All over a cassette deck (Warning, long post)

[1pc@atime]

Last month I went to an estate sale, I wasn't looking for anything but the ad listed that the old guy had a bunch of 'vintage' hifi gear.
Having just found and dug out my massive 1970's and 80's cassette collection but no longer having a working tape deck I took the ride to see what I could find.
I'm not sure if it was good or bad luck that I seemed to be the the only one there interested in the stereo components, or anything besides furniture and nick knacks. Maybe because it was all out on tables and in stacks in the garage and piled up on benches, chairs, shelves, and in boxes, plastic tubs, etc. There were some stacks even on the steps going down to the basement. They separated all of it from the furniture being sold inside but waited till mid day to start sellong in the garage. By that time half the crowd had left, when it came to the garage, there were only three or four bidders, and two were gray haired older women, and one guy that was eyeing up a neon beer sign, he got that and left. No one else bid on it.

They started with the tools, then the mowers, then the used hardware and finally the stereo items. Nothing iwas particularly high end but when the auctioneer realized there was only three bidders left at 3pm and couldn't get a bid he started selling it by the table, then by the 'This whole side" and "That whole side", which is when I opened my mouth and said I usually get paid for removing that much crap, the auctioneer looked at me and said $10 minimum bid, So I said "Okay, $10, everything in here", he said sold, pay the girl outside in the trailer.

I only bid because I figured that something in the stack there had to be worth $10, even if took filling a 28ft car trailer and my truck to get it. I hadn't brought my trailer, so I had to call a buddy to go get it and bring it to me, (plus that gave me another set of hands and another truck to fill up). The look on his face when he asked what all are we loading up, and I said "Everything in the garage and out in the driveway.

It didn't sink in what all I had bought for $11.77 until later when I was home unloading a running Cub Cadet tractor, two Sears push mowers, and a massive hoard of various pieces of stereo equipment, speakers, tools, a two huge tool boxes, three 8ft folding tables, an air compressor, 10" Sears table saw and radial arm saw, a band saw, 4x8 sander, and a steamer trunk full of Makita and Sears power tools, plus about 400 lbs of hardware, which turned out to be a 1/2 full Dorman assortment from some hardware store.

I found out later that the auction had been commissioned by the bank, who owned the property. I didn't ask a lot of questions, I just loaded it all up, got my receipt and headed home. Nearly a week later and I'm still unloading the trailer and sorting through it all.

Now, on to the reason for this post. The goal here was to buy a working tape deck. But what I came home with was something else, and I'm still digging through the piles of stuff. I think they saw me coming, they got me to do a full garage clean out and they got paid, not me.

Here's the list so far on what I've unloaded and made note of so far:

Speaker (pairs)
Advent,
4002,
5002, and
5012, Need foam, not so much rotten but partially detached from cone.
Baby Advent (x2)

Boston Acoustic
A200
A400 Need foam but clean enough that these will end up in my living room when done.
T830 (x2),
T1000 (x2), i pr needs foam
T1030 need foam, mids seem frozen I also found several new in the box complete speakers for these, I believe enough to redo two speakers completely, plus several boxes of foam kits for BA 8" woofers.

Dynaco
A25
250 (These were hooked to Carver MXR 130 Receiver in garage when found, in nice shape other than being covered in sawdust)

Infinity one pair each,
Qa,
Qb,
RSa,
RSm Look almost new, in original boxes
RS-1000 need foam
RS-2000 (x2) need foam
SM-250 (x2) need foam on mids and woofers, one woofer seized

Polk, Monitor 4, 5b, 5jr, 7, RTA-8T, and 10,

Realistic,
Optimus 21
Optimus 1100 (Made in Canada twin 10" towers)
Nova 5 (Has replacement RS woofers, (found one original woofer in box)
Nova 7b
Nova 8b
Electrostat 2a (x2), No working electristats
Minimus 7 (x2)

MCS
8227
8228
8229
8320

Macintosh
XR-5 very hard to drive, not sure if these are okay or not

JBL,
CF-120 (x4),
CF150,
LX-300,
LX-600,
LX-800,
L-500,

RCA (Dimensia)
SPK 385T,
SPK 400,
SPK 500 (x3) These really surprised me,

Pioneer '
S-T100, (wrong tweeters, no grills)
S-T300,
S-T400 (x2),
Project 100 (these have broken plastic grills
Sonics
AS-447 (15", also in original boxes, with receipt from some store in Japan from 1972)

Design Acoustics
PS-10 Needed foam, all done, they sound better than expected.

