What's your earliest audio memory ?

[RFP]

I remember well my dad bringing home a Philco 'combination radio / record player.' Wow, we must have hit the big time! To the best of my recollection, the only records (78s, of course) were "That's What I Like About the South" (Phil Harris... with "Brazen Little Raisin" on the other side), "The Teddy Bears' Picnic" (Bing Crosby.. with "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" on the flip side, and "Saber Dance" (by who knows who).

I must have played those three records a million times!

My dad was never much of a music lover (and - at age 93 - still isn't), and never bought another record... too bad, he missed - and still misses - a lot.

I got all interested in audio while still in high school (1956 or so), built a University 'corner speaker' kit, saved my pennies so that I could buy a Bogen "Challenger DB-10" amplifier, and a Lenco turntable (used). I joined the Columbia Record Club and that began a hobby (passion) that has lasted some fifty years.

I still love it!

Rob

[WS65711]

The first house we lived in (that I can remember) was a two-story double owned by my dad. We moved from that house in 1962 when I was 8. Anyway, my dad had two (old maid) Aunts that rented from him and lived upstairs. They had an old Victrola wind-up with a real "needle" and a "horn" type of speaker (all mechanical, no electronics). I remember winding that thing up and listening to 78's when I would go up there so they could babysit me and my sister. The Aunts are long gone now, but I think that my dad's sister still has that Victrola today.

While still lived in that same house my parents bought a Columbia stereophonic record player. It didn't have AM/FM or anything else, just phonograph. This stereo was very large and in two sections. Each section was about 30" wide by 36" tall by 18" deep. I remember the salesman at the time told them to place the units in the center of opposite walls, facing each other. This was supposed to "spread" the sound and provide the full stereo effect. The lids opened on the top of each unit, one unit had the turntable in the top part and the other unit had storage space for lp's. The lower part of each unit contained an array of (probably 5) speakers. It sounded GOOD. Years later when I was a teenager, all the guys gathered at my house to shoot pool and listen to Steppenwolf and Hendrix and the Animals and later Led Zeppelin and Spirit.

[pauln]

My earliest was listening to the jazz combos in the officers club at Fort DeRussy, Waikiki part of Honolulu in the late 50's. I was a child and was facinated by the upright bass, especially the huge scrolled pegbox and tuning pegs.

[jacksonbart]

Alll that swishing while I popped out.

[Guest " "]

My Dad and his RCA console and his few hundred 78 country/western record playing session which usally began thursday when he got paid and ended sunday night.

[JJkizak]

Early fifities at my Grandma's house tuning a huge console with the green eye to a real kool station that the Allen Freed (I forgot his name but he coined the phrase rock & roll) was saying "rockabilliy" on this "Moondog" show. This was one of the forerunner shows of rock & roll. The speakers had electromagnetic magnet coils powered by the amplifier. Grandma turned off the console 30 seconds later saying that that music was no good. She really meant it too. The song was "60 minute man".

JJK

[oldbuckster]

My fathers TV-Hi-Fi console.............Country Western, Ray Charles,Duane Eddy, Frank,Dean, Sammy, big time Johnny Cash.........and when he wasn't there I would play "LOUIE LOUIE" again and again, some Beach Boy car songs, and Drag Racing records of the Winter Nationals and such events...boy, the home electronics have come along way.........................

[colterphoto1]

Joining the Columbia Record Club at about age 14 and getting Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, BS&T, Chicago and playing them on Mom's Zenith phonograph. It was this huge suitcase looking thing in light/dark blue and the second speaker swung out on a hinge or could be SEPARATED for true Stereophonic sound.

I must have tortured my parents, especially at 17 when the band started practicing in the basement. I remember dad stomping around shouting about 'that JUNGLE music' and totally freaking out when John Kay sang 'The Pusher'.

I'm sorry Mom and Dad.

Michale

[seti]

5yo my parents took me on a trip to London and there was a choir singing in St.Pauls Cathedral. It whigged me out and I ran out screaming....apparently I thought the wicked witch from the wizard of oz lived there.....lol.... I can remember the choir singing and then the echo of me screaming while I was running out. We went to London again when I was twelve not as wigged out that trip.

[just_like_dtel]

My earliest audio memory would hve to be LIFE WITH DTEL growing up--enough said!

By the way, Klipsch has enhanced that life for him since I moved out!

[jheis]

Had to be early '50's. My Grandmother got a stereo console which included some sort of demo record (I don't think she ever bought another record - or was ever inside a record store). Anyway, I remember one of the selections that I played over and over was "R-A-G-G-M-O-P-P, RAGMOP." Kind of a piano rag as I recall, but I have no idea who recorded it, but it appealed to my 5 year old taste in music.

edit: after doing a little Google research, it's even worse than I thought. Apparently, this piece of ear worm was originally a #1 hit for the Ames Brothers in 1950 and was subsequently recorded by many others, including Lionel Hampton & Jimmy Dorsey. It was a staple of the "Beanie & Cecil" cartoon show (which I've never seen) and was part of Mel Torme's (the velvet frog) repertoire in his live concerts. Now I understand why I've always hated Mel Torme!

