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The HiFi

D

dfaulkner

Guest
Parts of the KFWD 102.1 thread brought this to mind.....

KIXL was one of the stations that my parents would listen to on the HiFi, not the Stereo, the HiFi.
It was FM radio or turntable & one speaker (12 inch woofer w/tweeter in the middle of it.)
Sounded Great !
Likely, lots of fun stories out there about what people were listenming to the radio on back in the day. Thought I would share this one to start things off.
 
dfaulkner said:
Parts of the KFWD 102.1 thread brought this to mind.....

KIXL was one of the stations that my parents would listen to on the HiFi, not the Stereo, the HiFi.
It was FM radio or turntable & one speaker (12 inch woofer w/tweeter in the middle of it.)
Sounded Great !
Likely, lots of fun stories out there about what people were listenming to the radio on back in the day. Thought I would share this one to start things off.
Click to expand...

Funny, I just mentioned the "Hi-Fi" hobby on the Texas thread. It was a really big deal back then. If you lived in Dallas, Jack Frazier was making speakers with wooden horns that were quite popular in the early 1960's. Other favorites were "DIY" self projects like the Popular Electronics "Sweet 16."

One of my father's friends was definitely over the top on this stuff. He'd built a bass horn into the mouth of his fireplace. It was the first time I’d ever heard of using a subwoofer. This bass speaker had an exponential horn structure that extended out into his back yard over 35 feet. There was a single 15" James B. Lansing loudspeaker at the far end. The horn was made of concrete, and very, very ugly. Despite its looks, it absolutely blew me away when I heard it. His left and right speakers were a pair of huge Klipsch Horns, all powered by tube type Scott power amplifiers. Even by today's standards, this was an amazing sound system, especially when you consider that it was in what otherwise looked like a typical single family home. It made quite an impression on me.
 
Chuck,

At some point you need to tell the story of working on that TV in your father's basement...and the blue spark heading for your ring. Something about waking up in the snow hours later. I've re-told that story to many...and to this day, I wear not ring ONE out of sheer terror! :eek:
 
FlyOnWall said:
Chuck,

At some point you need to tell the story of working on that TV in your father's basement...and the blue spark heading for your ring. Something about waking up in the snow hours later. I've re-told that story to many...and to this day, I wear not ring ONE out of sheer terror! :eek:
Click to expand...

It wasn't in the basement. It was at my first paid job at Richard's TV in Walpole, MA. (947A Main Street to be exact). I was alone in the shop and was working on a 1953 or so Emerson color TV. Most people don’t remember, but early color TV's used a metal picture tube with a glass screen bonded on the front. There was a rubber cover over the metal part of the tube which had the anode voltage on it. I'd just measured it and set the high voltage to 25.000 volts, on the money.

Being a Senior at the local high school, I proudly wore my Senior Class ring. I was adjusting the convergence on this set while Bozo the Clown was on TV, in living color. The last thing I remember was seeing a blue arc coming from the surface of the insulated picture tube towards my ring.

When I came to, I was wandering around the back parking lot of the building in my shirtsleeves. It was snowing and quite cold. When I got myself back inside, Walter Cronkite was doing the CBS news in black and white. About 30 minutes had elapsed that I have absolutely no recollection of.

That was a real "shock of a lifetime" (at least, I hope so). The ring had a giant burned/melted place on it. If nothing else, the experience has made me very cautious around high voltage.
 
Sorry, I did remember it being in MA, but stand corrected on the exact location of your near-death experience. And the really SAD part of this story...you told it to me something close to 35 years ago! YIKES!!!
 
@ Chuck - Wow ! Glad you survived that ! You likely know that was approx 1/2 the voltage of a lightning strike !

The HiFi that my parents had was the DIY variety. FM Tuner & Amp were Heathkit (separate components.) My Dad assembled them. Speaker was in a cabinet that he built. (I think from plans in an electronics magazine.) Not sure about the turtable. Later he switched from the Heathkit Mono amp to a Stereo amp that he assembled. For Stereo the FM Tuner was fed into a Heathkit Multiplexer (That may be the wrong name.) & a Stereo turntable was purchased.
 