Avid
101, very hard to drive, poor volume even when pushed hard with lots of power.
102,
103

Panasonic Thrusters
SB-280 rough shape
SB-350 dirty but play fine

DCM
TF-600(X4) one pair has tweeter issues
CX-27

Fisher
XP-5 In original boxes
XP-7k In original boxes
XP-9 (with egg yoke tweeters)


Cassette Decks:
Pioneer:
CT-W205R, belts?
CT-W409R,
CT-W801R
CT-4 Belts, and other issues

Sony:
TC-WE305
TC-W380 needs belts

NAD:
6325 dead, nothing works, motor runs all the time

Akai:
CS-M01 tape runs but no sound, just burble from one channel

Aiwa:
AD-3150 needs belts
AD-3250 needs belts

Kenwood:
K-95W needs belts, wires broken off right deck

Harman Kardon
HK-3500 loose parts inside, some missing screws and linkage rolling around loose, missing belts and a cracked capstan roller.

Sears by Fisher/LXi
564.93282450 left side inop, belt broken,

Amps/Preamps
Carver
PM600
C1 preamp

Yamaha
M50 and M65,
C50 Preamps

EV 7300

Harman Kardon
Citation 17 Preamp
HK-775(x2) mono amps

Mitsubishi
M-A4200

Sansui
C-1000 Preamp (small, rack system preamp but it sounds good with the Mitsu amp.

Phase Linear
400 dead, meter sweep on turn on, but no sound
2000 Preamp works but needs cleaning

Kenwood
KM-208 amp stone dead, blown fuse, dead short and burnt smell througout, black burned area on board near pwr connector
KC-105 Preamp Buttons sticky, looks like soda on face, may clean up

RCA
Dimensia MPA-100 (x2) both new in the box this along with several matching RCA speakers plus a few other components seem to have gone together.

Integrated Amps
ADC
CA-200E - Plays, has good sound but volume starts to wander when warm with random pops and bursts of volume. Worse on larger speakers. Cleaning volume pot changed nothing, issue seems to be elsewhere. It does it at all volume settings and it seems to be set of by low bass notes or high volume.
Does not happen on small speakers. Can hear protection relay click when it happens, no DC volts at speakers when it happens. Its as if its being turned on and off at high volume suddenly.

Onkyo Integra A8017 no lights, lots of blown out bulbs

Nikko TRM-800 No right channel, an inch of cat hair inside.

Harman Kardon
HK-750
HK-611 Badly burned inside, missing several knobs, high voltage traces across boards.
All fuses blown, several blown up caps, diodes, and resistors. Parts only

Realistic SA-2000 no left channel its there for a few seconds then its gone

MCS
3837


Receivers:
Onkyo
TX-8500 Lights up, looks like new but only plays through turntable
TX-4500 missing parts, cosmetically good otherwise.

Realistic:
STA 2100D plays fine for about an hour, then one channel dies out and gets a little distortion.
STA2300 missing parts, partially taken apart
STA 82, dead channel
STA 64 scratchy volume control, sounds good otherwise
QTR 753 Dead LF and RR channels

Technics/Panasonic
SA 101 dead right channel missing volume knob
SA 5550 lights up, no sound, found several cut wires inside off power supply board
SA-EX600 early surround sound unit, sounded pretty good but has euro 220v plug and Russian owners manual.

Harman Kardon
HK-560 a few pops and crackles but works good.

Fisher
400T

Sears by Fisher/LXi
143.92533800 50wpc several bulbs out
564.92581050 50w 1980
564.92561050 15w 1979

Pioneer
VSX-DS1 Like new, in box
VSX-9900 bad hum in both speakers
SX-450 plays fine, but loud thud on start up
SX-650 needs a couple bulbs
SX-750 only radio plays, no TT or aux sound
SX-201 bpc
SX-303R bpc

Yamaha
RXV-480
RX - 595

Carver
MXR-130 (x2) works fine but no display and tuner randomly just runs wild searching channels. Amp works fine and sounds decent.
This one was hooked up to two Dynaco 250 speakers above the work bench at the front of the garage.

Gradiente
1260 sounds good, maybe about 25-30 wpc or so Made in Brazil

Turntables:
Fisher
MT-273 no cartridge or shell

Dual
CS-529 works
CS-622 plays but is erratic as to where the arm lands.
CS-1246 auto functions erratic
CS-1268 power buttons pushed in, cords cut

Yamaha
YP-B4 needs belt and cartridge

Panasonic
RD-3500 needs belt and cartridge
RD-7673

Technics
SL 21 needs stylus

MCS
6502 needs cartridge

Realistic
Lab 400 (x2) one plays well, the other is missing a lot of parts.

