From: "Phil Payne" 

> Only ten years old?  I have a Pioneer receiver my sister bought in Korea
> when she was a lowly Lieutenant (she retired as a Major General).
>
> In two years it will be 40 years old.  Except for the Tuning Indicator,
> which gave up the ghost about 15 years ago, it works fine.
> --
> Jim Adams

Around 25 years ago I had two decisions made for me by a "clerk"
(the US term) in a German HiFi store.

I'd just started earning REAL money and wanted to buy a HiFi system.  I was
prepared to pay DM6,000 - which was a lot of money at the time.

The guy patiently dragged my real requirements out of me.  Instead of the
impressive and expensive co-ordinated stack I'd envisaged, I came out with
a deck and a combined tuner/preamp/amp.

BRILLIANT.  Still in use.

The deck is a Techniks SL-10 linear tracker.  When I bought it, my youngest
child was 18 months old.  From the time they've been able to pick them up,
they've been allowed  to play my vinyls.  The SL-10's arm will not appear
until the clamshell is closed - if you open it during playing, the arm is
GONE before you know it.  There is no way to scratch a vinyl with the
cartridge.  My kids played my treasured records throughout - with me not
being worried at all.

The reciever is a Sony STR-V55.  Amazing.  Class D amplifier, with a weird
bus-bar system.  You can play a record from any source while passing
signals from any aux or tape source to any other.

The whole lot cost 1/3rd of what I planned.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5