The Old Hifi Gear

After completing university and starting a job, one of the first things that I wanted to buy was a decent stereo system. I wanted it big and loud. So after doing a bit of shopping around I decided on getting myself Infinity SM-125 front speakers, a Video 1 centre speaker and SM-85 surround speakers. They cost me an arm and a leg back in 1995 but served me well for over 15 years. Use the vertical scroll bar to show the speakers with and without the protective coverings.

With protective coverings
The raw speakers

  I drove the 5 speakers initially with a Pioneer VSX-D903S receiver. It only offered Dolby Prologic but that's all that was available back in the mid 1990s.

With the introduction of DVD players there was a need to upgrade to handle the full surround capabilities of Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. So before leaving the UK to move back to Australia I picked up the VSX-909RDS.

Now the old setup wasn't exactly appealing in terms of looks and performance. The speakers were well over 15 years and the receiver around 10. As I was looking at getting a projector I wanted to run HDMI which the receiver didn't offer. The best it could do was component cable.

Looks like I will be making a number of changes in upgrading all of the components and speakers. To take a look at the new gear, click here.