Cd/DVD players
Sony
CDP-C87ES platter has gummy melted cog belt plays if you can get a disc manually loaded into mech
CDP-C89ES lights up, nothing else, missing screws probably parts only, looks a bit more used than the C87ES

Pioneer
PD-M403 (x4) only three disc cartridges
DV-525 (x3) one dead, blown parts in power supply
PD-F908 (x2) one dead, only lights up power button

Nad
5240 loads, spins, doesn't read, no laser

Yorx
CA-501A all functions slow, plays but drags, skips, and races at will. Cheap Junk

Denon
DCD 1500 works but sounds 'slow' when it gets warm

Philips
BDP-5005

Samsung
DVD 611

RCA
DRC-6100 CD/VHS combo No functions work. motors sluggish, voltage issue?

Insignia
IS-DVD-100121 Combo Unit, works, looks like new, (x2 of these)


Plus two tubs full of various Sony surround sound receivers, 1990's era I suppose, a half dozen combo stereos, (Rec, TT, and tape), Soundesign and Panasonic and one Sears. Several plain Sears receivers with just 8 track,
two stacks of plastic Garrard and BSR turntables, all early with ceramic cartridges, several stacks of odd store branded, masonite backed receivers,
several tubs of really beat up 12" albums two tubes of 8" 45's, mostly from the 50's and 60's.
And about 20 or so pairs of older unknown brand speakers and several boxes of misc tube amps out of console units and a half dozen speaker panels out of those units.
There's also a few tall stacks of 90's era Kenwood rack system separates pieces, many of which don't even light up. A few HK 665 integrated amps that are dead with a smokey flavor wafting off them, and a stack of various 90's BPC type eq's, and four or five Sound Craftsman and DBx eq's.
There's also a few 20 gallon tubs full of misc knobs and buttons, about 50 lbs or so of them. I heard he was up in years, but didn't hear an age but it looked like he had been gathering stuff for a long time. The concrete had 1974 scratched into one corner, likely when it was built there, and not much was any older than that. Nothing was newer than about 2002, and most was 1980's era or early 90's,

It all filled my once empty 28ft Haulmark enclosed car trailer, floor to ceiling, front to back door, plus the bed of my pickup with its high rise cap. Plus I had stacks of better items I had pulled out stacked on the back seat in the cab.

I did make some little old lady really happy though, she was bidding inside on small items off the shelves and walls, mostly pictures and figurines, and she saw me drag out five huge tubs of christmas decorations. She saw those and started following me back and forth to the truck, then she asked me what I was doing with them? She asked if I had a store or something, I said no, I'm just a newly minted hoarder I guess.
I then told her if she wanted them, back her car up and dump them out because I needed the tubs, I never saw a gray haired old woman move so fast. She backed up a '78 Cadillac, opened the trunk, moved a bunch of junk to the back seat and started loading up Christmas decorations. (None were anything special, just dollar store type lights and bulbs, all from China. She thought she hit the lottery and I got 17 more huge green Rubbermaid tubs to fill with stuff from the shelves and work bench. The auction ended at 4pm, it was well past dark when I finished loading and after midnight by the time I got home.

So far I didn't even log in the items that were really stripped, or just total junk.
I tossed a few white van type speakers that were water damaged and missing drivers, plus just stacked some of the rack system junk outside on the curb that had physical damage or oddball components like remote boxes and surround sound adapters or anything that looked like it had been wet or hit by lightning.

The big question is if any of the items that need work, like belts, CD lasers, missing knobs, or bad cords are worth fixing.
I didn't take or ad any pics because it would likely take ten pages or more here of what much of amounts to parts machines or scrap.
Out of the Tape decks, two two that are the most interesting is the Aiwa 3250, and the Kenwood dual deck. The Kenwood dual deck is super heavy compared to the others, to heavy to just grab with one hand like all the others, besides the HK3500, but that's missing mechanical parts and looks like someone has already been in there mucking around. There's a second one but most of the CD transport is missing.

 

[electronjohn]

Where's the "HOLY CRAP!" emoji??? Have fun with what looks like the haul of the decade!

 

[eiraved]

What a chore just verifying if everything operates correctly, and you did all this in a month's time? Wow!!
What's next on the agenda?

 

[swechsler]

One of us! One of us!

 

[J English]

You went looking for a cassette deck and got a warehouse worth of stuff! Well, good luck...yikes... Quite a haul, but now you have to deal with all of it...

