Eico HF-81

[BrokenHill]

Does the Sangean have remote volume control?

Shacky, no the Sangean remote control does not control volume,
maybe the newer models do and that I don't know about.

 

[Narodow]

That's a beautiful specimen which should bring you years of pleasure if properly restored and maintained. You are quite fortunate indeed.

I recently performed a ground-up restoration on my '81 and this afforded me the opportunity to audition many of the mods circulating throughout great forums like this. While my ultimate goal was to faithfully reproduce the circuit as EICO intended, I systematically experimented with the elimination of "superfluous" elements of the design. I always returned to the original design without hesitation. Removing these features introduced excessive gain and made the unit sound too "hot". I lost so much of the subtlety and grace that made these little integrated beauties the classic they've become.

After playing with so many of the "recommended" variables, I came to the conclusion that the circuit was designed with a holistic approach. To remove or tinker usually results in something somewhat less. Your mileage, however, may vary.

Regards,

Blair

Blair,
I did the retoration of Shacky's HF-81 and did my best to balance restoration and originality. The bypassing of the tone controls was necessary because both bass and treble controls had extremely poor tracking between channels. The needed reduction of gain was done by bypassing one section of each channel's 12AX7 preamp tube. In a perfect world there would be an endless supply of new bass and treble controls for an Eico HF-81. Since we do not live in a perfect world, we must do the best we can with what we have.

Bryan

 

[blairm]

Blair,
I did the retoration of Shacky's HF-81 and did my best to balance restoration and originality. The bypassing of the tone controls was necessary because both bass and treble controls had extremely poor tracking between channels. The needed reduction of gain was done by bypassing one section of each channel's 12AX7 preamp tube. In a perfect world there would be an endless supply of new bass and treble controls for an Eico HF-81. Since we do not live in a perfect world, we must do the best we can with what we have.

Bryan

No disrespect intended, Bryan.

I'm glad that you took measures to keep the gain in check and maintain the sonic integrity. I can symathize with anyone who seeks to replace those pots and I was very fortunate to have ones that tracked reasonably well.

One mod that I found worked extremey well was to beef up the sheilded cables (3 & 4 cond.) and RIAA components used in the phono stage. It turned a noisy mediocre stage into one that sounded much better. That being said, I still prefer my outboard stage.

Regards,

Blair