Kits were very popular. Heath Kits lead the way, but there were also "Knight Kits" from Allied Radio, and a lot more from companies like Eico, Lafayette Radio and even Radio Shack. One of the best series of kits were "Dynakits" by Dynaco. They offered a line of power amps, preamps and tuners. I have a pair old Dynaco Stereo 120 amplifiers which still work great today. In fact, one powers our production room, even though it must be close to 40 years old.
 
And yes......I still have the Allied 12 watt tube mono amplifier I built in 1949. Saved my paper route money, sent the $19.95 plus $6.95 for the optional tube enclosure cover to Chicago. When is came in the mail, worked all night and through the next weekend assembling all the sockets, wires, capicators, resistors, and switches. Lucked out.......it worked 1st time plugged in........and still does, and still sounds good!
 
On a sort of related note, who remembers when the neighborhood 7/11 and other convenience stores sold tubes for radios and TV's? They had a tube tester right there in the store, and I remember my Dad buying a few replacement tubes back then from the nearby 7/11. 12AT7's and 35W4's come to mind.
 
jd said:
On a sort of related note, who remembers when the neighborhood 7/11 and other convenience stores sold tubes for radios and TV's? They had a tube tester right there in the store, and I remember my Dad buying a few replacement tubes back then from the nearby 7/11. 12AT7's and 35W4's come to mind.
Click to expand...

Yep. Even better, Radio Shack used to sell their own brand of "Lifetime Guarantee" tubes. I wonder what they'd do if you brought one in today, asking for a free replacement?

Probably try to sell you a new cell phone or satellite TV service... ::)
 
I was always getting zapped from touching the chassis of those old AC/DC radios. Certainly not as bad as the anode lead on a CRT but bad enough to make me remember. I'll bet if they made the old AC/DC sets today there would be lawsuits.

Somebody gave me an old Pilot stereo amp. There had to be something wrong because although it worked okay the final amplifier tubes 4 6BQ5's if I recall correctly would glow cherry red and get so hot that when you turned off the amp you could hear the tubes make a tinkling sound as they cooled off!
 
Chuck said:
Probably try to sell you a new cell phone or satellite TV service... ::)
Click to expand...

Uh huh. And here's a good quote from johndavis over on the Houston board: "You've got questions, we've got batteries."
 
RCA 'New Orthophonic High Fidelity'...big console with AM/FM radio and phono...TWO 12 inch woofers and two tweeters! WOW!! I thought I went to rock and roll heaven. I heard things on the records I'd never heard before! All tube, of course, really good AM tuner with the 'tuning eye' , the stronger the station, the smaller it got! It was set up to be converted to stereo at some point, although we never did. Later got into, and actually SOLD high-end audio, but that was the beginning!
 
Wow! Orthophonic! I had one too, in a big wooden cabinet that opened from the top. What a sweet sounding rig. It was especially good for 45's, but I got a lot of good use out of the FM section of the tuner.
Now I'm using a 1964 Fisher 500-c. It was going into the trash when I rescued it. I had the capacitors replaced 25 years ago, and am still enjoying it.
 
grantchester said:
Now I'm using a 1964 Fisher 500-c. It was going into the trash when I rescued it. I had the capacitors replaced 25 years ago, and am still enjoying it.
Click to expand...

When in college, one of my many jobs was at Hillcrest High Fidelity, across from SMU. With my employee discount and some horse trading, I managed to save up enough to buy a Fisher 500-C. Boy, I thought I had "arrived!" It sounded great through a pair of KLH speakers. I'm sure it still would. Thanks for the memory!
 
Ha! My brother recently purchased one of those old KLH compact units on e-bay in perfect condition. He also found a pair of higher quality KLH speakers to replace the ones that came with it. Now he's begging me to send him some of my vinyl (lol)!
 
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