 

[1pc@atime]

Part of me sees it as a deal, the other part says it's going to be a 20 year project.
The biggest problem isn't figuring out what don't work but what to do with the items that don't work and may only need a minor repair.
The question is do you put belts on a lower to mid grade dual cassette deck which will cost $20-30 by the time you get them, and then spend all the time it takes to tear the thing apart to replace them all for a unit that likely won't bring $20 on CL or FB.
Looking at many of these things I can see that most are like new other than belts or small parts.
Even if belts were free, some tape decks take hours to just replace the belts.
The guy did have an envelope full of misc belts, most were marked what they were bought for. I replaced the belts on the one Sony dual deck this morning, it took 3 hours from the time I found the belts, and found the deck they were marked for, then managed to get both tape transports out, apart, and back together with new belts. Its likely as good as new, but sound wise, its still a cheap cassette deck playing a 40 year old tape I found in the pile that was dated 1984 on the J card.
Its an early 90's Sony deck, that even had its original receipt from Boscov's Dept. Store taped to the bottom. Someone paid $59.99 for it just before Christmas of 1996, the receipt shows it as a $99.99 deck with a 40% off sale, plus 6% sales tax.
For a run of the mill type deck, the cost of the belts alone is more than half of what the thing cost new. But then again, that could likely be said about any piece in this lot.

The big receivers are cool, but all need something, be it bulbs, a few hours of cleaning, or a missing knob, but from what I've read, models like the Realistic 2100D are not looked at the same as their Pioneer or Technics counterparts.
As and example, condition wise its 99% there, a bit dusty, a few marks on top from where something had sat there before. a few dead bulbs in the display and it plays perfect for about a hour or so then one channel starts to sound funny, it gets slightly garbled or distorted then it fades away to a whisper. Turning it off and back on returns it to normal and it will go for another hour.
If I put a fan over top, it seems to not act up, Touching the chassis with my hand causes a hum in with a turntable connected.

All but one of the turntables are super clean, but none are high end, the best are likely the Dual models, only the CS 622 is complete and working as it should.

About half the CD/DVD players work, the rest either have an issue, won't eject or won't stay open long enough to load a disc or are completely dead and won't read.
The one I just grabbed is a Nad, 5340, its in fair shape cosmetically, its got a few marks on top, and the top of the face plate plastic is chipped where it meets the top cover, either from what ever was on top or from removing he cover.
It functions as it should but won't read, there's no laser function. I see no circuit issues and a close inspection of the laser assembly doesn't look like there's any broken wires or connections. It wouldn't be the first dead laser I found on an older CD player, the laser on my DBX DX5 has crapped out three times since it was new in 1988 or so.

Nearly every turntable needs a stylus, about half need cartridges, a few are missing the whole head shell.
A few that are super clean looking and working are missing or have scratched, cracked, broken dust covers.
There are 7 of those rack type wooden with glass door cabinets, most are branded Pioneer, Sony, or Kenwood, each one was full of various, random gear. Two of the cabinets are large and heavy enough to have held a monster receiver. One of the cabinets is made of solid oak, stands 70" tall and is on 5" casters with a full back and twin glass doors. It took three of us to get it into the back of my truck and its as rock solid as a tool box. It looks custom built. There's another from Pioneer. its got 1/4" jacks on the top edge for headphones and also has wheels and is a mix of steel and wood panels, mad wide enough to hold the largest receivers. The Onkyo TX8500 even fits in it with a half inch on both sides. It almost looks like it may have been part of a store display since its got an 8 speaker pair switch, multiple headphone jacks, and huge Pioneer logos edged into the glass.

I just go done cleaning the one Harman Kardon HK 750, its a lower power integrated amp, but I have it hooked up to a pair of Advent 5002 speakers and it sounds fantastic. The speakers are great soundwise but have a few nicks and some scratches on the bottom. From 5ft away they look great, but in hand you see all the bits of missing vinyl covering, or the rough bottoms. Both grills have a number of small holes in the cloth. For me, it wouldn't bother me a bit, but when selling something like that most won't look twice at it if its not perfect. They sound good enough to be keepers though, but I doubt they'd displace any of the speakers I already owned.
The Infinity RSm's though are a match to a set I already had and those will get paired up with the other set.
The Qb and Qa speakers are also 5 footers, they play fine, but the vinyl is peeling a bit near the bottom edges in the rear. I may brush some pva gue on the rear edges to stop them from getting any worse. One pair is a bit sticky feeling, but a coat of car polish will fix that.

The little PS-10 speakers need woofer foam, but there was a box tagged for them on the shelf with new foam. I also found a second set, but the other set has broken grill frames.

