Do you remember when we used to simply turn on the Hi-Fi and throw on an LP to listen to great stereo music? Back to the future?? I belonged to the Columbia Record Club and had all the Beatles albums as they were released.
I remember when all the LPs were mono. I used to take the bus to town which was 10 miles away to go and visit the record store to buy LPs. I remember that The Rolling Stones LPs were electronically reprocessed to stereo. The guy in the store would ask me why I wanted the stereo versions. I remember that they were a dollar more than the mono. And yes I was also a member of the Columbia Record Club.
Not only do I remember, I still do that regularly.
It’s the ritual, choosing, taking the record out of the sleeve, inspecting, putting it on the platter, dusting off, lowering the arm. It’s soothing somehow.
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Ahh, the Columbia Record Club. Intro was how many for a penny?
After that, sometimes the records came so warped they couldn’t be played.
The good ol’ days are better in retrospect.
My father was a musician (trumpet) and my very early years were listening to his 78s. I still have some of them.
My dad had a bunch of box sets of 78’s. My sister had a boat load of 45’s. I had nothing but LP’s.
Yes. My first stereo system that I owned was an AR turntable, Kenwood integrated amp and EPI speakers. Most of my record collection at the time lived in a rack with them. There’s something to be said for that kind of simplicity. The Kenwood had power, volume, balance, bass, treble and source selector, though there was only one source at the time. The only thing ever to swear at, really, was an occasional skipping record. Things improved over the years and decades, but always at the expense of more complexity.