for eight dollars!" She's not into vintage stuff (except for me). But when I found a similar model for five bucks and gave it to her dad, he was pumped. The last time we visited Grandpa and Grandma, he proudly powered it up for me.

The BSR equalizer isn't a high quality component, but does bring back memories.

Best Buy was selling these for about $20 in the mid 80's, and I was fascinated with how moving the slider knobs could change the music coming out of my plastic Sansui stereo. I "upgraded" to a sleeker, more complicated EQ when I went to college.  I regretted giving the BSR away when that model broke.

My current EQ is from a West Des Moines garage sale. It was missing two slider knobs, but a non-working BSR from eBay corrected the number of sliders.

I've written about my cassette deck before. I picked up the AKAI GXC-510D at a specialty Goodwill in Omaha, Nebraska. The deck was manufactured in 1974, and it still works, but you have to press play first, then turn on the power. After that, you can stop and start at will. I don't know why, and I've never tried to fix it. If it ain't too broke...

The CD player is an anomaly because, well, it's a DVD player. 

I had a vintage Sony CD player that had a metal faceplate, but I gave that away when I found out it wouldn't play CD-Rs (that was during the golden age of Napster.) I did some research on vintage stereo forums. From an economical standpoint, most of the advice states that old CD players sound terrible when compared to the relatively cheap modern DVD players. So, I went with a player that had a bit of a vintage look. The Pioneer Dv-563A sounds pretty good to me, but I'm far from an audiophile.

On top of the DVD player is the Pioneer Audio Digital Timer. I could use to turn the stereo on and off like an alarm clock, but I don't. The timer is there just because I think it looks cool.

I have owned the Fisher Studio Standard turntable the longest. I brought it home from a garage sale in the summer of 1990. It was $20 and was still in its original box.

I took the Fisher to college, and it has been following me around ever since. Tip: if you buy a working, secondhand turntable from a thrift store, then the next thing you should do is buy a new stylus (needle). It will sound waaay better, and you won't trash your new LPs.

I have gone through many pairs of speakers purchased from thrift stores. Each time I bring a better (or not) pair home, I take the inferior pair back to the same thrift store. A guy only needs so many speakers. So far, the Marantz 5MK IIs have been my best find.

I've been using Realistic Minimus 7s for satellite speakers. Made of die-cast aluminum, these work horses are tanks that sound good. I bought a new pair in the 80's, and I used them to play background music at our wedding reception. Only one speaker made it back from the reception hall, so this pair was also picked up second hand. (Yes, I do buy things that are new, but that hunt isn't as much fun.)

Last week I decided to make one more addition to my set up. (See, it's new.)

The Harman Kardon BTA-10 External Bluetooth Adapter allows me to stream music from my phone or my old Mac laptop to my vintage stereo receiver. It was a simple plug and play instillation. I feel so modern... 

For my money, no musical format sounds more interesting than a vinyl record. I still like CDs, and I play my cassette mix-tapes and 8-tracks for nostalgia sake. But there is just so much good new music out there, and I can't buy it all. Streaming music on my vintage system is a fun alternative.

It's not the same, though. Last night I streamed Nebula's To the Center on YouTube, and then I played the same album on CD. The CD sounded brighter and the bass felt tighter. The stream didn't sound bad, though. 

I'm slowly dragging myself into the 21st century. Baby steps.