The largest speakers are the two S-T500 Pioneer towers, they're super heavy, it took two of us to move them and they stand chin high to me, and I'm 6ft 3in tall. What's odd is that there are four of them, all have sequential numbers but all four are different heights?
They vary by about and inch, with the difference being in the base. The bases have matching grain so they can't be swapped around.
One pair looks to have new foam, the other pair has a box of 30 new foams that came with it,
The refoamed pair has all Jantzen caps and someone added a bulb into the tweeter wiring. They don't sound any different though than the all original set.
I connected them to the one VSX 9900 receiver and they're a great match, but the the receiver is huge. It'll play clear to insane volume levels. So far I found 7 of these larger, 80's model surround receivers by Pioneer. Only one so far had issues, with a steady hum all the time in both channels that doesn't change with volume but it never goes away.
The one VSX D1S that was in the box had a receipt with it from some place called "Studio Sound", "HiFi & Audio visual Sales" for just under $1,695.99, and a set of Pioneer S-T500 speakers for $1,795.99 with sales tax dated Feb of 1990 for $3702.49 total. So my guess is one pair of the S-T500 speakers were original to the D1S receiver in the box.
the rest of this weekend will be getting all the wood working equipment out of the trailer, there's a 10" Sears Table saw and Radial Arm saw that I'll keep, and all of the wood working equipment is in like new shape. The hard part will be getting it all down into my basement where I can use it when I need it year round.
Project number one will be building some roller dolleys so I an move this stuff around while I sort it out.
That alone will take a few days of work. I figure I need about 40 dolleys or so. (There's four buckets of heavy casters in the lot, so its all time and no parts but I can't keep carrying these things all around, they need to be moveable while I go through them all. I'm going to be wall to wall equipment for a while I guess and it has to be easy to move around until it gets gone through.

Are any of the mid or lower end models worth doing any work on? Or just pull off the cords and toss them?
I'm in an area where nothing sells here, even big receivers just sit listed for years here. I watched a Sansui 8080 sit for a year on CL with no takers at $350, I finally threw the guy a $100 offer and he took it. It was perfect except for a few bulbs. I bought my Pioneer SX 1250 for $90 off CL after seeing it sit for sale for $180 for over a year. I did nothing but give it a good thorough cleaning and its been perfect ever since.

The second and third largest speakers are the JBL CF 150 and 120 models. all of them are in mit condition and sound great. The CF 150's are the size of a small refrigerator and seem capable of being certain that all my neighbors get to enjoy what ever I'm listening to. (I really hope they like the Hank Sr that's playing on them right now through the Yamaha M50/C50 combo through the Insignia "combo deck). Its hard not to exercise a set of 15" speakers like that while your working in the garage.

 

[swechsler]

Are any of the mid or lower end models worth doing any work on? Or just pull off the cords and toss them?

I probably wouldn't make the effort. Is there any place you can drop off e-cycling in your area? Older electronics are more likely to have lead than newer stuff, so you probably want to avoid getting them into the waste stream if you can.

 

[1pc@atime]

I would think that the older stuff would be the most worth fixing?
Its the Made in China stuff that most likely needs to be rub through a grinder and recycled.
I found out long ago that if I drop off items at a thrift store, those items turned up at the local fleamarket or back at auction in a few weeks where some bottom feeder is happy to may $1 off it and pass it along.

What I'd really like to see is how many of the lesser models can be scavenged for parts to fix the better models.
I don't suppose there's too awful many CD laser units out there and chances are probably pretty good that one from a cheap unit will fit one of the older, better brand units to get it working.

I found out years ago with my DBx 3 CD that the CD eye, which had quit working, and I had just ordered a new one, (there were only like 12 different one's available), and it got it back up and running again. In further inspection I found that the hair like leads that connect the coil to the ribbon had a cracked solder joint. It took a microscope to see it. I managed to machine down a micro sized soldering tip and fix that joint. Not so much thinking at the time that I'd ever need to reuse it but just to see if my custom soldering iron mod worked.
A year later I trash picked a Panasonic MASH 5 disc changer that looked really bad, but it was complete and most of the issues was dust and dirt. But it turned out that the laser itself was physically damaged, likely by the 25 lego bricks I found inside.
Wanting a multi cd unit for the shop I figured I'd try and piece it back together on the cheap. I kept looking at the laser unit and realized it was mostly the same as the old one from the DBx3. The whole body of the thing wasn't the same but the upper, laser and coil were identical. So I separated the top from the carriage mount and swapped it over. It worked fine, and it still works till this day. It worked well enough that I recapped the main board and power supply, and even repainted the top of the case and polished all the scratches out of the face plate. It now looks great and has been in my kitchen now for about 8 years.
It sounds good enough for what I'm listening to and for the 40 year old Criterion receiver its attached to, which itself is a mix of used, salvaged parts from three other brands.
There's a few more of those same 5 disc Panasonic CD units in this mix, they were all in two tubs, 8 in all. The first two I hooked up worked, the third and fourth were missing a bunch of screws that hold the CD drive in place and one is missing its rear grill cover.
I just started a stack of them on a shelf. Tomorrow's job will be putting up two new rows of shelves, which I took down from there as well. 17 of those gray P slot shelves like Home Depot used to sell for $80 each, also in the same lot. If I had only taken the shelves and ran I'd be ahead of the game from the start here. I can never seem to have enough shelves and I hate having stacks of things 5ft high, and that don't work for turntables.

