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I still have the Telefunken real to real tape recorder and tuner amplifier that I bought in 1968 along with a pair of big speakers. I need to dig them out and set them up in the rec room. I was told that Telefunken invented the tape recorder. I could play my i-pod music through the FM radio. HMMMMM.
 
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Wow Graham, you have some really cool old stuff! The glow from the tubes is such a beautiful thing! So much cooler than a lava lamp!

I love old audio, but I was never allowed to make noise in the house, so I was more interested in making noise in a car which could be moved far away from my disapproving stepfather. Back in the late eighties and nineties when domestic car audio components were absolute junk, I had a lot of fun replacing head units and speakers, and adding amps, equalizers, and separate components.

I helped a buddy of mine build a crazy system in his Toyota extended cab pickup with a cab-through (cut through the cab and the front of the box) speaker and amp install to house an 18" sub behind the driver seat and a 15" sub behind the passenger seat. 137db is nothing by today's standards, but in the early 90's it was staggering enough that testers were afraid to stay in the vehicle to get a reading over 130, lol. I have a fond memory of standing in the box of the truck with the remote control, and using the bass of the music to flip loonies on the roof of the truck. We closed the windows in an attempt to get a loonie to do a double-flip, and blew the back window out of the truck. To wit.... the window didn't break. The bass pounded so hard that it pushed the window out of the seal, and it dropped down between the cab and the box. Luckily, the speaker box was just a few inches below the glass so it couldn't break, but let me tell you, it was a hell of a lot more difficult to get the window back in than it was to get it out.
 

Now that’s a cool story. Bass like that could bust a weak artery let alone pop out a window. That would have been unprecedented booming bass at that time for sure. Even today it ranks right up there.
 

Mine are a pair of chambered exhausts on the 454 70'. Beautiful notes come out of those.
 


"Doctor, I think I’m going deaf!"
"What are the symptoms?"

"It’s a show about a little yellow family, but what has that got to do with my hearing?"


 
My reel game has been stepped-up this year.
I acquired 4 STUDER pro decks from an estate sale. 1x A810 & 3xA807 units.

They each have their own challenges that need to be attended to But that is part of the fun.

Found a few turntables & tonearms to play with as well.
THORENS, JVC, PIONEER, GRACE, ORTOFON, SEDCO, Transcriptor, etc.

it’s been a good year for audio fun.

thanx for looking.
graham
 
Jeez, where to begin?

I’m a firm believer that hi-fi audio hit it’s peak in the late 70’s/early 80’s. I have a preference for Sansui, but Pioneer, Akai, Onkyo, etc all work for me.



Realistic STA-450 with some small pioneer speakers. Speakers are juat small enough to slide under the bed. Unit is full featured (am/fm/tape, aux in, phono, etc) and 14W/channel. Will go waaaay louder than you would ever want in the bedroom though, so no need for more power than that. Aound is noce and clean. Works nicely with either set of my vintage headphones. Just a little thing for my night table for listening to the local radio station.

What I’m currently using as my main system:

Breakdown - reciever:

Not super powerful (rated 20W/channel), but goes louder than I can stand and sound is nice and warm. Build date: 1969.



Technics SL-2000. Basic, all manual turntable. But it’s a good, quality piece. Unfortunately, most of these died an early death around these parts due to “scratch” DJ’s.....

For those “old” cassettes:


Gotta have something modern enough for CD’s:

Speakers:


AR-4x’s. Wonderful bookcase sized drivers. When they leave my possesion, it will be at my estate sale. They’re that good, never letting them go.

Tape decks hooked up to main system but across the room:



Garage:


Speakers are from a Canadian company that has since gone out of business. Big and powerful, but with a little too much “boom”. Not to be unexpected, they basically meant for “disco era” music. The work fine with the Akai AA-910 to fill the garage with sound though.

Waiting in storage or for repair/refurb:


All-in-one unit. Older Sears sold product. I have a bunch of vintage digital and flip clocks as well as audio stuff.


Polk speakers. Got a 5.1 system hanging around, pioneer theater/receiver and polk drivers.

Side of the road grab:

Has some blown resistors I need to replace.


