I just bought a pair of 2215's off of the auction site. The pictures were a bit fuzzy so it's a little bit like looking at the Christmas gift under the tree and wondering just what's in it.
what I can see:
they both power up.
the bottom one appears to be a champagne version, see the color and the way "Marantz" appears to have some depth at the bottoms of the letters i.e. engraved or embossed.
What I didn't notice until just now was the knobs on the bottom one look wrong, I understand how 46-ish years can be hard on knobs.
The seller must be a good guy, he's got a vintage Eico oscilloscope in the background.
I thought I'd share about them since I am a bit giddy waiting on them!
Very cool. Think you are right about the knobs on the bottom 2215. These are easy to work on and on the rare side so you did good.
Great sounding receiver.
got them today. only got them out of the box briefly, then back into the box. observations:
strong smell of cigarette smoke. it was expected. good wash job required.
first out of the box was indeed a unit with a champagne faceplate, all embossed text, and the funky knobs. Here's where it gets confusing: serial number is 8516. a bit high for a champagne edition according to conventional wisdom.
next out was a unit with a silver faceplate, and correct knobs. Confusion part 2: serial number is 4362, a likely true champagne edition unit.
I guess previous owner must have swapped the faceplates for some reason.
I'll work on photos over the weekend.
the auction posting showed them powered up, but I expect I should build a dim bulb tester for first startup anyway.
Good that there were no huge surprises like one of them had been dropped etc. Sounds like the previous owner mixed up the faceplates. Should be lovely cleaned up to let that champagne color out from under the nicotine stains.
A dim bulb tester is always good but the fact the ad showed them on and lit up tells me they work. Take the covers off and look for obvious issues like burnt components or leaky or buldged caps etc. If they pass the visual test see if they pass sound. Watch listen and feel for anything getting hot. At least you will have a baseline to start from.
Just my opinion here but observing these simple observations has never let me down.... Yet any way YMMV.
Here's a few photos of SN # 4362. The seller reported this one as: "the right channel works a little on stereo left no mono yes a little". I haven't powered it up yet. Some interesting diode installation on the amp board between J705 and J709.
I reckon I'll clean it next. I've been looking for stickers or ink stamps in the unit so far haven't seen any. Seems like my 1060 had the SN ink stamped in a few places. I haven't had the bottom off yet.
Found a few interesting threads in the bowels of AK about 2215 troubleshooting. looks like those are going to be VERY helpful!