The hard choice is what to do with a working TT that has a broken or missing cover. Looking at a few of these stereo cabinets, I take it that the covers had to be removed to put the TT in the top tray, it then used the top of the cabinet as a cover. The Kenwood and Sony branded cabinets are like that, as is one Pioneer cabinet. They make good storage in the back room.

I've pretty much come to terms with this all isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and that just sorting through it all will take months at this rate. I just hate to toss something now that I realize later I should have kept. If I had tossed that used laser from the DBx, That Panasonic Changer would also likely have gone for scrap.
Keep in mind when I say scrap, it means total dissassembly and putting all surviing parts in the bins and the metal goes in a dump trailer behind the garage for bourbon and beer money.

 

[ivandezande]

Congrats! That’s a lot of work, lot of junk, and a lot of good stuff. Keep us updated with photos!

 

[Lavane]

Wow!

 

[highping]

Thanks for sharing your experience.
Like ak member swechler mentioned, look for an electronics recycler in your area. Some even pick up (the one I go to does).
Good luck with moving some of the nicer items along.

 

[1pc@atime]

I spent most of yesterday and night before putting up shelves. It gave me 5 rows of five 48" long shelves about 6ft high and two other shelves up next to the bench. So much for fitting a car inside there I guess but being able to organize this mess will expedite getting it whittled down to a reasonable size.
The shelves will be sorted at first from one end by component, and from the other side by finished and tested. The two shelves up by the bench will be 'Items to be parted out', and "To be repaired Next"
I started with putting any quad receivers, off brands, and any with physical damage on the 'to be parted shelf'. If it fills up, I'll stop and start breaking down those on the shelf before going any further to keep that pile under control.

I dug into a few of the tape decks, I started with the HK3500, a quick look inside tells me someone made a crude attempt to replace the belts but gave up. The things rattling around are several brackets, two springs, and an eye glass screwdriver.
The tape mech is missing a bunch of small screws but I think its all there, sans the belts. I bagged all the loose parts and set it aside for now until I maybe find some matching screws and a pick or two of one fully assembled.



I then opened up a late 70s or so LXi Sears model, mostly because it was easy to get at, and it looked complete. Both decks turned but dragged but everything functioned. I opened it up and changed out the belts, gave it a good cleaning, and gave it a try and its works, it sounds okay, nothing great but nothing horrible either. It played most of the day in the garage while I tinkered with some other items.



I then grabbed a Silver faced Akai, which lit up and seemed to play be sounded weak with a lot of interference from the lights and motor in the audio. With the cover off, I found that the three conductor lead from the record head to the main board was chewed through having been run though the tape mech in the rear. Someone had taken phone wire strands and reconnected it, and connected it wrong switching the ground with a left side white wire. I all the patch wires and made a proper splice near the tape mech, and ran it around the outside of the tape mech. frame to the main board with no other splices.. I cleaned up the heads, rollers, and controls and replaced two of the small square belts but didn't have the 4mm flat belt, but that one felt good, so I put it all back together. It seems to play just fine now, but I'm trying to find out if the motor should run all the time when the switch is on?
It uses the mechanicals and a couple of clutches to engage the drive, and the motor appears to be wired directly to the on switch. None of that looks like its been messed with. I actually did't realize the motor was running full time till I started working on it with the cover off. you really can't hear it. Overall it doesn't look like its got a ton of use on it and getting at the belts was shockingly easy since 6 screws removes the whole face plate and gains you access to the counter belt, which also works the auto shut off and the timer trigger.
The rear belts are just a matter of removing the rear support plate with three screws.
I was going to leave the smaller rear belt but realized it was off the pulley and riding on the step behind it, so it was stretched out a bit. It also was causing the thing to drag a bit in fast reverse in that it was trying to go both ways at once. A new belt there solved that issue.




I then moved to a pair of Sony doubles, the one, a TC-WE305, had melted belts, 5 in all, but was other wise mint, but a low end model
with only basic features. It had an envelope with belts with it, so I went ahead and installed them, and it too is up and running as good as to be expected. I let it play for a bit and moved it to a bag on the shelf for now.



The second Sony was a TC-W380, a similar but older model that again needed belts, which again were taped to the top in an envelope, but after replacing the belts I soon found its got other issues. It plays but doesn't make any volume, and the controls are erratic. Despite the belts being on correctly, the tape mech on the left locks up on occasion, ad on occasion goes into high speed for no reason. The LED meters also are missing segments and sometimes stay fully lit when powered on. It got put back with a note on it for now, its likely not worth wasting any more time on.



