2025, Family, home, Media, Music, Technology, Uncategorized

Surround Sound

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The former owner of our home runs a satellite communication company that provides TV and entertainment systems to health care/senior living facilities and hotels nationwide. His office is right on Main Street. He and his wife insisted that the three televisions in the home had to stay when we bought the house. They are hard-wired into a myriad of cables that run through the walls and from upstairs to downstairs and out of doors. They also left us several DVD players and stereo receivers.

There are six speakers upstairs in the ceilings of the kitchen, dining room, and living room, along with three speakers in the garage, and two attached to the house in the backyard. The ceilings in the basement bedrooms and family room also have speakers, and another huge room in the basement has several speakers in the ceiling and walls.

The header photo shows the main controls for this sound system. It resides in a cupboard in the kitchen. One can choose what part of the house you want to have sound from the radio, TV, DVD. CD, computer, or any other media player you can figure out how to hook up to the main system. The former owner graciously came over last week to show me how to operate the system. I gave him a package of lefse. It is complicated. I am a successful trial and error button pusher, so I think I will figure it out. eventually.

When did you get your first sound system? What did it consist of? What music do you think we should play on the outdoor speakers?

49 thoughts on “Surround Sound”

  1. I suppose that my first sound system was the transistor radio that was a Christmas gift when I was 12. I soon learned how much a 9v battery cost, and sourced cheaper ones at Pep Boys.
    I listened to Top 40 tunes on KFWB (Los Angeles), and that formed my taste all the way through the time I was out of college. (How I WISH it had matur4d, but I didn’t.)

    Now, in the “phone age”, I recently installed Pandora’s free app and have chosen a piano music stream. The music sometimes includes a soulful rendition of a hymn tune. I learned not to tap “like” on those, because I once did, and then the algorithm began sending me lots of hymns, some of which made me feel like I was in church. I voted down the next one, then voted up the next “new age” thing that came. That set the algorithm back, and now I get one hymn, soulfully rendered, about every 25 items. I can easily live with that.

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  4. my first stereo was from schaak electronics. we had dick schaak as our salesperson. gerrard turntable great tiner and solid three way speakers. on the table next to my bed age 13 or so. when i moved into the hippy hose i pointed out that even though my amp only had 35 watts per channel it sounded better than everyone elses 100+ watt systems. so my stereo became the house stereo and i had to wait my turn to listen to my music. emerson lake and palmer, wishbone ash then i could play miles davis bitchs brew.
    outdoor tunes…pandora bob dylans holiday channel. its glorious!!!

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  5. i got the teac reel to reel in 67 i still have it somewhere. saw the springsteen movie where he got the sound on sound system i coveted. might have to look into that again

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  6. A good idea to ask that guy to come back over and run you through the sound system again while having your husband videotape it so that you can play it back and figure out what you’re doing. It is a super impressive sound system that you would love to be able to take full advantage of and knowing what does what would be a great way to begin

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    1. Just yesterday YA mentioned that next spring our Ring will be five years old and she thinks she will update it at that point. I value the Ring for some of the convenience it brings, but I don’t understand why it needs updating. But her work – her cash.

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  8. Other than the transistor radio my folks bought me one year when I was 8 or 9, my first sound system was the turntable, speakers, and receiver I bought in about 1974 or ’75. I agonized for weeks over the decision, shopping all the main stores: Schaak Electronics, Sound of Music (which became Best Buy), Radio Shack, a few others I’ve forgotten.

    I ended up with a Pioneer 12-D turntable (which I still have and use!), small Advent speakers, and a Kenwood receiver.

    Ahhh yesss, those were the days. 🙂

    I’d play recordings of bird calls to attract birds to your feeder. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother with outdoor music until Spring when you can be outside to enjoy it.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  9. The transistor radio I received for probably 10th birthday. I loved it, and was surprised to get such a cool gift.

    Then in 1970, in my first San Francisco apartment, I bought the turntable, speakers, and receiver (wish I could remember the brand) over the next year, $10 a month. I was teaching in a parochial school, and that’s all I could afford. I loved it though, and it went with me to Half Moon Bay, Brooklyn NY, and eventually Minneapolis.

