Straight out of a time capsule - Sherwood s-8800a

[jpdylon]

I was at a thirft store this afternoon, and saw one of the attendants carrying in an old receiver. I asked him what he was going to price it at, and he said had to test it first.

After waiting, he slapped a 15 dollars price on it, and said "not working" After leaving it on a shelf he walked away. It was a simply mint looking sherwood S-8800a, with wood case and everything. I found some speakers to wire up to it, and fired it up.

No sound at first, but after giggling and input selector and rotating the volume up and down a few times, I had decent sound in both channels, so I snagged it and brought it home.

The insides are immaculate!! no rust, corrosion. Everything is clean! All i need to do is get new lamps, clean the pots and switches, and dial in the bias and clipping adjustments.

Pics were taken after I oiled up the cabinet. SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL!

Specs in the pics was crap on my lens

 

[bully]

Wow, that baby is clean!
S-8800A, 1967, 30 wpc, $400. That was serious coin in 1967!

 

[AudioKeith]

Nice score. I see you use your washer/dryer as a workbench too

 

[jpdylon]

Nice score. I see you use your washer/dryer as a workbench too

yup, cuz my real workbench is full of other projects

 

[Raphael]

She is seriously beautiful JP!

Man . . those are the finds that make this hobby addictive!

Let me know if you wanna sell or trade.

 

[jpdylon]

Right now I just want to get it sounding as good as it looks. It will make a nice little stereo for the workshop until I get things cleaned up enough in there to put the main rig back in.

But I will definitely consider you in the future if it comes to that, Ralph.

 

[DaWoofer]

That was some serious coin back then. You could get a full color T.V console with FM, phono for that coin.

 

[gener8tr]

It still amazes me people actually give this stuff away when there are collectors like us willing to snatch it up for a fair asking price if simply put on Craigslist, etc.

Bully for you!

 

[Urizen]

Very, very nice. I would bet the tuner sounds great.

Congrats!

(from another Sherwood fan: S-7100A, S-7300, S-8900A )

 

[digtubeess]

It's a butus Maximus! a keeper!

 

[jpdylon]

The tuner is awesome. Very sensative and has no problems pulling in distant stations.

The only problem I'm running into is the lack of volume. It plays clear, but extreamly quiet. Even with the volume at max it is still at what I would call a normal listening volume. Probably why the guy got rid of it.

Most likely dried up or leaky filters and or output capacitors, although I was getting good voltages on the outputs :scratch2:

 

[Gigapod]

...
Most likely dried up or leaky filters and or output capacitors, although I was getting good voltages on the outputs :scratch2:

These are 40 year-old capacitors we are talking about... don't ask too much of them at this stage.

Btw: nice find!

 

[Raphael]

Hit the 'Hush' button. That just tickles me!

 

[rhiohki]

Nice score! I've always wanted to try the Sherwoods. I could never find them locally though.

 

[Robie]

Darn, original post disappeared.

I was given an inoperable S-8800 (not the "A") six months ago by a friend who was cleaning out his basement. It has beige rocker switches on the front, a walnut veneer case and came with a taped photocopied circuit diagram I think he got from Sherwood when it was still in business in Chicago. I also have the original owner's manual.

He was given the receiver in the late 70s by a relative because one channel didn't work. After several attempts, my friend (chemical engineer) gave up trying to fix it himself.

Not sure when the mouse took up residence inside the stored S-8800 but have deduced he was very hungry. My part time tech hasn't gotten to it yet.

Always liked the S-7100A/Dynaco A-25 combo several of my friends had in college. My TOTL garage sale S-8900A is a nice den stereo paired with my Insignias.

 

[jpdylon]

Hit the 'Hush' button. That just tickles me!

It's actually a control to adjust the ammount of "hush" for the tuner. This would also be called a muting level or threshold. when the signal drops below a certain dbmv the tuner mutes. turning it completely counter clockwise effectively disables the muting circuit.

 

[EddyR]

I never see Sherwood equipment but yesterday I saw a receiver at a GW that looks just like yours except it was the quad version.It was $10 but I passed on it as I have way to many receivers now.I have a Sansui quad just gathering dust.Nice catch.
Ed

 

[Robie]

My S-8900A has a "Dynaquad" feature but looks a bit different than the S-8800A pictured above. If the receiver you saw is an S-8900A, you might want to consider it for that price. IMO it is a good warm sounding, well built receiver. TOTL in the late '70s and it must weigh at least 35 pounds. While only 60 watts/channel, it sounds much more powerful and dynamic. Supposed to have good tuners too.

I believe Dynaquad is similar to the simulated quad feature used on my former Dynaco SCA80Q ss integrated. While it can be an interesting effect on some recordings, I didn't use it much and it does require rear speakers. As I understand it, it involves sending out of phase signals to the rear speakers to simulate true four channel sound.

I was surprised to see "Dynaquad" on a Sherwood receiver when I bought the S-8900A at a garage sale 6 or 7 years ago. I'm certainly not an expert on Sherwoods and am not aware if other Sherwoods might have have had it. While I never considered buying a Sherwood receiver when they were new (I was into components), now it's kind of like rooting for the home team. The original Sherwood Laboratories was here in Chicago for many years and I run accross many old Sherwood receivers still operating after all these years.

I have a line on a Sherwood S-7100A and may not be able to resist.

 

[Jetcone]

A word to the wise, I was troubleshooting my one of my Sherwood 7600's which predate that unit. I had weak signal in the left channel output you had to crank the balance to way off center otherwise it sounded great. But when troubleshooting I decided to clean some pots and accidentally sprayed a real glob of DEoxit into the dual volume controls. Well for some reason that completely shut them down, there was signal to them but not out of them.
The deoxit somehow destroyed the sliding contact area so now I have to replace the whole control.
Go real light with any cleaner into these Sherwoods.

jon

 

[jpdylon]

I thought about a bad volume control, but I jumped across it, and it was the same as turning it up to max. i also patched a pre-amp signal into the amp boards and the problem was still lack of volume.

I'll get around to working on it in the next couple of weeks