I went onto a few of the black Pioneer models, fully expecting them to be destined for the junk shelf but so far every one has worked, other than a sticky door on one and a bad wall plug on another. I swapped the cord on one and finessed the sticky door on the other and all three that I pulled out today worked just fine, although not anything really great, The CT-801R seemed to be the best sounding of the lot so far.





Some of the pics were taken in the trailer, a few I took as we unloaded the trailer so I knew for referrence where some items were. Espcially thouse still in the hifi racks on wheels. Those are all lined up in the left side of the garage and not as easy to get at right now. As things get sorted and put on the shelves or taken into the house to be tested, or kept, that mess will go away. Its a priority because right now I can't get anything else into the garage and my enlosed porch/patio is also stacked to the ceiling, and I've been setting up some of the folding tables in the basement for tear down of the parts units later on as the weather cools down, The garage doesn't have great heat so when it gets cold, the garage becomes just storage and I have to make room to keep at least one vehicle in there.
The trailer is still not completley unloaded but for now, its all I'm doing, its dry storage and I'll get at the rest of it as I make room here. A rough count of complete components, not counting the obvious junk is around 430 or so pieces. More if you count VCR's, combo decks, off brands never heard of, Chinese junk, and any of the surround sound receivers.

The one under the one Sony Cassette deck was one I grabbed out of a bin to use for testing inside, it was clean and marked 'Good' and still in a box. Its an okay unit but I hate the three step digital tone controls and oddball 'room' options. Having a remote for it though made it easy to keep things playing while I worked out there all day. I could at least kill the music playing by remote if the phone rings.

I had it hooked up to two of the DCM CX27's, of which I now realize I have three pair of that seem to have been labeled as if they were being used as surround speakers, (LR, LC, LF, RR, RF, RC)

There's also a few subwoofers, two Mirage FRS8, one FRS10, one Realistic bottom fire model with a 15" driver, four or five plastic Sony units, one 12" Kenwood self powered model, and one Polk, and several odd brand, smaller subs. Oddly enough the Mirage and the Kenwood models, which are side firing, look to be the best of the lot, but I'm also not a fan of subwoofers in general, at least not when run as a mono channel.

 

[satellite65]

This makes me feel a little better about my collection. I've been trying to sell off most of it so my family doesn't have to deal with it when I go. I have only a small fraction of what this estate had...

 

[swechsler]

Regarding the SX-450, the loud thump on power up is typical of the model (this was my first real piece of audio equipment). They are known to have power supply issues.

 

[1pc@atime]

I actually found two more SX-450's in the pile, they were in two unmarked boxes.
The one definitely has a louder thump on start up, enough that I'd worry about the speakers. Its more of a firecracker pop than a thump.
I cleaned the switch and it took the noise away about 90%. The other two do have a fairly pronounced thump on first start. All three are in fair to good cosmetically but other than the thump on start up, they all play fine. All three have some issues with the vinyl rap on the side panels. I do notice that on the SX-650, and 750 there's a capacitor across the top of the power switch, by its markings its some sort of shunt, marked both 100uF and a resistor symbol. Maybe its there to stop that very same issue?
I had the SX-650 playing most of today with one of the Panasonic MASH 5 disc CD changers. It played all day with no issues as found.
The CD player though didn't work at first and like a few others, had McDonald's happy meal toys inside.
I suppose finding the toys is better than finding a cheeseburger or something.

The stack of Cassette decks is getting bigger by the day,
Today I realized there's another stack I didn't count the first time, it likely got loaded in the trailer by a few of the woman who were helping carry things into the trailer at the auction. (The trailer has a work bench up front, that's empty, they apparently opened the cabinets below and stuffed in 11 tape decks and four cd players before blocking it in with stacks of more equipment.
My only instructions to them were to put heavy items on the bottom and up front, so amps and receivers went on the bottom, (better stuff went in the back of the truck, in the cap, which is carpeted and padded), and light stuff like tape decks and turn tables on top. Luckily I keep about 50 shipping blankets in the enclosed trailers so things got padded well for the ride home. the walls have three rows of E track and plenty of straps so nothing go beat up. I keep a bunch of 3x6ft sheets of 3/16" thick plywood over head too for securing things to the wall in stacks too.
There's only about a dozen turntables, but so far over 40 tape decks, including several Sony and Pioneer decks new in the box. Still stapled closed and sealed in plastic shrink wrap. All of the new decks are late 80's early 90's dual decks.
The majority of items seems to be from 1978 to 1996. Nothing so far is really high end and the junk pile is growing.

