[topround]

OK , I know I am an audiophile Dad and may be sort of pushing him into this hobby a little. But truly he loves it, he loves music and loves the equipment. He is seven years old and knows what an amp is , what a preamp is and his favorite thing is the Turntable. ( Not an ipod )
He knows about tube amps and solid state and even digital amps.  Yes he was coached a lot, but he really is interested and he absorbs it all like a sponge. Some kids tend to excel in sports, he excels in engineering type of things, he already built a model of the Titanic. A model that I would never even think of trying to complete( lack of time ,, really) .
I only hope he continues this interest. Can you imagine an audiophile that started his hobby at age 7!
Audio Nervosa would probably set in at a very early age
At any rate he gets exposed to a lot of different music, not just the crap he will hear on his friends ipod when he gets older.
So he started with a Marantz 2235, sounds pretty good really, now I got get in there and change a few things aa

[lonewolfny42]

Nice Mike....thats good to see.

And...he's in luck.....did you see the new circle......

[topround]

He wants a soldering iron
But I am going to have to hold off for now.
He believes he can do anything, but really he can't.
But in the future I bet he will be able to do anything he wants.
He has intense focus and an incredible curiosity. He is not aware of the dangers electricity hold.
Not yet.

[lonewolfny42]

Maybe a visit to Radio Shack....check out what building kits they have available.
I'm not really up on that DIY stuff....

Did just find.....this...

[mjosef]

He wants a soldering iron
But I am going to have to hold off for now.
He believes he can do anything, but really he can't.
But in the future I bet he will be able to do anything he wants.
He has intense focus and an incredible curiosity. He is not aware of the dangers electricity hold.
Not yet.

Mhnnn...maybe a lil' shock or two will take care of that. (picture an icon of a person being zapped) Zzzzzaapppp

[Bigfish]

Mike:

Keep your son interested in the hobby as long as you can.  I think it is great!

Ken

[mcullinan]

Cool Mike...
I just hope he doesnt get it sounding better than your system! hehe. Those Radioshack 150 in one kits (what I had as a kid..) were awesome. I think it might be something hed really enjoy.
Mike

[Thelonious Monk]

He wants a soldering iron
But I am going to have to hold off for now.
He believes he can do anything, but really he can't.
But in the future I bet he will be able to do anything he wants.
He has intense focus and an incredible curiosity. He is not aware of the dangers electricity hold.
Not yet.

this post brought up mental images of a 7 year old boy being shocked with a cattle prod.

[topround]

this post brought up mental images of a 7 year old boy being shocked with a cattle prod.

Stop.. I worry enough about him.
He wanted tubes but I figured solid state would be much safer. He knows how to use a screwdriver, and he is curious

[Zero]

Awesome stuff Topround, that kid's going to be spoiled by good sound well before his 10th B-day. 

[Rashiki]

Nice! My first piece of "real" audio equipment was an old AM tube radio ripped out of an old console unit, reboxed and wired with mono headphones. My Dad and my brother put that together for me when I was 8. I had to wait another 3 or 4 years to get FM and stereo. Before that, I had an ancient open reel tape recorder, but I don't count it since I had no recordings other than my own attempts at singing. I eventually dismantled it and used the parts to build a robot. OK, the robot was a haloween costume and the parts were just glued to the outside as decoration...

 -Rob

[JLM]

A couple of years back the New England Journal of Medicine published an article entitled, "Feed your kids more dirt."  It pointed out that we are waaay too protective of kids and as a result, they have no resistance to infection.  But the overprotection of kids runs well beyond antibiotics or even kids.  We're in a society that wants to remove individual responsibility for anything.  Remember the 60's phrase, "The devil made me do it"?  You can buy insurance to cover almost anything you want.

So we have new cars with crummy brakes and tires, but 7 air bags, ABS, adaptive cruise control, etc.  (while providing more cup holders and iPod connections).  Thousands spent per car to allow, even encourage poor driving, while brakes are slow/mushy and the cheapest tires available are used.

So I say let your kid have the soldering iron/pencil.  Don't isolate him from reality, embrace the opprotunity to teach him. 

