The following pages are a quick look at some of my home-built stereo projects. It'll be impossible to ever finish this, but I figured I'd better at least get started... so here goes.

EARLY SOUNDS... early dreams

My journey into the world of audio started in the early 60's when my dad got the family a (German-made) HiFi. It had an AM/FM/Short-wave (tube) receiver, phono player, and built-in woofers & tweeters. Such "HiFi" console units were just becoming popular; similar to how televisions grew to become commonplace household appliances a decade before.

Already interested in music (see my music pages, LOL), I started getting interested in electronics by reading Popular Electronics, and paying attention to the HiFi scene by reading Audio magazine. There were higher-end amplifiers and speakers that could be put together as "separates" at this time, although they were beyond my means (since I wasn't even in Jr-high yet).

I started building my own speaker systems, and then amplifiers and other electronic projects. I used & modified musical instrument amplifiers to augment the hi-fi sound too. By the end of the 60's I had a listening system that used 4 discrete speakers in a 4-corner set-up -- essentially a "surround sound" system, although 30+ years before today's surround or DVD 5.1 technology "officially" came to the mainstream. I even used this prior to 4-channel (SQ & discrete) encoded LP's came out.

THE MONEY / MUSIC (philosophical) QUESTION

I've always found it curious why many people find it odd that (us) audiophiles spend more money than they (non-audiophiles) think "wise" on musical enjoyment. But for myself, when one considers what the average person pays (in both time & money) for food or transportation (car, insurance, financing, gas, repairs, etc) over a 10 or 20 year period... well, it just doesn't seem that strange to pay at least an equal amount on music & audio. Anyone who spends time listening seriously to music would surely want to invest (at least) a good percentage of those other (long-term) costs (tens of thousands) on a half-way decent sound system... no? So to me, the cost (of a good stereo system) doesn't seem strange at all -- it seems strange NOT to. And building your own equipment is one way to reduce those costs, while providing fun at the same time.

Having finally gotten around to putting some images of my homebuilt audio system online, I'll start with some speaker systems.