Magnavox 1500 Receiver......Not Bad!

[kadillac]

I'm new to this site, and making my first post.

I'd love to see the schematics. I went to pick up a yamaha receiver that I found for a great price ($50), the guy ended up throwing in his speakers (Magnavox S-8765 - 2 pairs). We got to talking a little bit and he told me that he had his record player and magnavox receiver tossed in the garbage if I was interested!! Didn't know much about this piece, but I was at least going to take home and do some research. He was about to cry thinking back to the glory days he spent listening to that Magnavox. One heck of a pick up, but now I need to get it up and running!!

 

[ADKBob]

I have the Magnavox MX-1581 receiver made in Dec, 1976. From what I understand, it was just a few months before Phillips took over. I have tried to get a schematic to fix a problem with the protection circuit - you have to fiddle with it to power on without going into protection. When you get it working, the sound is far out. The thing weighs a ton and is built very nicely. I tried to join the Yahoo Magnavox group many times without success.

 

[pfunk951]

I think I might have posted it before, but I have the manuals in pdf form.. Lemme know who needs 'em..

BTW I scored another 1500! Ha!

Mike

 

[kadillac]

I'd love it Mike.

 

[hoaryhag]

Nice find on the 1500 Plus henri. I bet you are right and they only had one production run of those. The 1500's are definitely some solid built receivers but I think restoration is probably the best idea on these if you wanna keep your speakers on down the line.

 

[jwrauch]

My Dad had a similar Magnavox receiver back in the 70's. It replaced an old Fisher tube console. It sounded pretty good if my memory serves me !!! Great find !!!!!!!!!JOHN

 

[Ric Harris]

Old tread but I just got one of these and all I can say is WOW! It clearly had Ampeg running through it's wires. If you don't understand why people will pay stupid amounts of money for old Marantz, Sui and the like is it just sounds clearly better than anything they make these days. Finally I have something that makes my Imperial 7's sound good again. Not to mention the PSB's that have been gathering dust in the garage. The old SX 1080 died many moons ago and this fills the void nicely. 3.2 amps of joy for the low low price of 40.00. It's a good day!

 

[Ric Harris]

Old tread but I just got one of these and all I can say is WOW! It clearly had Ampeg running through it's wires. If you don't understand why people will pay stupid amounts of money for old Marantz, Sui and the like is it just sounds clearly better than anything they make these days. Finally I have something that makes my Imperial 7's sound good again. Not to mention the PSB's that have been gathering dust in the garage. The old SX 1080 died many moons ago and this fills the void nicely. 3.2 amps of joy for the low low price of 40.00. It's a good day!

One of my facebook friends just offered me 225.00 that's tempting but...I doubt I can find better with the 225.00

 

[KentTeffeteller]

1975 was the year Magnavox was purchased by NA Phillips. And also the early separates are Fort Wayne on receivers, the turntables were manufactured by Collaro (Magnavox owned in Barking, England) and the tape decks sourced from Japan. Correction. Philips High Fidelity Labs products post 1976 were built in Tennessee at the plant in Strawberry Plains and in the plant in Greenville, TN. These two plants post Philips merger were the main Magnavox manufacturing into their closure. P.S. Terry DeWick used to work in Strawberry Plains (dewickt here, the McIntosh expert)

 

[Ric Harris]

1975 was the year Magnavox was purchased by NA Phillips. And also the early separates are Fort Wayne on receivers, the turntables were manufactured by Collaro (Magnavox owned in Barking, England) and the tape decks sourced from Japan. Correction. Philips High Fidelity Labs products post 1976 were built in Tennessee at the plant in Strawberry Plains and in the plant in Greenville, TN. These two plants post Philips merger were the main Magnavox manufacturing into their closure. P.S. Terry DeWick used to work in Strawberry Plains (dewickt here, the McIntosh expert)

For a brief time these same receiver's were re-branded as Phillips. That probably lasted long enough to use up the last of the chassis/components and then that spelled the end of Fort Wayne's manufacturing plant.

 

[Ric Harris]

I have yet to crack open the chassis but it needs a couple bulbs replaced. I just wonder if their soldered in or not and if their a common bulb or something a bit more exotic aka over priced old stock.

 

[flyinglow]

I have a MX-1581 in perfect shape with original owners manual. Only hooked it up for bench testing. not sure if I want to keep but it looks cool. orange lights!

 

[Ric Harris]

I have yet to crack open the chassis but it needs a couple bulbs replaced. I just wonder if their soldered in or not and if their a common bulb or something a bit more exotic aka over priced old stock.

