|
petit choux posted:Here is Hainbach circuit bending one: I really wouldn't call that circuit bending, but being able to do tape echo is one of the most fun parts of a three head deck. It's generally much easier with open reels but it can also work with a cassette deck if you know what you're doing.
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2022 22:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 13:33 |
|
|
strtj posted:I really wouldn't call that circuit bending Circuit bending purist, eh? Anyway, I bought a couple vintage tape recorders myself over the past couple months, possibly with a mind to do something vaguely like circuit bending. Also the entire loving bible on cassette to have some cassettes to play with. The problem is that these are the cheeze.  A genuine (unlabeled) Crown mic!  It's like a little briefcase. And in the little pocket inside the top? Why, an untouched user manual.  This was a dumb buy but anyway it's the oldest single piece of hardware from Crown I've seen. That Marantz is far superior and having three heads has always been what puts it in a separate category. This was simply for the potential circuit bending pool and may wind up anywhere. petit choux fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Aug 4, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2022 22:24
|
|
|
petit choux posted:Circuit bending purist, eh? Having been to shows where people were actively sticking screwdrivers into Casio SK-1s and the like to get weird sounds, yes, I suppose I am a purist
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2022 22:37
|
|
|
strtj posted:Having been to shows where people were actively sticking screwdrivers into Casio SK-1s and the like to get weird sounds, yes, I suppose I am a purist Wow cool, I hope to do some circuit bending one of these days. I have some old Yamaha keyboards that I think are the bomb, as you young people say.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2022 22:57
|
|
|
petit choux posted:Wow cool, I hope to do some circuit bending one of these days. I have some old Yamaha keyboards that I think are the bomb, as you young people say. This probably doesn't really belong in this thread, but I used to hang out with guys who made a living off of circuit bending. This was, um, maybe 2002? Anyway, none of them really knew what they were doing from an electronics standpoint, they were literally just connecting wires to random points on the boards of things they would get from thrift stores. They would readily admit that they blew up as much stuff as they were able to use. What made it interesting was that if you were lucky you could get a Big Mouth Billy Bass to sound like it was sexually assaulting a German techno producer, and then you had to figure out how to mix that into something worth paying attention to for a 10-20 minute set.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2022 23:46
|
|
|
Just in case anyone needs a new turntable. A bargain really… lo loving l
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 03:27
|
|
|
The Bandit posted:Just in case anyone needs a new turntable. A bargain really… gonna spin ReLoad forever on my Metallica table
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 04:44
|
|
|
I think people in this thread have warned me probably more than once not to do what I did, which was to go to the thrift store and buy up all the best looking speakers. I am now building furniture out of all the kinda nice speakers I picked up, at least until I can come up with a better idea.  I never managed to improve on what I had already, I think.  At any rate, I'm still settling into the new place and just busted out the stereo gear for the first time in a month. I'm just pulling stuff out of boxes, moving it around, sit around grokking it for half an hour, move it a couple of feet and then sit back down kinda phase RN. This room looks like an acoustical nightmare but I'm going to set up a small sheltered listening area at least until I can set up a yurt in the back yard for a better listening experience. Something. I may be requesting the advice of this thread on this. Not the yurt, the stereo. Well actually you can advise on the yurt as well but this is the stereo thread. petit choux fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Aug 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 05:35
|
|
|
petit choux posted:I think people in this thread have warned me probably more than once not to do what I did, which was to go to the thrift store and buy up all the best looking speakers. I am now building furniture out of all the kinda nice speakers I picked up, at least until I can come up with a better idea. I never managed to improve on what I had already, I think. what speakers are you chopping up into “furniture”?
