In the fall of 1987 I went with my buddy Kaz and purchased my home stereo system. This was in Winnipeg's Osbourne Village in an old building that had once been a house. The place smelled and the bearded salesman labored mightily, hooking thick cables to Angstrom speakers, etc. while parking me at the rear of a carpeted room where I sat in a stacking chair and listened to the glory of it all. The receiver, CD player and cassette deck were NAD components. I paid by cheque and waited several days for the ordered changes to be made.
I remember a friend coming down from a heroin high entering my tiny apartment (also in the Osbourne Village) and turning on my stereo receiver to listen to CBC Radio while I defrosted the refrigerator.
That stereo was the bane of my existence. It was much too large for my purposes and burned very hot.
I sold the cables to my Toronto housemate and replaced a woofer in one speaker twice — the second time the woofer was so enormous that I couldn't close the screen on the speaker cabinet. So I wasn't shedding any tears when the NAD receiver finally crackled its last.
Today televisions sound better than my stereo ever did, and don't get me started on headphones.
CDs definitely had their day, thanks to stereo shops. I bought and played the first Tracy Chapman CD as well as Robbie Robertson's. ...Nothing Like The Sun by Sting and Love Over Gold by Dire Straits -- this was what I heard in stereo shops, so why not play the CDs at home and see if they didn't sound just as good?
I might have lost the stereo habit, but I never lost the CD-buying one. (Just ask my poor wife!)
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