This joint needs some more vintage hifi

[dudeinaroom]

I've done one of those pilots and had a Fisher like that on my bench last week(500c)

[dudeinaroom]

Have a Lafayette on the bench waiting for dexoit to come in.

[mhardy6647]

neat!

I have a set of Realistic Nova 6B that I picked up with my new (to me) Pioneer SA-708 TX-608 combo...
Since my speaker count has crept up as of late I'm not sure if I'll put the work into rewiring these - trying to sell them on right now. They would make a great basis for a frankenspeaker too - the cabinets are solid and you could probably find some interesting drivers to test out of the Parts Express catalog!

heh. my speaker count crept up a long time ago :-(

In terms of Frankenspeakers - have you seen the "Econowaves" project at www.audiokarma.org (there was also an article on the subject in Make magazine a year or so ago).

[cnh]

Those guys over at AK will Econowave ANYTHING! They are a little nutty, sometimes, IMO!

Speaker count. I have two closets full of speakers waiting for attention. Am I going to move some "soon", maybe? But what is it that they say about what is the "spice of life"?

cnh

[dudeinaroom]

I loved quad sound way back when. I vividly remember a friend playing the bells from "Dark Side of the Moon" on his car quad system. The sound was racing around the car and we were all in a, shall we say, very receptive state for sonic overload.

Have DTS-CD of that that was transferred from a quad recording. I prefer the stereo vesion, more realistic representaion of the 360 sound out of just a pair of SDAs. The quad recording just did not have the same fluidity too it.

[mhardy6647]

The quad mix is quite a bit different than the stereo mix.
I - somewhat inexplicably - bought a German quad LP version back in the day.

[schwarcw]

A few photo's of my good friend Larry and Polkie (Analog97) his Fisher console. Notice the Ampex reel to reel!!

[tonyb]

Hot damn Carl, thats about the sweetest console I've ever laid eyes on. Very nice.

Would look dynamite in a nice cherry finish.

[mhardy6647]

That is a nice, and seldom seen, Fisher integrated!

[schwarcw]

Hot damn Carl, thats about the sweetest console I've ever laid eyes on. Very nice.

Would look dynamite in a nice cherry finish.

It's the biggest console that I ever ever seen in person. The console is still in excellent condition and will look nice even with the best furniture. It's made from great wool with a very nice vaneer. First class build quality! The console is very long! It is also filled with OEM Telefunken tubes!!

[Clint77]

I have a x-10 where do you get new belts from ?

[wkjeffers]

awesome pics.

[ErasmusBDragon]

very tasteful

[mhardy6647]

Amber. She's not quite as old as some of the other girls we've seen in this thread, but she's comely - and she looks great topless.

[EndersShadow]

^that she does. Is this one of yours or one your fixing for someone?

[mhardy6647]

Erstwhile mine. I passed it along to a fellow hifi buff over at audioasylum when his preamp defecated the bed and was out of service for a protracted time period for repairs :-)

[EndersShadow]

Gotcha, that is one I would show off myself as it just looks good. I think its the silver board rather than the normal black..... now if only it had tubes to boot

[dudeinaroom]

[tx_polkhead]

Recently I got my hands on a 'Harman Kardon 730 Twin Powered' to upgrade a Harman Kardon 330B that I've only had for a few months. The 730 was a mess, dirty and dusty, and that was the outside, inside this thing was just as dirty and the sound was questionable. Every dial had static and cracks, most of the buttons would stick half way between on and off. Opened her up, dusted her out and lubed her up and she is singing now. The SDA CRS+'s are at 100db with the volume knob at about 1/3! The bass is is deep and bold, the art work on the bedroom walls was rattling. At 30lbs this HK means business. I may have to drag the RTA 12C's from the living room to the bedroom and see what they sound like with the 730.

[tx_polkhead]

Topless pic, built like a tank!

[mhardy6647]

Nice machine - good sounding amplifier and good sounding tuner too.

I have a kind of sad-looking hk430 - it'd be nice to have a nice one... and nicer still to have an hk730! :-)



EDIT: d'oh, I guess I sort of posted this already :-p
Well, at this point, I'll just note the motley little hk menagerie on the middle shelves - the aforementioned hk430 abutting an hk790i, which is itself topped with an hk A402 integrated amp. The next shelf up has a modest but very pleasant (probably under-appreciated, in this day and age) hk330i on it.

[mhardy6647]

I know what this thread needs... transistor power...

[Polkersince85]

Just the thought of 26 transistors and 10 diodes gives me the tingles.

[mhardy6647]

'specially since (I think) they were germanium transistors!

[mrbigbluelight]

AA-21C. 35 watts/channel of power from 26 transistors and (most importantly) 10 diodes !
Not 6. Not 8. No, 10 diodes !!
That is, of course, how they managed to get a full 50 watts/channel rating out of the ever-so-conservative Institute of High Fidelity.

.... I'm still going to slobber over it. I need more.

[mhardy6647]

50 watts (stereo) IHF is probably ca. 17-20 wpc per the FTC regulation of 1974.

[mhardy6647]

... more from '64...

It wasn't quite too late for tubes, although of course the hip, happenin' techno-geeks were goin' solid state, big time...

[cnh]

My knowledge of transistors and such began and ENDED in 8th grade shop, not my "favorite" class because you had to BUILD things and I just did not care about that as a 13 year old, there were MORE important things to think about if you get what I mean. Thirteen year old male?

My first exposure to the "transistor" came by way of my FIRST audio device. A good old Taiwanese 10 transistor AM radio that could even get WABC from NYC! I was maybe 10 years old? The advertising back then "pushed" portable radios that had the "greatest number of transistors". So we all ran around and tried to find more of them figuring that "more" was better than "less". This sums up my VAST knowledge on the subject which is next to nothing.

I don't know if I was old enough, or rather "aware" enough to actually note any transition from "tubes" to "transistors"! But I do remember all those Philco TVs my father bought that required a repairman with a tool box of tubes to, OMG, make a house call to repair the set. Which usually meant replacing some TUBES! lol

Carry on, Technophiles!

cnh

[mhardy6647]

My father was that repairman :-) ... and I have his tube caddy. Unfortunately, since he repaired TVs (mostly), it's full of things like 33GY7s and 3A3s. Not much help for hifi.

In his earlier days, though, he was a broadcast engineer.
Here he is with an Ampex 600 reel to reel recording a remote broadcast. Baltimoreans (and perhaps some Californians) may recognize the man with the microphone (and, in fact, might even recognize the guy on the right).

[Kenneth Swauger]

Here's a classic Garrard Type A turntable with a Shure M3D cartridge that I repaired recently. I had to do a motor transplant, replace the RCA cables, overall cleaning and lubrication and had the drive idler replaced by Terry's Rubber.
Enjoy, Ken