Thats a Sansui 8080DB. Highly sought after reciever, only a 9090 has higher output. 85 watts per channel, 9090 has 110 per channel. Keep in mind: an 85 watt rating from the late 70’s makes todays stuff look pathetic, even when it’s rated double the power of the 8080db. The two main caps are HUGE in the 8080. Something you just won’t see in todays audio equipment. It needs some caps replaced and new finals, then a full adjust and balance before taking it’s place in the audio room/office.


Old “julliet” combo unit. Radio, phono and 8 track. Not even sure why I grabbed it, other than it looked neglected and abandoned in the used build supply place where I found it.

Pioneer home theater reciever:

Another “throwing it out” snatch:
Contact cleaner on the volume dial and power awitch and it works like new.

Waiting a rebuild, blown voice coils:
Nothing special about them, other than they are from the “made in DGR” (democratic german republic, from before the wall fell).

Pioneer receiver:


Wynford Hall, quadrasonic:

Another pair of AR-4x’s:
I have to pull the crossovers out and freshen them up, as well as refiniah the boxes. They look ok, just not up to my standards.

Underneath the 4x’s is a pair of ESM3’s:

Thise need to be “re-foamed”. I have the surrounds waiting to be installed.

There’s a bunch of other misc stuff around, but thats the main stuff.

The 8080 will be rebuilt and the “fake wood” case will be removed and I plan to make a real case out of oak. It will replace the 350 in the main house system. The 8080 will drive the AR-4x’s in the office/music room and it will drive the second set of AR’s out in the main living area. Since the 8080 will drive 3 sets of speakers (a,b,c), I’m thinking about putting a couple waterproof drivers out on the deck as well.

For quiet moments, I’ve got a couple sets of headphones:




Both studio monitor headphones. Sansui ss-35 and a set of pioneer monitor 10’s. Both sound fantastic! Better than anything modern I’ve tried (including stuff like higher end Sennheiser).

Yep, I definitely prefer my audio....”vintage”.



Never got into tube stuff though. Too expensive for me, both to buy and/or repair. Same with reel to reel. I’ve got friends that live and die by them, but they’re not that big thing for me. Too much hassle to set up, too hard to find blank tape or media for them.

For what you see above, I’ve only got a couple hundred bucks into it. People just throw out most hi-fi audio stuff, thinking it’s worthless now or if it breaks, it’s not worth fixing. Some of it was yard sale grabs and, believe it or not, some of it I’ve found just chucked down the bank by the side of the road. Most commonly, people think they’re broken because they get that “scratch scratch” when adjusting the volume or balance knobs. A shot of contact cleaner and it’s usually working fine afterwards. After that, it’s usually a blown thin film resistor or a dead/leaking cap. The only thing that stands out in purchase price and repairs needed was the 8080DB. I paid 300 bucks for that, and it had blown finals. But it’s a serious piece of kit, they’re inpossible to find around here and worth every penny of that 300 bucks...and then some.

 
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Hey TM....!
I’m loving your collection.
Those AR speakers are standards for their day and sought after.
Any of the SANSUI gear from the early days is built like a tank. I have a few items.
a friend of mine is a PIONEER guy from the silver-faced era.
I sold him a a PIONEER PL-530 TT last week, and I’m working on a CT-F1000 cassette deck for him now. We put new belts in it last week and now waiting for an idler wheel to arrive.


I built a turntable for my workbench the other day to aid in these repairs.
it works great.


You are correct about people getting rid of this gear. i acquire most of my stuff through friends of friends or former co-workers. I just took in 1200+ albums. I added quite a few to my collection, moved some to my kids and other friends have gone through them too. Still have quite a few left to go to the used record store or maybe the Hospital Thrift store.


Thanx for looking..
graham
 
Hey TM....!
I’m loving your collection.
Those AR speakers are standards for their day and sought after...

Yep, hard to come by these days. Nice clean and mellow sound. For “bookcase speakers”, they will shake the windows if you can stay in the room long enough to actually turn them up past 1/4 volume....

I’ve had several guys ask out of the blue if I would sell them, or even just one of the sets. I’ve had a couple guys come back to re-ask several times, sometimes offering way more money than they’re worth.

Answer is always the same: NFS.....
 
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