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Tandberg TR-2075: Any AK'ers own it - roll call.

N

Njord Noatun

Super Member
Banned
I have a special emotional attachment to the Tandberg TR line of receivers. Growing up in Norway, these were the receivers everyone wanted. At $1,100, the TOTL TR-2075 was completely out of most regular people's price range, of course.

I may go on a hunt for one. Are there any AK'ers with experience with the TR-2075, and what are your thoughts on it?

Thanks.

Rgds,
 
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2075 performs very well but it is a bit of a older sports car when it comes to keeping it on the road. 2080 is not bad either.

Thanks,
Ron-C
 
2075, like an older sports car. That's funny. We could say that about almost everything we hold dear to out ears and ac outlets. The Tandbergs were engineered and built beautifully.
 
Don't own one, but always drooled over them in HiFi shops back in their day. They looked so well made and engineered and I loved how the series of them next to each other looked, along with their R2R and cassette decks. Very nicely designed.
 
Yeah, the TR-2075 is an excellent receiver. I had one for awhile, & just sold it about a month ago. A sad case of not enough room for all my toys. :sigh:
 
OK, guys, I think I will set my crosshairs on a TR-2075 or TR-2080, and will enter a "Wanted" ad over at AK Classifieds.

Please keep your eyes open for one, OK? Thanks.
:thmbsp:

Rgds,
 
Hey Njord

I got a little experience with tandberg. Here goes: about a year ago, a friend of mine went searching for a little reciever for his mum, and seeing as he used to have tandberg 3009 monoblocks (until the repoman came) , he bought a little tr 220. When we heard it, even with its measly 12 watts, we were instantly won over. It had everything but bass.
So we went searching for the bigger boys, and have since collected quite a few between us :D

In my opinion, and indeed, it is that of my friend too, the blue dials (tr 2025, 2040, 2055, 2075 are better than the white dials (tr 2030, 2045, 2060, 2080) . I have heard or owned all but tr 2040 from the blue series, and 2030 and 2080 from the white series, and I'm guessing that all things being equal, the traits apply to those aswell.

The blue dials sound absolutely great, even the little 2025. Offcourse, they get more and more control the higher up you get, with the 2075 in a class of its own. Sooo much power and control!
But as I said, even the little 25 watter sounds great, just a bit loose in the bass. I would take this one even over my own 2060. The white dials are quite a bit brighter sounding, and seems to lack the balls of the blue ones, allthough not bad at all.
My experience has been the earlier the better. The reason seems to be that build quality got compromised over time, and they started using more and more japanese components of inferior standard. The earlier the model, the better the components, and so I would definately go for a blue dial, and prefably an mk1. It can be distinguised by the mk1 having a black piece of plastic on the knobs, whereas the mk2's have an all metal knob.

As for reliability and parts - well, quite a few of them have had problems, usually with the left channel. But then again, quite a few of them have been just fine after a little cleaning. It seems they are quite sensitive to transport, so make sure seller pack it as well as possible.
Some parts are quite hard to come by, like potentiometers, which have a special output for loudness, and I think transistors are unobtanium, though not quite sure. Anyway, the big transistors seems to hold up well, and I think there are suitable substitusions for the little ones. Don't hold me to that though :scratch2: .
A big problem seems to be bad solderjoints, and the tuner needing adjustment.

I hope this will help You decide, and that I haven't scared You away from tandberg. The truth is, that I love the tandberg sound to a point where I just aren't interested in getting anything else. I finally got the sound I was looking for :music: ..

-tom
 
Hi

Just wanna say that you know where to pick-up the Service-manual for the TR-2075 if you need it ;)

Kind regards,

/tri-comp
 
NN: I got my first Tandberg a few days ago. It is a TR-2030 and it sounds great. The details are fantastic. It has an all aluminum chassis including top and bottom covers. I'm thinking about getting a TR-2080 but I'll wait.

My 2030 came in with a bad left channel. All it need was switch cleaning and a DC adjustment. Sam.
 