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 05:36
|
|
|
Ok Comboomer posted:what speakers are you chopping up into “furniture”? Oh, sorry, I edited the post to show it. Refresh the page. Nobody's getting chopped up. The Yamahas nobody likes are on top, those nice ones with the decayed foam are on bottom, at least for now. They are actually really good speakers. Just serving to build a bookshelf/partition for now. petit choux fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Aug 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2022 05:42
|
|
|
I had a dr appt this morning and took a half day from work. It's also half price day at Savers so I popped in. The line is so long it wraps around the whole store so I almost noped out. But I figured I'd check the electronics aisle.  Saw this guy sitting there, plugged it in and no smoke, meters lit up. Missing a foot on the bottom and a few scratches but tagged at $25 so $12.50 out the door.  Currently standing in the huge line waiting to check out. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 17:38
|
|
|
Is Savers like a regional Goodwill thrift store type place? I've seen the name pop up in a few threads but have never heard of it before.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 17:42
|
|
|
Enos Cabell posted:Is Savers like a regional Goodwill thrift store type place? I've seen the name pop up in a few threads but have never heard of it before. Yes, also known as value village in certain regions of the US. Mondays are Half off everything but the lines are nuts until the late afternoon.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 17:47
|
|
|
Looks like a pretty drat beefy amp for $12.50! Hope it works well when you get it home
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 17:49
|
|
|
Very nice find! I've got a couple units I should post in this thread, I'm about to start cracking them open and replacing some stuff for babby's first electronics projects
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 17:51
|
|
|
my turn in the barrel posted:I had a dr appt this morning and took a half day from work. Wow, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what store that is and yes, sometimes they have incredible electronics stuff. I'm not sure how it happens, but I've gotten and/or seen better stuff there than at your average Goodwill / Salvation Army. For those who don't have them, Savers is a weird sort of not-actually-a-nonprofit that claims to donate a lot of their profits to charity. Their prices tend to be higher than other thrift stores, but they do the "sign up for coupons and discounts" model of discount retail. So did the amp end up working?
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 19:01
|
|
|
strtj posted:Wow, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what store that is and yes, sometimes they have incredible electronics stuff. I'm not sure how it happens, but I've gotten and/or seen better stuff there than at your average Goodwill / Salvation Army. We have them up here as value village, I think they Google anything that might be remotely valuable and either ask the maximum possible price or divert it to online auctions these days. It used to possible to occasionally find good deals there but it usually swarming with pickers these days
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 19:08
|
|
|
large hands posted:We have them up here as value village, I think they Google anything that might be remotely valuable and either ask the maximum possible price or divert it to online auctions these days. It used to possible to occasionally find good deals there but it usually swarming with pickers these days I think it goes store by store. You see a big spread in pricing. It’s easy to spot in records, some stores are .99 or now more like 1.99 across the board, some can randomly be like 4.99, and I’ve seen one store that tried to price the records individually based on someone’s crazy idea of what they might be worth. But I t’s definitely all luck whether you find something good or not. If you’re there the day it’s put out you win, a day later it’s gone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 19:26
|
|
|
Ended up being a 30 minute wait in line to check out. Aside from plugging it in at the store and it lighting up I won't know if it works until I get home from work to test it this evening. Thrift store pricing is all over the map. Usually most locations are kind of consistent but since they are usually staffed by court ordered community service "volunteers" you can sometimes get lucky even at stores that usually overprice their stuff. I just try to pop into Savers/ Salvation Army/ Goodwill/ Habitat for Humanity Restore/ smaller church and community thrift shops on my lunch breaks from work. Most of them put out new donations in the morning so if there is anything good it gets snapped up by flippers by the afternoon. Doing a bit of research this is a decent little 80w ×2 @ 8ohm power amp from the late 70s. https://www.davidsaudio.com/html/gas_line.html Apparently GAS was run by an engineer who designed some of the earlier Marantz Poweramps then designed stuff for SAE and then started GAS. If it works I may use it to Biamp the Subs in my Ohm i speakers with an old Audiocontrol Richter Scale sub crossover I've got sitting around for shits and giggles. my turn in the barrel fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Aug 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 19:42
|
|
|
