I was probably ten or eleven years old. I had this wooden speaker box with a tweeter, maybe a midrange, and what I think was a six-inch woofer in it. Maybe it was an eight. In either case, it didn’t get real loud on the overall scale of loudspeakers I’ve seen and heard in my life, but I was quite confident with it, probably amped on Stereo Review magazines and whatever audio system or receiver I had back then.

My mother had a Pioneer receiver from the 1970s, the SX-750 or one that looked exactly like it, which I practically grew-up listening to before it became mine years later. It was silver with wooden trim, just like in this photo (below) I found on the internet:

It was of high quality though, at least for my audiophilic standards at the time. I don’t remember how many watts it was; a quick internet check suggests a mere fifty per channel; but it went loud enough to work whatever speaker we connected to it back then.

She also had a speaker with a ten-inch or twelve-inch woofer, possibly a Pioneer that came with the receiver; bigger and more bad-ass than mine. I guess we both had two speakers to begin with, but, for some reason, it seems we were both down to one. But mono versus stereo didn’t really matter much back then, especially to her, as we were just happy to hear our favorite songs.

I don’t remember exactly what started it, but we ended-up having a short competition, a bass-off of sorts, to determine whose could go louder. I think I challenged her, but she might’ve challenged me. I don’t know. But I do remember her telling me beforehand, with a laugh or a smile, that hers would blow mine away.

I figured that too, but I didn’t admit it. Besides, it would be fun to go at it. So I played the loudest bassiest song I could think of at the moment; Beads On A String from the Jungle Brothers Forces Of Nature album, which I had on cassette. I played it loud and the drums were banging, but then she turned hers on with mine still playing. Whatever song it was she played totally blew mine away as predicted.

That was it. I lost that quick, to my own mother, in what I think is the only speaker challenge I ever participated in.