Sometime in this point of my life, I moved in with my aunt, uncle and cousins. My cousin had a MUNTZ AM/FM receiver, and later on he had a pair of TOSHIBA speakers. If I recall correctly, those speakers had solid aluminum fronts. This stereo combo in its variious incarnations was the first one that I recall had the 'OOOMPH!" to disturb the neighbours.
I'm pretty sure that this is the same model of cassette deck he had. I remember it was a Sharp model. It didn't have an automatic magazine for the cassette to be inserted into . There was a door that slid up and you had to manually insert the cassette. The "APSS" was what was called the "Auto[matic] Program Search System". If one pressed either the fast-forward or rewind along with the play button, the deck would cue or review to the next blank spot on the tape. That was pretty high tech stuff for the time.
This was in the days before METAL formulation tape. This unit could play/record normal bias tape [Fe], chrome [CrO2], or my personal favourite ferrochrome [FeCr]. The Ferrochrome formulution combined the higher frequency benefits of CHROME, with the lower frequency benefits of normal biased tape.
The LED between the VU meters would light if the playback or record levels exceeded 0 dB.
By this time, I was veering away from the AT40, K-Tel and AM radio pop. Yes, I still liked some of the hits [if they ROCKED or if they were funky and no one else was around.] The DISCO era was taking over the air waves.
My tastes were shifting to a harder rock. CHUM FM played a harder rock format in those days. Fortunately, at my high school, we often had popular CANADIAN bands of the era for dances. Although not in any chronological order, I remember seeing such bands as Brutus, Ian Thomas, Stampeders, Wednesday, Shooter, Fludd, MOXY, Major Hoople's Boarding House, Teaze, Tribe, Trooper, Mackenzie, Harbinger, and Sweeney Todd.
Sure, a lot of those bands weren't the heavy metal head banging variety. Still, it was nice to see live bands instead of one of the dime-a-dozen DJ's. The following videos are still early to mid seventies AM pop, but the shows they did at my high school were rockin' in the eyes of this young teen ager. I suspect that me getting as close as possible to the speaker banks had something to do with my tinnitus. I did like my music LOUD in those days.