BigFactory posted:I think it goes store by store. You see a big spread in pricing. It’s easy to spot in records, some stores are .99 or now more like 1.99 across the board, some can randomly be like 4.99, and I’ve seen one store that tried to price the records individually based on someone’s crazy idea of what they might be worth. But I t’s definitely all luck whether you find something good or not. If you’re there the day it’s put out you win, a day later it’s gone. Yeah the Value Village/Goodwill records prices are /insane/ now. Like, $20 for a beat to gently caress, scratched up AC/DC album. Definitely a case of "we googled it on ebay and went in the middle of the price range" kind of pricing. The only stuff you get a good deal on anymore is stuff that's not easily identifiable
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 19:56
|
|
|
There are some things that have become so well-known in the mainstream as being collectable that thrift stores never price them low. Mine won't put out any records from known artists for less than $3 anymore. And cartridge video games get pulled for online sale before hitting the floor (some sports ones end up behind glass for inflated prices). Turntables always get overpriced at my store, but most other heavy electronics and receivers are priced reasonably. It's just that turntables=records=valuable  to thrift stores.edit: going back and looking at my posts in this thread, I got my Dual turntable from Goodwill for $15 in 2018, but that's the last one I bought at a thrift store. And even that might have been priced low because it never stopped spinning when I bought it. wa27 fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Aug 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 20:13
|
|
|
Mederlock posted:Yeah the Value Village/Goodwill records prices are /insane/ now. Like, $20 for a beat to gently caress, scratched up AC/DC album. Definitely a case of "we googled it on ebay and went in the middle of the price range" kind of pricing. The only stuff you get a good deal on anymore is stuff that's not easily identifiable I don’t see that too often at the ones I hit up. The worst offender that I wrote about must have realized it was a mistake because a lot of records hung around for at least a couple of weeks that would have been gobbled up if they were 1.99. But it was like completely trashed Journey records that really weren’t worth the 1.99, let alone the $18 or whatever they were marked as. They don’t price records that way anymore. I don’t think, at least, I haven’t been to that one in a while. I got a couple of excellent condition Coltrane records at a savers last week, so you get lucky sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 21:17
|
|
|
BigFactory posted:I don’t see that too often at the ones I hit up. The worst offender that I wrote about must have realized it was a mistake because a lot of records hung around for at least a couple of weeks that would have been gobbled up if they were 1.99. But it was like completely trashed Journey records that really weren’t worth the 1.99, let alone the $18 or whatever they were marked as. They don’t price records that way anymore. I don’t think, at least, I haven’t been to that one in a while. Yeah, I've definitely had more luck with the price/condition ratio on Classical and jazz music there
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 21:40
|
|
|
Mederlock posted:Yeah, I've definitely had more luck with the price/condition ratio on Classical and jazz music there I almost never find jazz records unless it’s something like Benny Goodman or Al Hirt
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 21:57
|
|
|
BigFactory posted:I almost never find jazz records unless it’s something like Benny Goodman or Al Hirt I've found more big band ensembles then smaller groups yeah, but I did get a near mint condition Kind of Blue for like seven bucks
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 22:06
|
|
|
Mederlock posted:Yeah, I've definitely had more luck with the price/condition ratio on Classical and jazz music there the pickings are much more slim now but some of the Goodwills/Sal-Ars/etc in some of the bougier parts of New England used to be a goldmine for audiophile classical records, usually in pristine shape between 2011 and 2015 I built up a big collection of Deutsche Grammophon spanning like 60 years off of <$1 and $2 buys and they’re some of my favorite LPs
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 22:22
|
|
|
Ok Comboomer posted:the pickings are much more slim now but some of the Goodwills/Sal-Ars/etc in some of the bougier parts of New England used to be a goldmine for audiophile classical records, usually in pristine shape Yeah I've got staaacks of fantastic LP's that I paid coffee money on. I mean, there's no doubt I'd get a better quality recording off my tidal subscription, and I do use Tidal a lot, but there's something in the feel of handling the physical media and a giant album sleeve with pretty art and detailed liner/back notes that I can read while I lounge back on my couch that I enjoy too. Also I buy good CD's when I see those too, my 5cd carousel Technics CD player with a digital out to my Onkyo sounds great too. They're a good balance of awesome sound quality and still getting that, *get off the couch and interact with your music and a neat piece of tech* vibe
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 23:46
|
|
|
Mederlock posted:Yeah I've got staaacks of fantastic LP's that I paid coffee money on. I mean, there's no doubt I'd get a better quality recording off my tidal subscription, and I do use Tidal a lot, but there's something in the feel of handling the physical media and a giant album sleeve with pretty art and detailed liner/back notes that I can read while I lounge back on my couch that I enjoy too. Also I buy good CD's when I see those too, my 5cd carousel Technics CD player with a digital out to my Onkyo sounds great too. They're a good balance of awesome sound quality and still getting that, *get off the couch and interact with your music and a neat piece of tech* vibe it’s still amazing to me the level of sound quality they were able to get onto an LP pressed in the 1960s
