Amer-A-Chord

When I was a small boy growing up in Skokie, IL my parents had, ever since I could remember, a Telefunken console Hi Fi. It was a big wood thing with a Phono, Am/FM/Short Wave and speakers running along the bottom. It was pure mono. I would peak around the back, after I turned it on, to watch the tubes glow. I am guessing, at this point, that they were probably EL84 tubes. The sound that it produced was as smooth as silk, a little shy on the bass and lacking dynamics.The mid range, especially vocals, were unbelievable.

I also remember going over to some friends that my parents had at the time and got a chance to poke around the back, of what was the largest hi fi console I had ever seen in my life, a Fisher console - vacuum tube, of course. The Fisher produced wonderful EL4 based sound.

Just as I was done playing ball one day, we went over to a friends house for some kool aid, and there it was. I never seen anything like it. It floated the LP on a chassis that was suspended, what seemed to be mid air. The platter was as large as the disc. It said, "AR, Inc" on a brass palate that was attached to a wood plinth. It sat upon an H. H. Scott integrated tube amplifier and fed an Electrovoice speaker pushed in a corner. My fried played "Cecilia" from Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water and I never, ever, to this day, heard such an ass kicking low end.

Growing up in the Skokie - Evanston area there were many high end stores to choose from as there still are today. There was a chance for a hobbyist and even a novice to get decent sound.

Now I live in another suburb of Chicago and I am afraid that my children will never experience Telefunken/Fisher/ AR, Inc hi fi that I once had. When they go over to their friends houses, they have something they bought on sale or worse yet, a TV / AV system they purchased at Best Buy. The sound is never smooth, there is nothing innovative from a sound quality point of view and nobody really cares what it sounds like, just how it looks. Such is the strip mall like hi fi land that they live in. Their friends see the tubes and weird looking speakers in our house, but no one is interested. Maybe its because it does not get 330 HDTV channels.

Such is the past, such is my child hood. I have very few friends who have a decent stereo in their homes or even have the inkling in purchasing one. Before my wife's grandmother passed away, she had a Grundig console sitting in her living room. "I suppose I should get rid of this big thing", she quipped, "But it just produces such good sound, and I can't buy anything that sounds like it"

Now she does not know anything about cables, power conditioning or DACs - but she does know good sound, and she too is part of the past.