Some of you may know that my dad passed away this past January and one of the things that I learned from my pop was a love for music and quality HiFi gear. I've spent a good amount of time this past month (October), which would have been my dad's 70th birthday, going through and organizing the boxes of his LPs which I have set up in new bookcases in my office. As I placed the LPs in their new home I came upon many which brought back many a fond memory. My pops tastes were somewhat eclectic. Not much traditional Jazz, but plenty of Country, Big Band, Classical, and Polka(!). In one of the boxes along with some LPs, I found a stack of old issues of Stereophile magazine. One of these issues (cover shown above) immediately brought back memories of my pops system at this time. Even though I was only 9 years old, I clearly remember my dads old Dyna Stereo 120 amplifier (one of these is shown hiding under the melting LP in the above picture), AR-3a speakers, Dyna PAT-4 preamp, and AR-XA turntable. Paging through this issue brought me to the (now ubiquitous and now rather bloated) recommended components listing (see below) which apparently my dad took very seriously as a guide. You can see from his notations made on this page that my dad was hankering for a new turntable. Needless to say a Thorens TD-150 with a Stanton 681EE cartridge did make a appearance in the house some time in the early-mid 70's along with a Dyanco FM-5 Tuner which replaced his old Sherwood (tube) FM Stereo tuner. This is when my interest in audio and electronics really took seed I think, because you see that old AR-XA table and Sherwood tuner was set up in our basement with a used Dyna SCA-35 integrated amp and a used pair of Bogen LSX speakers (it's amazing what I remember!) as stereo system for me and my older brother to use. It has been downhill from there ever since. :-) Thanks Pop!