End of an Era

I had to retire my big-a$$ living room stereo system last week. My wife and I received it as a wedding present ten years ago and at the time it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It had a 5 CD changer, double cassette deck, turntable and radio and I used and abused the poor thing for many years. However, in recent months parts of it had begun to crap out -- even if you loaded 5 CDs in the changer it would only play one and never skip to another one, the volume control didn't work unless you used the remote control, as the knob on the unit itself was busted, and neither cassette deck worked anymore.

The Wife and I decided it was finally time for it to go during a bout of house cleaning (it was taking up entirely too much space in our entertainment center to boot) so I disconnected it and took all the parts down to the town recycling center, where they have a bin to dispose of electronic equipment. When my son and I got out of the car I made a big to-do about it, like "Well, old friend, you and I have rocked many awesome tunes together and had a thrashin' good time but it's time for you to go..." before I heaved it into the dumpster. When we got back in the car my son said, "It's OK, Daddy, you can cry a little if you want to." Haha.

You hate to see a loved one put down, Freddy, but such is the way of the world and sometimes ya just gotta let go. You'll always have the memories.

In a very small way, I can relate. Last week my right stereo speaker died on me. I'm not positive what happened, but I noticed it shortly after a severe thunderstorm and our power went out. Maybe a power surge blew it out? I dunno. For the time being, I either have to listen to everything in mono, which sucks, or I plug in the big headphones, which is ok until the wife yells for me and I don't hear her, causing her to come downstairs and tap me on the shoulder, which scares the bejeebus out of me.

Thats a shame but ten years old its time to replace that with something real nice now. So many things have changed with stereos. Its crazy how small the speakers are now and the sound that comes out of them are just unbelievable. I must have gotten rid of 5 stereos in my life haha. I used to have one that would have a jack for a microphone and I could play a cd and then sing over it like kareoke and tape it so it sounds like im on the song. I did that a lot when I played drums to see how close I would get to the actual song. I probably miss that stereo the most. Then I started getting into the sperate things like cd changer, cassette player etc. I dont have the cassette player anymore that gave out years ago. My 200 cd changer I still have but I barely use it anymore. The receiver for that started acting up last year so I got rid of that. Luckily my gf's parents wanted to get rid of their surround sound so I jumped on that cause they got money and I know the system would be awesome and I was right. I bought it from them for $300 not a bad deal after I found out how much they just paid for the reciever which was $700 back when they bought it. Its a older Yamaha model but until this one craps out im more than pleased with it. I got Klipsch speakers 2 front, 2 rear, 1 center and a sub woofer. I still got more spots to add speakers which I want to do if I find them on ebay. My bed room is a mini movie theater haha. The neighbors know when im home =o)

its sad to say goodbye to old friends (i am still using my older than dirt technics system) but the upside is you get to make new ones (and louder too!)

Alex

Louder is definetly better!

I don't own a stereo anymore. It's all computer based for me now. Except the surround sound system in the living room. I can turn up the music there. Hmmm, I never noticed that we don't own a stereo.

I still have all the original stuff for my stereo, except the turn table I had to buy a new one.

I think Ill still freak when the beta eventually dies.

The Beta? You have a Beta player?

I have about 6 of them.

Really? Do you have alot of movies on Beta? I'm fascinated. I used to have one in the early 90's. I always liked it better than VHS.

My grandpa used to run an electronics repair business, so we used to get a bunch of the stuff for free people never came back for. I have about 100 movies left, most of em are 80's horror, I had a ton of tapes from a store that closed, but they were stored wrong and molded over so I had to toss em.


It definately looks better and runs better than VHS, but VHS was cheaper and it won out.

I'm gonna need to upgrade my stereo system someday. I've got my original stereo with (broken) turntable and dual tape decks that my dad bought me in high school and a Sony cd player plugged into it that I got in the early 90's. The cd tray gets hung-up every now and then, but I do my best Fonzie impression and give it a swat on the side and it works like a charm.

I was extremely pissed off when my Atari broke.

do you have an 8 track too?

exact33 wrote:

do you have an 8 track too?

That would be boss!

No, can't say I do, at one time I did have a stereo that had one in it. I think I had like 3 8-tracks altogether.