The Hi-Fi - remembrance from my youth.

[Daveycoon]

The year is 1964. I did not know what a "Hi-Fi" was, I only knew that's what my dad called this great wooden dinosaur full of knobs and small bottles that glowed pleasantly orange, and which I was not to touch under any circumstances. The "Hi-Fi" consisted of two major components - the aforementioned beast full of glowing orange things, and a giant tan chest in the corner and full of holes, large and small. It was from these holes that music poured forth. How magical and mystical! I was able to peer into the largest of the holes, and saw inside it only a gray circle, with another circle in the middle of it, and wonder of wonders, another circle in the middle of THAT circle! I reasoned that behind those circles somewhere, was an orchestra, all playing very tiny violins and cellos and drums, and that gray paper was a carefully-placed curtain put there just to keep me from seeing them. Surely, a tiny door in the back allowed the musicians to escape, and go home after their performance. And what music came out from behind those circles! No "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah..." for THIS three-year-old, no sir. I got Tchaikovsky. I got Prokofiev, I got Rimsky-Korsakov, I got Grieg. And it was this glorious hi-fi that shaped a habit I carry with me to this very day - that of walking softly, almost stealthily. Silently, noiselessly did I learn to walk. For should I ever exercise my option as a toddler to walk clumsily, to trod upon the wooden slat floor with heavy, ungainly footfalls, I would skip the record, and be met with the unerring wrath of whichever parent happened to be enjoying the emanations of the grand and glorious "Hi-Fi".

Oh, those were the days.

[Bernd]

The year is 1964. I did not know what a "Hi-Fi" was, I only knew that's what my dad called this great wooden dinosaur full of knobs and small bottles that glowed pleasantly orange, and which I was not to touch under any circumstances. The "Hi-Fi" consisted of two major components - the aforementioned beast full of glowing orange things, and a giant tan chest in the corner and full of holes, large and small. It was from these holes that music poured forth. How magical and mystical! I was able to peer into the largest of the holes, and saw inside it only a gray circle, with another circle in the middle of it, and wonder of wonders, another circle in the middle of THAT circle! I reasoned that behind those circles somewhere, was an orchestra, all playing very tiny violins and cellos and drums, and that gray paper was a carefully-placed curtain put there just to keep me from seeing them. Surely, a tiny door in the back allowed the musicians to escape, and go home after their performance. And what music came out from behind those circles! No "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah..." for THIS three-year-old, no sir. I got Tchaikovsky. I got Prokofiev, I got Rimsky-Korsakov, I got Grieg. And it was this glorious hi-fi that shaped a habit I carry with me to this very day - that of walking softly, almost stealthily. Silently, noiselessly did I learn to walk. For should I ever exercise my option as a toddler to walk clumsily, to trod upon the wooden slat floor with heavy, ungainly footfalls, I would skip the record, and be met with the unerring wrath of whichever parent happened to be enjoying the emanations of the grand and glorious "Hi-Fi".

Oh, those were the days.

Superb. Well done Sir.:cornut:

Peace

Bernd:16:

[poneal]

Nice touch....

[kelsci]

You betcha, Daveycoon. Those boxes played real good from an assortment of manufacturers, many of them running on the good old vacumn tubes making such wondrous sound with a nice 12 inch speaker producing that lush bass.

[Daveycoon]

A thousand pardons for waxing nostalgic. :)

I grew up on Heathkit - I learned to walk and solder about the same time. And that Williamson Ultralinear with the KT-66's is still to this day one of the sweetest amps I have ever heard. The labels back then were very important, too. Appealing to the folks who owned equipment with names like Heathkit and Fisher and Scott were labels like Vanguard and Westminster and Mobile Fidelity, and no true audiophile (I don't think that term had been invented yet) was without his "Hi-Fi Demonstration Record". The true glory days of High Fidelity. And MoFi hung right in there through the years, too.

Does anybody here still have any of those old pressings? Or better yet, still listen to them?

[Geoffcin]

A thousand pardons for waxing nostalgic. :)

I grew up on Heathkit - I learned to walk and solder about the same time. And that Williamson Ultralinear with the KT-66's is still to this day one of the sweetest amps I have ever heard. The labels back then were very important, too. Appealing to the folks who owned equipment with names like Heathkit and Fisher and Scott were labels like Vanguard and Westminster and Mobile Fidelity, and no true audiophile (I don't think that term had been invented yet) was without his "Hi-Fi Demonstration Record". The true glory days of High Fidelity. And MoFi hung right in there through the years, too.

Does anybody here still have any of those old pressings? Or better yet, still listen to them?

Mobile Fidelity still makes audiophile grade vinyl, and SACD too.( for those of us who have accepted modernity);

http://store.acousticsounds.com/search_results.cfm?Adv=true&LabelID=473