I sometimes wonder how I ended up enjoying music when the just thing I owned was an AM transistor radio that only ran on batteries, and a record player, where I could only play a single record at a time. The important thing for our family was getting our first stereo console. You had a big chest where you opened up the top and there was a turn table and beside it you will see knobs and tuner for an am/fm radio. The turn table had a apparatus so you could play a couple records at one time, one would drop down on top of the other. Remember, it was huge novelty rear then! There were two speakers, built right into the chest., one for treble, one for bass pretty much like there continues to be these days.
Needless to say, setting up this great household stereo system was as straightforward as putting the plug in the outlet. With that you had AM and FM stations, you got two speakers, you get to play a few records at once, and just have to get up to turn the record over every hour. My mom and dad could sit in our living room and utterly enjoy their music enjoying moment, while I could hurry to my room and listen to my transistor radio, or my record player. One of the ways I learned to value all kinds of music, and not merely the rock and roll of my youth, was also listening to my parent’s music while sitting in the living room!
About the only thing that is the same nowadays about my household audio system is plugging it into the wall outlet. I own a receiver/amplifier, that has a tuner, known as a radio, a cassette player, pretty much outdated, and a CD player that can play 5 CDs at the same time. I also have a turn table, formerly referred to as a record player, that is also hooked to the receiver so I can still listen to my records.
From the front, it all appears straightforward, you turn it on, push what you want and it plays. From the rear, you have little wires that attach from each speaker to the rear of the receiver. Then you have to get other wires from the turn table to the receiver. You have to figure out the difference between input and output to get these wires in the correct connections. There also is an bothersome antenna wire that no one really knows what to do with. It is not like a computer where they make each connection a different size so you can’t connect it the wrong way if you tried. So you have to learn to read the labels on each connection.
In order to take advantage of your sound system’s speakers on your television, you need to find what is called the auxiliary connections and attach wires from the receiver to the back of the TV, which has a completely different structure with red, white and yellow connectors and cross your fingers that you connected them to the correct red, yellow or white connection. While there, do not even think about how the television is attached to the DVD, the cable box, any video games, TiVo, and your wireless router.
When all is said and done, I am enjoying to the very same songs while relaxing in my living room that I enjoyed on my parents old stereo and my transistor radio that is supposed to be this wonderful HD sound. And my children are in their rooms listening to their own music– on a few more gadgets than a little radio and simple box record player!
Home Audio CD Players