At my Grandfather's house there was more music and more audio reproduction technology. One of my memories of my Grandfather had to do with his television. Remote controls were nowhere near as common place as they are these days. Grandpa had connected a long wire and a switch to the speaker of his TV. He hung the switch from the gooseneck lamp that was mounted above his favourite chair. Whenever annoying commercials [and I think he found ALL commercials were annoying] came on the TV, he'd just reach up, flip the switch, and no sound would come from his television. Voila! It was his early version of the MUTE button!
Grandpa also had a console HIFI. The record player was quite old; the turntable platter was covered in a felt like material. It was an automatic one. Grandpa would often load up different records, usually of the "classical" genre. There were a few times I noticed that he'd have mixed 10" and 12" LPs in his stack. I think even one time he'd put a 16 2/3 rpm LP in the pile, but considerring the rarity of those, and that I had a thorough look through his collection after he'd passed away and could not find said record, I question that was a true memory of mine.
Grandpa had speakers connected to his HIFI hung in big tree in his front yard. He would load up a stack of albums, and then go work in his garden.
That's me with my Grandpa and Grandma. I have no idea what has my attention. Maybe there was something going on at my cousin's place; it was in that direction.
In the kitchen there was an old German made table radio, whether it was a Grundig, Telefunken, or Blaupunkt, I do not recall. I did a restoration on it for my dad quite a few years back . These old radios had a richness to their sound that one rarely finds in today's world of disposable electronics.
One particular piece of audio equipment that I was fascinated with was the old reel to reel tape recorder my Grandfather had. I now own this piece of my own personal audio nostalgia. Here's something that speaks to how things were manufactured "back in the day". When I was moving in to an apartment some 25 years ago, this old tape recorder got dropped and fell and bounced down a flight of stairs. I thought it was definitely done for, "Kaput!" as my Grandpa would say.
Although the laminated wood housing of the unit suffered a major crack and break, much to my pleasant surprise, when I plugged in this old unit, IT STILL WORKED! Check out on "The Old SONY 101" page.
Above you can see the serial number plate. I blacked out the actual serial number, of course.
To the left, you can see the crack in the housing of the unit. The carrying handle had deteriorated with age, and it broke at the top of the stairs. Amazingly, it stll works! Check out my demo video on the next page.
