1977. Ah, the memories...
I used to have a Radio Shack Amp I bought in 1977. I tossed it about 1990 when the left channel went out. That amp saw a LOT of parties. I've got a couple older amps - some of them not really that old, about 10 years old. Old enough to NOT have a digital input. I just pulled a NICE Pioneer out of the dumpster a month ago and it works perfectly: I have it hooked to a CRT with a converter box in my garage so I can watch while working on projects. The shelf it sits on cost me more than the whole system: It was all FREE and abandoned for newer tech. The only money I put into the system was a pair of like-new 1970's vintage Radio Shack speakers from the local therift shop, $5.
It pisses me off to no end that new TV sets have no standard analog (RCA) stereo outputs. I don't have an amp with digital input yet. My only workaround on my bigass 52" TV is to use the headphone jack on the TV for analog out.Which begs up the question: What is the reasoning for a headphone jack on a 52" TV, but no analog out? It makes sense on a little 15 inch TV to have a headphone jack... But 52"?