Surprisingly though, many of the tape decks and cd players that were marked 'junk' or parts only, were actually easy fixes.

With the early CD players, the big question is if its ever worth while replacing a dead laser?

So far I've got about 5 with dead lasers, the rest just needed belts or some cleaning.

One RCA combo unit did have a bunch of dried up french fries inside, a toy car, and about $4 in quarters.
Its a low end model and has motor issues so its going in the junk pile but it just showed me that every items that comes inside needs to be opened up first.

One NAD, and one Yamaha have dead lasers, (NAD 5340, and Yamaha CD-1) Another Yamaha single CD player has issues with the end of play list on every disc, cleaning it helped but it still acts up on CD-Rs when its been playing for a while. I think that model is a CD-X420, but there's a half dozen of them that I tested and can't recall which one had the issue, but I did tag it with a post it note. A buddy got me a few boxes of inventory labels in various colors, they stick but don't leave glue and I can go through these and color code them by condition, red for dead, orange for needs repair, green for all good, and pink for the "get rid of it now pile".

I was thinking that an awful lot of these things likely came with remotes and I had only about 5 of them so far, then I found a box from a Sears LXi VCR with about 30 misc remotes all dumped in one box.

So far the NAD 6325 is likely the best Cassette deck so far but its not working, it seems to have issues other than just belts, maybe a power supply issue. Its matching CD player is also dead.



There's several decks in this series: None in working order, all belts on these are missing or broken







So far I've counted 4 of these CT-W404R Decks, and at least 3 of the CT-W801R models


What's going to make me nuts here is trying to get all the same model in one place so I know what exactly is here.
I've already spent time trying to find something I had my hands on and took pics of yesterday only to not be able to find it today.
That on top of items in boxes being in the wrong box, the Sony and Pioneer decks are a good example of that. Wrong decks in the wrong boxes, the same with the receivers that have boxes, I found an SX1050 in a box from a Realistic STA-2000D, and the Realistic that should have been in that box in a box from Pioneer SX-1250, and two Technics SA-1000 receivers in boxes from Sony Surround Sound all in one kits, and a box from an SA-1000 with a Yamaha CR2040 in it, and 12 empty Yamaha boxes in the rafters over the garage.

Nearly all the Yamaha components have boxes.

Nearly all the Kenwood stuff has issues except for the newer models from the mid 90's.
It looks like there's a complete rack system of Kenwood gear based around the KM205 amp, and every piece of it is dead and was scattered all around the place mixed in with different piles.
So far only one KW tuner and one preamp work, all the rest of it has major issues, either its dead shorted or just completely dead.
Luckily there's very little Kenwood here.
The one Cassette deck, a bit older looks to be fairly decent, its over 25 lbs and uses a completely different layout than the others.

After resoldering a few spots on the amp and power supply in the one Realistic STA-2100D, its been playing perfect, today I hooked it to a pair of Infinity Qb's and let it play hooked up to the ond Pioneer PD-F908 101 disc changer that was full of vintage country CD-R's that someone recorded and left in it.
(Out of five of the same model changers, only two of them work, the others are stone dead, with nothing but the power light turning on and off with the remote or button.
They'll get set aside for now, maybe its a fixable issue, or maybe their just parts. Two of the non working one's were in original boxes, with the remotes and manuals, all of them look brand new.

At this point, as I sort through all this stuff, I'm really wondering how he got so many of the same models of some things.

So far I've counted at least 30 silver face vintage receivers. mostly Realistic, Pioneer, and Technics.

Once the trailer is empty, and the bulk of it sorted, I'm going to step away from it for a bit and figure out what to do with a lot of it.
While its cool to look at, I highly doubt much of it has any value as it sits unless CD's and Cassettes make a massive comeback somehow.

I guess my initial intention of finding a tape deck that worked was a success, but now I've got at least a dozen that work but most are low end models. The NAD 6325, the HK 3500, and the Aiwa 3250 are likely the best of bunch, but all of those will need work.
The best model going so far is the Pioneer CT-W801 "in the already working lot".

 

[EastPoint]

Any CD players with dead lasers are junk. Most of the lower-end stuff is probably junk as well. I would aggressively cull the junk and put it all up on Craigslist for free--someone will take it for scrap. Cut off any power cords and pull knobs beforehand if you want.

 

[swechsler]

Cut off any power cords and pull knobs beforehand if you want.

I wouldn't do this; someone may actually want to restore it.

 

[EastPoint]

On the junk stuff. Not the nice stuff. The junk stuff you're giving away. It's going for scrap, no one is restoring it.

 

[swechsler]

Yes, but what's the point of removing those?

 

[Mumbles]

You're obviously single and have a bigger garage or warehouse than most to store this stuff in. Good score!