    I’m begging you to put nothing on the outdoor speakers. Several years ago a neighbor had a very nice lighted display with a set of carols that repeated every 20 minutes. I finally had to ask him if they could turn it off each night after an hour, and they didn’t put it up again the next year.

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    1. p.s. When my family first got our cabinet stereo (we had been using a kids’ portable record player), it got all set up, and just my mom and I were at home. She put on a Prokofiev record, Classical Symphony; we listened for a second and were compelled to dance around the living room, the sound was so wonderful to hear.

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  10. I had a transistor radio but I don’t think I had a stereo system of my own until we were married. Before that, it was my parent’s stereo and then various roommates’ set ups.

    Maybe it’s just me but contemplating that elaborate system of music and television controls and outputs just makes me tired. I appreciate quiet.

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    1. I just remembered:
      In my pre-adolescence, I had a little crystal radio in the shape of a rocket. There was a slider that came out of the nose that tuned it to a station. Attached to it was an earbud.
      Late at night, lying in bed, I could pick up radio shows like Gunsmoke and Amos and Andy. That was my first sound system.

      Later, when I had my little transistor radio, I hollowed out a radio-sized cavity in a book and would sometimes run the wire from the radio in the book up my shirt and out my sleeve and sit with my hand on my cheek, my elbow on my desk, and listen to the radio in class. There was nothing, understand, I needed or particularly wanted to listen to. I only did it because I could.

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  11. There was the joke going around about living in the early 1970s – you could go into many an apartment where the furniture was just a chair, maybe some bean bags, a mattress on the floor, a cable spool for a table, and $1,000 worth of stereo equipment on crates in the corner.

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  12. I had a transistor radio – don’t remember what brand – and I listened to WDGY or KDWB. My folks had a cabinet stereo system – again can’t remember the brand. We had a set of 12 records (maybe through Reader’s Digest). It was mostly classical and American folk music. My absolute favorite of that set was “Victory at Sea”. I’d put it on loud while vacuuming or dusting the main level of our house. My first stereo system was a Panasonic turntable and receiver in one with round tabletop speakers. I bought it for my first apartment and loved it. It was such a step up from my old white clock radio. I think my next set was a Technics with separate turntable, receiver, and very large speakers. Fifteen years ago I bought a Bose Wave system and it still works beautifully.

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  13. I second Barb’s request of no or very limited use of those outdoor speakers. Inflicting your musical choices – whatever they are – on the neighbor’s is just inconsiderate.

    With the possible exception of one or two garden parties, to which neighbors have been invited, I think loud outdoor music is an intrusion. Another possible exception may be seasonal music to accompany a light display of some sort in the month leading up to Christmas, but even that needs to show consideration in terms of timing, duration and volume.

    I realize that to some extent this is a cultural and probably a generational issue. For years we had to contend with a neighbor’s son who spent every weekend working on cars in front of his garage, a car’s stereo blasting a bass that literally shook the windows of our house. It didn’t matter what music he blared, it was all intolerable. Add to that the neighbor across the alley who all summer long hosted weekend long parties that blared mariachi music from around noon to past midnight. And I say that as someone who otherwise appreciates mariachi music. Our own yard was all but unusable, and certainly not a refuge in any sense of the word.

    Light and noise pollution are real, and they are a source of harm to both man and beast.

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    1. Very true. Even living in the country, Sound can carry miles. I can hear a neighbor’s Fourth of July party a mile to the northeast, or I can hear the football stadium announcer 2 miles to the southwest, just depends on the wind.

      And not so loud to be a distraction, it just reminds me I need to be careful when I’m outside yelling at whatever, I don’t know who might be listening to me. It’s a good thing I don’t have cattle anymore. Sometimes the language got pretty blue .

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      1. Once again, I’ve lost the ability to “like.” I was overly optimistic when I thought that the subscription had fixed all of my troubles with WP. It was nice while it lasted; alas, we’re back to “normal.”

