Hehe! My first experience was an all-in-one sound system (cannot remember model name) circa 1963. This was a coffin-shaped device(mono) with a speaker or two and a built-in tuner, amp and turnatable. Most of the time we had to install a coin above the headshell in order to ensure that the ceramic stylus would not skip. Outfits like Mahlatini and the Mahotela Queens who became popular around 1967 and Spokes Mashiane (very popular in the black community around 1963 and qa pennywhistle maestro ) were the usual diet. Later, the Everly Brothers, The Seekers , The Troggs, The Monkeys and so on. My very first sound sytstem and proud possession was a UK-designed Gramaphone by the name of Metro Sound. I bought this in 1974 and it was made up of a all-in-one Garrard record player and in-built amplifier and two book-shelf speakers. I celebrated this acquisition by buying my firrst record. This was a 45 single record by Alice Cooper' with the title " I am 18" (Well, i was 18 aslo) .Later, i "upgraded" to three sets of Tempest sound systems, with different power.sound quality capabilities, until in 1983 when i retained my Tempest speakers and bought a Nikko NA-790 amplifier. Soon i upgraded to a Pioneer SA608 amplifier, and then to a more poweful Pioneer SA708 amplifier. Six Months later, the Pioneer SA708 amplifier was replaced by a Sony TA-AX5 amp. To my dismay, although this beatiuful amp had the same power rating on paper(65 watts per channel) it was overheating all the time. I later discovered when reading Hifi-news and Record review that when faced with an 4 ohm load, the beaty's output would collapse to only 27 watts at 8 ohms. I remember when we used this amp at a traditional ceremony, it began to cut-out. The older "uncles" became angry with the dj. They assumed that the dj was deliberately switching-off the amp and did not realise that the amp could drive low impedances at a sustained level. I then started to apreciate "musclular" amps. My next amplifier was an Onkyo
A-8015 integrated amplifier. Although this amp was more load-tolerant, it sounded "too clinical". The frequency extremes also sounded to be "rounded-Off". The Onkyo was then replaced with a Pionner SA 7800"non-switching amplifier". This amp was a good amplifier in most repects until the electrolytic capacitors began to leak. It was then replaced by a tank-like Technics, model SU-8600. The Technics could be played at maximum volume for the whole day without cutting out, but was not very musical. In 1987, my ultimate upgrade was a Dual CS505 turntable with Ortofon mm cartridge, Sansui AUG77X amplifier, Marantz DS990 speakers,Technics SG-8045 Graphic equaliser(before banishing this to hell forever!)
and Pioneer F90 tuner. In between i had two Sharp tassete decks and a Sony turnatabe i can not remember the model names)