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2022 23:56
|
|
|
I find it very interesting when I come across an old LP recording that was beautifully recorded and then mastered for vinyl that I struggle to hear the difference between it and the Tidal/CD rerelease of, and then finding other LP's from the time of the same piece and seeing how terrible either the recording or the master was. The quality was all over the place back then. Really shows that the quality floor has come up a lot these days, where your average podunk regional orchestra is putting out recordings that either match/exceed the masterfully done recordings of the past, or put average recordings from top tier orchestras of the past to shame.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2022 00:29
|
|
|
Mederlock posted:I find it very interesting when I come across an old LP recording that was beautifully recorded and then mastered for vinyl that I struggle to hear the difference between it and the Tidal/CD rerelease of, and then finding other LP's from the time of the same piece and seeing how terrible either the recording or the master was. The quality was all over the place back then. Really shows that the quality floor has come up a lot these days, where your average podunk regional orchestra is putting out recordings that either match/exceed the masterfully done recordings of the past, or put average recordings from top tier orchestras of the past to shame. alternatively it’s fascinating to find a beautiful old analog recording that either hasn’t been properly/legally digitized and rereleased or got a slipshod CD transfer job in the 80s/90s and nobody outside of like three music professors have since cared
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
Son of Ampzilla update For some reason it has 4 rubber feet on the back as well as 4 on the bottom so I just pulled 2 off the back to replace the 2 that were broken off the bottom. I was going to test it by hooking it to the pre outs of my CR620 yamaha but... it doesn't have preouts and I'm too lazy to unhook my marantz setup and use my 3200 preamp. So I just plugged my old 120gb ipod's line out harness into the inputs and hooked up 2 klipsch bookshelf speakers I got for $5 at a garage sale. The speakers are pretty low wattage so the needles are barely moving but the amp worked perfectly. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2022 23:48
|
|
|
my turn in the barrel posted:Son of Ampzilla update….. What a killer find. The backlights are even still working beautifully! Wicked jealous of this pickup.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2022 02:21
|
|
|
Brain Issues posted:What a killer find. The backlights are even still working beautifully! Wicked jealous of this pickup. Seriously. That thing’s a brick
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2022 02:30
|
|
|
my turn in the barrel posted:Son of Ampzilla update You can keep it, sell it as-is, or probably take a loss on recapping it (which I bet it needs).
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 14:22
|
|
|
Absolutely wild saga I just went through. Last year I snagged a Marantz 2270 with wooden case for $250 and a bunch of trade in records. I felt like I had scored the deal of the century. I searched around locally (I live in the Bay Area) for a tech that could recap the unit for me. I figured since I got a good deal on it, I might as well pay up to get it restored to its former glory. I found a guy, messaged him, and he booked me for April 1 this year. I had to wait 8 months to drop it off. Drop it off on April 1 with a $140 deposit. I ask him how much his services run and he says “oh I can’t really tell you until I open it up. It depends on how much work needs to be done.” Fine I think. I got a good deal on this. If it’s ~$1000 or so I can swing that. $1500 even. 4 months go by and I have to keep calling this guy to get a quote. He’s backed up he says. Covid has pushed back his timelines. Excuse after excuse. He finally called me this week to discuss a price. For a partial service he wanted $1500 for labor, $750 for parts. For a partial restoration he wanted $2000 for labor and $1200 for parts. I managed to get him to see how unreasonable it was for him to have kept the unit for 4 months without even giving me a ballpark of how much it would cost and got half of my deposit back. He said it was unreasonable to expect someone to work on it for less than $1000. AITA?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2022 01:05
|
|
|
strtj posted:You can keep it, sell it as-is, or probably take a loss on recapping it (which I bet it needs). I might pop it open and take a look at the caps but I don't believe in recapping solid state gear that is working fine. If it's not working due to a bad cap then it's probably worth sourcing all the caps or buying a kit but vintage hifi isn't like 2000s era PCs when the capacitor plague was in full swing. LooksLikeABabyRat posted:Absolutely wild saga I just went through. I had this exact same story. I wanted to raise some cash and decided to sell off some old hifi stuff. 2 of the items were high dollar and I hadn't powered them up in a decade so I decided I would pay the local "Hifi repair expert" to power them up on a variac and test them and give me an estimate. They charged me $40 each to give me estimates and said 3-4 week turntime. 