Well we've had it for a month now and I've hooked up a digital tuner to it because the Magnavox tuner picks up everything within a 75-100 miles and it's too difficult to find the stations I want. The other odd thing is I've hooked up at least 8 different pairs of speakers to it and no matter what pair I have running it always sounds better loud. At lower volumes it sounds compressed. For the record I have so many pairs of speakers in my garage that I lost count long ago. I need to get serious and ebay them as I intended to. Sadly a few I will gut and piece out because behemoth Sansui's are not worth enough to justify paying 80.00 shipping on top of the selling price.
As for the Magnavox it's not a Marantz but it's no Sanyo either. I think it's a pretty sweet old rig!

 

[Brentsui]

I think I might have posted it before, but I have the manuals in pdf form.. Lemme know who needs 'em..

BTW I scored another 1500! Ha!

Mike

Mike - congrats on the score! I have the illusive 1500 DTI that I'm afraid of enjoying before a complete restore and a Philips 787 that died shortly after my purchase. It would be great if you could hook me up with the manuals!

 

[Familyguy76]

I think I might have posted it before, but I have the manuals in pdf form.. Lemme know who needs 'em..

BTW I scored another 1500! Ha!

Mike

I need the schematics if you have them!!!

 

[Familyguy76]

Greetings,

After googling & finding Audiokarma, I joined today. My 1500 DTI's served me well since 1972, but needs some repairs - balance control, speaker system switch, a cure for popping & cracking. I have the owner's manual & schematic, each on .pdf, but know nothing about electronics repair. I'm just a has-been firefighter who wants to listen to my all-time favorite amp. Any input appreciated.

Can you share the schematics?

 

[pfunk951]

Hey, sorry for being out of the loop! I've been travelling a lot lately, and my Email unlinked for some reason and wasn't sending me alerts to my PMs..

I have the schematics, once you're done cursing my name for my tardiness PM me and I'll shoot them out.

Mike

2 1500s
Listening to one as I write this
Let's not talk about what the wrong transistors did to the other..

 

[pfunk951]

Brentsui- start with some new caps in the signal paths and power supply, and it should clean things up.. Check DC offset on the outputs, Etc.. If you want to bring voltage up slowly to reform any iffy caps you can use a variac..

Ric Harris- See above- my first 1500 sounded pretty -ehhh- until I updated up some old electrolytics on each channel, and cleaned the bejeezus out of the controls. It should sound better at low volumes.. Between my audio guru father in law and myself, we have 3 (2 fully restored) Mcintoshes and a plethora of gear ranging from vintage solid state to twin triode gear. Our daily drivers are the 1500 and the Philips Lab 7851.

I did a ton of research and found LED plug-in lights for the switches- they look fantastic. I was working a retrofit for the tuner bulbs when I switched units..

Mike

 

[Aj1735]

Sorry in advance for resurrecting this thread again but there is just no info out there about the 1500 plus. I just found an 1500 plus today at a garage sale and this was the first info I found about it anywhere and it wasn't much. Was it just a later version of the 1500 or was it during the same time and was supposed to have something better about it. Mine is a little rough but sounds like it might be worth getting it gone through. The power cord was chewed off by a dog and the inside looks like it sat in a barn for 40 years and it very well could have. Any idea what one could be worth at all? I don't want to put way more into it than it's worth if for some reason I don't love it. I am trying to put together a nice little vintage system and would like to compare this to my Marantz 2252b receiver or the 1122dc amp. By the rarity of the unit, I don't think that I want to just put it to garage duty either when it sounds like some people may really love it. It's not fair to a nice piece of equipment to not get used or appreciated in my book.

 

[Ric Harris]

I've got a Tandberg Receiver sitting 10 feet away that is that filthy. Cleaning out the gunk with an air comp or duster or a leaf blower like I use would be a good place to start. As for finding info on it. I just wonder if there's a Phillips model that is it's twin. Figuring that out may be just as difficult. As for my old 1500, it has been pronounced dead as the circuit board has so many shorts that it began to look more like a point to point wired receiver. We just gave up. It was a sad day in Mudville.
As for the one you got there I'd get it cleaned up and maybe build yourself a dim bulb tester to plug it into when you first fire it up. If you've never seen one go to youtube you'll see plenty of how builds on it. Uncle Doug on youtube would be my first choice for the how to. I built one for under 15.00 a couple weeks ago for an ancient Harman Kardon Tube receiver I was waking up from a couple decades of sleep. I need to get my 1500 back from the repair guy but if you need parts there may be some common components. Just ask..