I think any of the Tandberg receivers would be worth ownng. The 2075 was very expensive. In out store we sold only one in 3 years, and we sold Yamaha. They all sound identical, as I recall.
 
Before you guys start to get excited, I have talked to a couple of techs, that said parts are hard to get. And as for the Japanese components being inferior is BS. If I am not mistaken there are Japanese Components in all of them. I am not a tech, is anybody that posted in this link so far one? They are well made, overrated, and overpriced. I wouldn't turn one down cheap though. :D
 
I'm also thinking about a TR-2080, however, they are RISKY and in the current market, overpriced. But, it's only money.......it's not like giving up a limb or your firstborn.
 
I have a TR-2030. Very nice to look at but not overly impressed with the way it sounds. The MPX is not working however and I don't have any DIN to RCA cables to test the inputs. Never knew the white(2030) dialed models differed from the blue....interesting.
 
NO. The TR-2080 is a fine piece of gear, as is all Tandberg.
The TR-2075 is the one to find.
Thing about Tandberg, as they said back when, was that Tandberg used matched, mil-spec "pieces-parts" and it was the SOUND that mattered. Tandberg did not get into the receiver watt war. To justify $1000 or so for their top receiver, it HAD to sound superior.
It's been a long time since I heard Tandberg, but I think I would think it compared well to my Concept 16.5 at twice the power. The 16.5 tuner would match well with the legendary excellent tuners from Tandberg.
Anyway, Tandberg is well worth the price. Simply excellent execution and sound. Would take a lot of receiver (e.g., the Concept 16.5) to do marginally better.
 
Soundsmith on the East Coast specializes in repair and restoration of these units but is not inexpensive to put it mildly.
 
I have a TR-2075 Marl II ... needs light bulbs ... seems to work all right otherwise ... but haven't fired it up in some time ...
 
soundoc03 said:
I have a TR-2030. Very nice to look at but not overly impressed with the way it sounds. The MPX is not working however and I don't have any DIN to RCA cables to test the inputs. Never knew the white(2030) dialed models differed from the blue....interesting.
Click to expand...
My 2030 is a blue dial with metal knobs (no black plastic). It has RCA tape inputs but a DIN phono. No Aux though. MPX is fine.
 
Sorry - didn't mean to offend anybody, by putting down their gear. It's just my opinion, and I thought I would share it with You all :) .
I like the darker sound of the blue dials better, somebody else might like the sound of the white dials better. I know a lot of Norwegians don't like the sound of the 2000 series at all, but prefer the sound of the older tandberg gear. That sure does sound great to my ears too - but overall I prefer the blue dial 2000 series :music:

As for me saying "inferior components" , then it is something I have read a number of times, stated by peoble how seem to know what they are talking about, and just by looking at a white and a blue dial side by side with the top of - the blue ones just seem to exude quality more than the white, to my eyes at least. But I'm no tech, very far from it, and You should not treat anything I say as the absolute truth, rather as one mans opinion. I'm learning this stuff as I go along too :)

I stumbled on to the soundsmith page at one point too - but man, the prices :yikes: . At least it must mean that they can be kept alive, or does anybody know if Soundsmith are doing a complete transistor-swop and the whole works?

Socal Sam: a blue dial 2030 - are You sure of that :) ?
I thought the mpx filter was something they only used on their tapedecks, a bit like dolby. I have a 310 mk2 tapedeck, that has an mpx filter - I didn't know it was in the recievers too. Is it in the tuner section?
About the black plastic on the dials, then I'm not really sure if the 2025 and 2040 models came out early enough to have that kind of knobs. The 2025 I listened to and liked so much had all metal knobs too :tresbon:

-tom
 
By MPX I was referring to the tuner's stereo function(multiplex) which does not work. the unit is not a high enough priorty in my collection to fix, and I certainly wouldn't ship it to Soundsmith at the quoted prices though I am sure they do a good job.
 
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