4 months later they finally got back to me. The Sansui G9000 estimate said needs full restore $1600 The Fisher 400CX preamp estimate said needs full recap $800 When picked them up they said they were both in really bad shape but if I was trying to sell them they would help me out and give me $100 each. I could taste the bullshit and took them both home. Since they supposedly plugged them in with a variac and tested them I opened them up, blew the dust out and inspected all the caps. The guy I had purchased them from was my Hifi repair guy but had passed away. Turns out he had fully recapped them already before he sold them to me.... I plugged them in and both worked fine but needed some deoxit on their pots and switches. Most of the HiFi repair places are total scam artists who are hoping you either loaded and will pay an inflated price or that you don't realize what your gear is worth and will sell it to them for "parts". There are general vintage audio and brand specific Marantz/Pioneer/Sansui/Luxman etc... vintage hifi groups on facebook and reddit. Join a few groups and ask for recommendations in your area and see if any specific tech comes up multiple times in different groups. That's the one you want to take it to. You will likely also get plenty of people with the exact same experience with the tech you already tried. I did the same in a few groups looking for a tech near chicago and there is a tech named Casper that has a shop called Stereo Rehab that is apparently the only decent shop in my area. You may even find a member that is local that works out of their garage as a hobby which in your area might be one of the dudes who originally designed or assembled Marantz gear in the 70s. You can also double check yelp if you get several shops that are recommended to help you pick a winner.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2022 02:22
|
|
|
I understand that labor is a big chunk of the price (learning that firsthand as I teach myself how to do the work) but $750 for parts seems exorbitant. Sure, some stuff like a main transformer or some of the bespoke guts is gonna be hard to come by, but I've done a BOM on two different receivers for all electrolytic caps, filter caps, and a smattering of transistors that are known to have problematic failures over time... about $60-70 per receiver, give or take. Including filter caps. From Mouser, not some rando eBay listing. Haven't done it for my Marantz yet, so maybe there's more components than the JVC and Sherwood, and/or the values needed will be more expensive, but wow. A full list of needed repairs and preventative work is impossible without actually getting into the project, yes, that's understandable. But there should be at least some sort of initial estimate, plus maybe a guess on what commonly can be added to that as a very rough generalization. Sitting on a unit, silent, for months and months, and then coming back with a 4-figure estimate? Yeesh.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2022 21:14
|
|
|
Ok Comboomer posted:alternatively it’s fascinating to find a beautiful old analog recording that either hasn’t been properly/legally digitized and rereleased or got a slipshod CD transfer job in the 80s/90s and nobody outside of like three music professors have since cared I have like, 50-100+ military / concert band recordings that we inherited from a recreational music ensemble that we're members of, that was just going to throw them all out. Most of them fall into that category. Some really fun Sousa and Holst and all sorts of other little treasures are in there that I wasn't able to find the particular recording of. Perhaps I should do a capture of them at some point and put 'em on YouTube, but  As for Gear repairs, I'm about to set in on what seems like a fairly nice Yamaha AX-700U receiver from the 80's that I picked up a few months ago, now that I'm in-between jobs and need something to occupy myself. The unit turns on, but there's absolutely no sound that plays no matter which input or speaker terminal I use  I have 0 experience with electrical repairs, but cracking it open showed the main chonky capacitor's head blown out, and one or two of the transistors that were attached to the heatsink were blown right out in what was obviously a fiery blaze of magic smoke and flame.   As you can see... It's also very filthy. Any tips or tricks to this? First step is going to be blowing out and then cleaning everything with isopropyl alcohol (is that safe?), then mindless poking around every component with a multimeter pretending I know what I'm looking for. Then I'm going to try and source that transistor and capacitor and anything else that seems suspect or that doesn't test right. Should I consider doing a full recapping for this project? Or should I just replace the ones that look obviously broken? Is it even worth putting the money into a (reasonably nice) piece of BPC? Also, I do have a capacitor discharging pen because I don't want to be on the 6 o'clock news for being the latest idiot to kill myself playing with energized stuff. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2022 21:39
|
|
|
The Science Goy posted:I understand that labor is a big chunk of the price (learning that firsthand as I teach myself how to do the work) but $750 for parts seems exorbitant. Sure, some stuff like a main transformer or some of the bespoke guts is gonna be hard to come by, but I've done a BOM on two different receivers for all electrolytic caps, filter caps, and a smattering of transistors that are known to have problematic failures over time... about $60-70 per receiver, give or take. To be fair he was planning on refurbishing/replacing the power supply and really thoroughly going through it, but yeah. It was hard not to laugh.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2022 22:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 13:33 |
|
|
Behold it is I, poster of garbage. Sorry to bug you guys but pls. take a look at these. Am I crazy for thinking they sound surprisingly good?  Texas Rehabilitation, so I call them my Texas Justice speakers. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2022 00:18
|
|