My friend, who wanted a neat vintage stereo console to put into his house, bought what he thought was a Magnavox console in good shape that just needed a little restoration work. When he got it home and showed me the pictures, I told him it was missing its power amp! Not only that but it's...
Hello forum! I posted this on the Digital Sources subforum, but I figure I'd post it here as well. I'm trying to repair my mother's 1987 Sony CDP-31. It was working fine until recently when the CD tray started acting funny. At first I assumed it was the CD tray belt and I replaced that. The tray...
Hello forum! I'm trying to repair my mother's 1987 Sony CDP-31. It was working fine until recently when the CD tray started acting funny. At first I assumed it was the CD tray belt and I replaced that. The tray moves smoothly, but once the CD tray goes back in, the spindle arm tries to lower and...
Hello all! Last summer a former work colleague of mine was relocating across country and decided to give me his old audio equipment for free- including a Marantz Model 140 power amp. After a little while I decided to locate a matching Model 3200 preamp to go with it and to assemble a nice solid...
Lately the right channel of my Westinghouse tube console stopped working right. It was fully serviced a little while back (new caps, some new resistors, bad tubes replaced). It was working fine for awhile but now the right channel has cut out, sometimes I get some intermittent staticky noise...
Hi all, I have a Pioneer CLD-S104 Laserdisc/CD player that is not turning on at all. It hasn't turned on ever since my house experienced a power surge years ago and I've left it in a closet until now. I feel like my electronic repairing skills are good enough now that I might be able to fix it...
I just bought my first high-end record cleaning machine, a secondhand Nitty Gritty Mini-Pro 2. After it came in the mail, I went down to one of my local record shops and bought a bottle of Mobile Fidelity Super Deep Cleaner, the only brand they had on hand. Is this compatible with the Nitty...
I just bought my first high-end record cleaning machine, a secondhand Nitty Gritty Mini-Pro 2. After it came in the mail, I went down to one of my local record shops and bought a bottle of Mobile Fidelity Super Deep Cleaner, the only brand they had on hand. Is this compatible with the Nitty...
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good 12AX7 (either new production or NOS) for a tube amp phono stage that isn't ludicrously priced? Would like to hear what the AudioKarma community thinks
I've really been enjoying my Realistic SAF-40D tube integrated amp over the past four years, however the worst part of the amp's design, and that of most other amps of the 1960's, is that I hate the tiny speaker screw terminals on the back. It makes plugging the speaker cables in a huge chore...
My Realistic SAF-40D tube integrated amp was working flawlessly for the three years since I had it recapped. However, my right channel speaker cut out a few weeks ago. No sound will come out of it though both channels come in clearly through my headphones. I thought it might have been the...
The Washington Post ran an article last week about the Louis Armstrong museum releasing some of his home recordings online. The photograph at the top of the article shows the jazz legend in his den in 1958 with his audio gear in the background: what looks like two reel to reel decks, an...
A little while back I posted about a pretty rare EL84-powered stereo console I had found, made by the Andrea Radio Company of New York (a successor company to FADA, a radio manufacturer from the 1920's and '30s). The electronics inside looked great, but the cabinet desperately needed...
When I first bought my Realistic SAF-40D integrated amp , I had thought maybe Trio-Kenwood had built my amp after looking through threads on here and other sites. Although Radio Shack kept their amp supplier a mystery, some compared the amp's topology to that of contemporary Kenwood amps. But...
I wanted to post up some pictures of my next restoration project, a 1961 stereo console built by Andrea Radio Co., a more obscure brand that was more known for their high-end TV sets. The tube complement in the amp is a 5U4GB rectifier, four EL84 power tubes, and two 7199 preamp tubes. Not only...
Last Spring I fixed up a TFM-300 tuner (replaced all electrolytic caps, had everything else tested) and for several months it worked perfectly with no incident. A couple of days ago while tuned into a station playing Christmas music the signal faded out and now I just get static. It doesn't pick...
My circa-1961 Westinghouse HM-1411 stereo console came with a standard Voice of Music 1200-series changer fitted with a Sonotone 8T cartridge. It played fine until a couple months ago and the right channel went out. I'm guessing the cartridge is on its way out. Is there a suitable Sonotone...
Finally got my Fisher TFM-300 tuner restored and made it part of my stereo system! (I'm running it through my Realistic SAF-40D integrated tube amp). Sounds great, and I just love the way it lights up from the red stereo beacon light to the grid pattern the metal case projects onto the wall. I...
I've heard horror stories of misguided people hacking up perfectly good vintage stereo consoles but I never thought I'd see one in person but behold: https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ele/d/alexa-play-great-music-on-my/6562441202.html
The part that angers me the most is the "outdated...
So far I've replaced nearly all the capacitors in this tuner, but I need help replacing the last remaining can cap, replacing the selenium rectifier and testing it to see if the other parts work fine. Does anyone know of someone in the DC/Virginia/Maryland area that can help out? Thanks!
I have already posted this in the General Audio thread, but I figured I'd repost it here as well. I'm in the process of restoring a Fisher TFM-300 tuner. It's been advised that I replace the selenium rectifier in the unit but I've never replaced one before. I bought this full-wave bridge...
Hello all, I'm trying to replace the selenium rectifier in a Fisher TFM-300 tuner. I bought an 8 amp 400V full wave bridge rectifier as a replacement. Would this be a drop-in replacement or would I have to solder in additional resistors? Thanks for the help!
Here's the schematic...
Earlier I tried to plug in my headphones into the headphone jack on my Realistic SAF-40D integrated amp and it didn't really work. It didn't switch over from speakers to the headphones. My headphones have a standard 1/4" to 3.5mm adapter. Does it take a different kind of or older adapter? Is...
My uncle has an old Fisher TFM-300 tuner lying around and I was wondering if these early (mostly) solid-state units were worth fixing up. It's got the 6AL5 and 6CW4 "Golden Synchrode" front end. I know the can caps and all the filter caps underneath the chassis need replacing, but I'm wondering...
Now that I'm done restoring my Realistic SAF-40D integrated amp I've been looking for a new project to work on. I think I'll start working on my uncle's circa-1961 Andrea CPR-A2S stereo console. I couldn't get many decent interior shots, but it looks like it has a pretty sweet amplifier with...