[ctviggen]

Crummy brakes?  I don't know -- comparing my 2001 Saab's brakes with my 1987's Jeep's brakes, the latter isn't even in the same hemisphere as the former.  The Saab stops on a dime; the Jeep stops on a dollar.  Moreover, ABS is fantastic and really helps stop in icy or wet conditions. 

As for letting a 7 year old take apart electronics and use a soldering iron, I'm not sure about that.  I guess it depends on the 7 year old.  That seems awfully young, though.

[Rashiki]

As for letting a 7 year old take apart electronics and use a soldering iron, I'm not sure about that.  I guess it depends on the 7 year old.  That seems awfully young, though.

My parents let me take apart electronics. Looking back at it, everything was battery powered, presumably to avoid zapping myself with high current. I wasn't given a soldering iron until I was 11 or 12, but I was encouraged to take stuff apart from around six years old. I even had my own set of screwdrivers. It was all old junk that my Dad would salvage from various places, mostly because I would end up destroying the stuff. The end result -- I was fascinated by electronics and ended up going to college and getting a degree in engineering.

If I were to have kids, I would encourage them to follow that path if they're interested. I'm trying to get at least one of my nieces or nephews to be interested in science and engineering, but only one nephew so far has shown any interest.

[jrebman]

Bob,

Like rashaki, my dad had all kinds of test equipment, heathkit amps tuners, preamps, etc. lying around and liked to show me various things on the oscilloscope while he was testing them, and when I asked if I could build one for myself, he was all for it.  I had to scrounge around for tubes, tube sockets, capacitors, etc., and one day when he was at work and I was a little bored, I went down to the basement and saw this ancient 1950s black and white TV sitting there, long dead, and decided that would be a great place to start collecting parts... and the first thing I did was to pull the thick red wire off the picture tube, and then handled the end part with the suction cup sort of thing on it and... blammo! I found myself on my ass with a ddazed and confused look on my face.  I turned the TV set around to where it had been and went back upstairs and pretended nothing had happened.

The next time my dad and I went to the basement, he said, how about we get some parts out of this old TV for your project, and there's something I want to show you too.  He turned the set around and said, I see you already discovered what I wanted to tell you about, and smiled a little.   I was probably about 7 or 8 at the time, and then our next project was to build me a soldering iron -- which we did, completely from scratch with one of the many transformers lying around, and a pair of tips/heating elements he had lying around.  That soldering iron continued to work until I was past college, and I'll bet my dad still uses it.

DIY audio has been with me ever since.

-- Jim

[richidoo]

Nice post Jim!

My middle boy is 7, takes apart anything he can. I told him it's OK with me as long as:
He only takes apart stuff that's his
He puts my tools back when he's done

This summer a prized screwdriver made it to the beach somehow and hasn't been seen since... I guess it's just payback for borrowing my dad's tools.

[mjosef]

...and I was a little bored, I went down to the basement and saw this ancient 1950s black and white TV sitting there, long dead, and decided that would be a great place to start collecting parts... and the first thing I did was to pull the thick red wire off the picture tube, and then handled the end part with the suction cup sort of thing on it and... blammo! I found myself on my ass with a ddazed and confused look on my face.  I turned the TV set around to where it had been and went back upstairs and pretended nothing had happened.

The next time my dad and I went to the basement, he said, how about we get some parts out of this old TV for your project, and there's something I want to show you too.  He turned the set around and said, I see you already discovered what I wanted to tell you about, and smiled a little.   I was probably about 7 or 8 at the time...

-- Jim

Now that is what every little boy needs...  in the "good ole days" there was such adventure and marvelous discoveries...now...you gotta wear a space suit complete with helmet to do anything...
I salute you Jim...(now where the hell is that saluting icon when you need one).

Edited to show icon borrowed from Wolfy below

[lonewolfny42]

now where the hell is that saluting icon when you need one

[mjosef]

THere it is...hey, you got to stop hoarding all the good icons Wolfy. 

[lonewolfny42]

THere it is...hey, you got to stop hoarding all the good icons Wolfy. 

OK......