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        2. Yeah, it’s the randomness and unpredictability of it that makes is so discombobulating. Kinda like dealing with 47 and his many edicts.

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  14. Mom and Dad had bought a Telex 8-track, radio, record player changer way back when.
    Then I bought a Craig 8 track / radio and had that for several years. Eventually I took it into the theater, and I was very put out when someone there threw it out just because we weren’t using it.
    At the theater, back in the 1980’s, I learned to splice reel to reel tapes, and edit them and put leaders in for sound effects. Then we used multiple cassette decks to create sounds: Rain on one deck, thunder on another, record to a third. Then use that mix with wind and create another mix.
    You kids today; you don’t know what hard is…

    The college had some reel to reel tape decks and a bunch of the 12″ reels when I first started. I still have one deck up on a shelf in my office.

    As a teenager, I bought a Yamaha stereo, a couple different cassette decks, and a Yamaha record player with Omega speakers. Still got the speakers and moved them out to my shop last summer.

    Kelly bought a Bang and Olufson stereo when she had a real job and a real apartment. It was WAY fancy!

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  16. I bought a Pioneer receiver, Technics turntable, and Advent speakers in 1976. I don’t remember what I had to spend, but I don’t think it was more than about $350.

    When I bought my house decades ago, I set up the receiver and turntable in the living room. I replaced the speakers, which had started to sound a little fuzzy. Then I got a set of speakers for the upstairs bedroom and ran speaker wire through a narrow opening in the living room ceiling where the radiator pipes went through.

    The receiver was on a 7-day digital timer for many years, and Monday through Friday, it turned on the Morning Show at 6AM. That’s what I woke up to. Every day until MPR canceled it.

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  18. I went to Cub food and Target today and dealt with three instances of out and out phone rudeness. People wandering in circles in aisles while they talk on the phone or stand beside you shopping while talking in a loud voice on the phone. I was in both places out of necessity. Knew it was going to be loud. I agree with comments above re outdoor music. I am going deaf but I can hear annoying sounds. The world is going dark on me, but bright lights are even more painful.
    My daughter insisted I put up a Christmas tree. The last four years I put up a small one for Sandra. I did not want to put it up here. It triggers the one deep emotional pain I have re her. But I put it up. In the end it was fun.
    Clyde

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  19. My first wasn’t actually mine. When I went off to college, you didn’t have seven pages of checklist of what college students should bring, About halfway through freshman near my roommate got money from her parents and she ordered a stereo system for our room. I don’t remember what it was at all but I do remember that first day after we fired it up and had gone downtown for a couple of records, that we lay on the floor with our heads between the two speakers. I remember songs from those early days, quite vividly still. Dust in the Wind by Kansas always triggers this memory.

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  20. One of the reasons that I’m still single is that I don’t trust myself to choose well. Both of my wasbands had an absolute panic at decision-making when chunks of money were concerned. After we got married first wasband and I moved to a small apartment in Milwaukee. We saved up the money for the stereo and then it took him six long months to decide what we wanted. Consumer reports magazine and a couple of issues of some stereo and Wi-Fi magazine that he found as well were constants. And A LOT of discussion. When he did decide what he wanted to get, it was at a stereo shop in the suburbs of Milwaukee. We had no car and heaven forbid he would pay for a taxi. So we bussed out there, bought the stereo and then came home with all these boxes on the bus. Torture. It was a very nice sound system as far as I can remember, but I doubt it was worth the hassle.

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  21. As you can probably guess from earlier comments, I’m not massively into what kind of equipment it is or who made it as long as it works for me. I just splurged with my holiday money and bought a six-disc CD player. I had a multiple player years ago, but when it died, for some reason, I replaced it with a single disc player and have missed it ever since. This turned out not to be an easy feat these days as there aren’t as many CD players out there to be had. But did my homework (although no consumer reports magazines were consulted.). I do love, especially at this time of year, putting in all the CDs at once and letting it play forever and randomly choosing the tracts.

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