James

[bodcaw boy]

my dad hitting the floor as my mom just finished telling him that she was pregnant......it was a little muffled in there.......but i definitely heard the thud!!!......i remember thinking........if i only had some jubs in here...................that would have sounded so much better..............

have a blessed day,

roy delgado

[Islander]

Audio memory, not sure, but I recall my first two hi-fi memories. When I was in high school, one of my buddies had a part-time job at the local radio station, a really small one (CJQC, later CFOM). I stopped by one evening and he let me use the mic off-air. I was surprised to notice that our voices didn't sound amplified and "stage-like", but just like someone was poking his head out of the speaker with no electronic assistance at all.

Years later, I was at the Toronto Exhibition, the big late-summer fair, and found a display of big B&W speakers in a quiet corner in one of the buildings. One of them was playing a saxophone solo, and it sounded just like there was a sax being played right in front of me, not at all like any stereo I'd ever heard.

Those two experiences have stuck with me more than any other stereo shop demos or home listenings I can recall, although sometimes my current system approaches them.

[Speedball]

35+ years ago listining to my Mom spinning vinyl (Perry Combo and a bunch of other really old guys), while sitting at her desk in the other room. It sounded so real I looked over my shoulder a couple times thinking he could have been in there singing to her. And when Bing Crosby sang Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer it sounded so real. It would have been the end of our lives if any one of us 5 kids fooled with her records or big floor console. To this day I wonder if that may have been a tube console.

[Mighty Favog]

I was about 5 (1970) when my two older brothers were playing "Mrs. Brown you have a lovely daughter" from Herman's Hermits and "Looking back at you" by 4 Jacks and a Jill.

This was on a floor standing (phono only) unit similar to what's on the cover of REO Speedwagon's "Hi Infidelity" album. Somebody put a big "Bud Man" sticker on the bottom side of the lid.

[dtel]

My earliest audio memory was in the early 60's. My grandfather would rent a huge camp on the lake for the whole summer, and we would live there for the summer.

In the camp was a jukebox that would light up with different colored lights, like you see on the show " Happy Days ". I don't recall many of the adults using it much, but the kids would press the buttons and make it play music.

A few years later my parents bought a Magnavox console and that was when I really started to pay attention. I could buy play my own records, and it was even in Stereo, that was a big deal.

[SilverSport]

#$%^^&*%%#@#...Coffee all over the flat screen...AGAIN...jacksonbart!

Bill

[ScorpsFan]

My dad's Eico tuner, Sherwood integrated mono amp hooked up to a single speaker screwed to a piece of plywood and a home made grill cloth made with an old pair of "someone's" red and white flannel pj's. I think Silversport still has the Eico and Sherwood, but the pj's are long gone (I hope). [:$]

[SilverSport]

or him putting John Philip Sousa and the Military Band music on...fond memories though!...fast foward 40 some years and I buy Daddy Dee's (and Dr. Bill's before him) EICO HF-81 integrated amp...I fire it up and...the whiff from the amp takes me right back to 1964, sitting in the basement with Dad and fighting (and losing) with my big brother Bob...ahhhh...sniff, sniffff...[:'(]...it smells EXACTLY the same...

Bill

[bechboy7]

High School in the late 50's: a dance in the gym accompanied by a DJ and an E-V Aristocrat folded horn, horn-loaded speaker system (mono).

The Chorus room featuring a home built Bass-Reflex three-way system with University woofer and midrange horn and tweeter.

JBL distributed-port speaker system with 15" full range driver demo'd by a JBL agent in his home.

At college, a demo by none other than Paul W. Klipsch at an IEEE meeting in an auditorium, featuring two K-horns, an Ampex tape recorder, and a slide presentation of the defects with his competitors speakers.

Sitting in PWK's lab and listening to a couple of K-horns melt away in effortless reproduction of music, enveloping us (we were sitting in the horns, literally).

Finally, a demo by a dealer in Alabama of the Cornwall II of the record we had brought featuring a lot of tympani. My wife plays percussion in a symphony orchestra so she knew what it should sound like. The Cornwall's sold her and me, gleefully!

Two-Channel Audio: If you want the speakers to "disappear" and leave only the music, then get a couple of Cornwalls. They are no Klipschorn but are a magnificent substitute. If it's in the music, the Cornwalls will reproduce it faithfully, transparently, period!

Good listening!