[OldSch00lf00l]

mm wrote:

The only thing I would have to add to this is to ask a question: What
kind of reproduction was there in the 12 volt realm in the 70s? Stereo?
I think not. I believe most vehicles had AM radios with 8 track decks
and everything was MONO.

The past was longer ago than you imagine. By the time they built my
'72 or '73 Buick, stereio radios, maybe with cassette, were standard
in most makes of car (maybe not Volkswagon for example), although on
very cheap cars not made to order maybe only AM-FM monaural. I don't
know haw many years they had been

By the time they built my 67 Pontiac AM-FM was standard, although with
very cheap cars, only AM was included on the ones not made to order.
(OTOH the Cadillac had 5 buttons each of which did AM or FM stations
depending on whether one was listening to AM or FM, but I think mine
had 5 buttons that gave only one physical setting each.)

The '67 Pontiac had a reverberator too, with a dash mounted switch to
turn it off when people on the radio were talking instead of playing
music. And I was able to get a after-market stereo reverb amp for the
73 Buick.

My '50 Olds had an AM radio with 5 presets and it gave better sound
than did the factory radio in the '65 Pontiac that I got next. I had
a spare 1950 radio, which I installed in the 65 (Pushing it in between
the dash board and the transmission hump**) so I was able to compare
the soundss in the same car. It was a 6 volt tube radio but the 12
volts or the car were easily reduced to 6 with a resistor designed for
that purpose. The resistor did get hot, but I tucked it out of the
way.

**There were no consoles then because the seats held three people and
there was plenty of room on the dashboard for controls.


If the cars didn't have stereo, I couldn't have noticed the switched
Left and Right in the rear speakers.

Growing up, FM didn't catch on in my area until the 80s. My first
vehicle was a 1981 Chevy Malibu Classic, and it came with AM JAM as we
called it back in the day. My next vehicle was a 1984 Crown Victoria
LTD and it had AM/FM/8 Track... That was a royal Pain in the ass
customizing my DIN CD player to go in the place of the two shaft mount
AM/FM/8 Track.

I grew up in the 70s and for the most part, I do not remember ANY
stereophonic sound systems stock in any of the vehicles I was a
passenger in with the exception of my uncle's 1979 Trans-Am.