I personally think a good juke full of great tunes is something every pinball room should have. I'm curious as to how many pinball collectors also have at least one Jukebox and do you also dabble in Jukebox restoration.

My jukebox collection happens to currently be larger than my pin collection (gotta rectify that)... I have (in order that we play them):
- Wurlitzer 3000
- NSM Nalstaga bubbler
- NSM Digital Thunder Wall mount
- Rockola cybersonic under counter and wallboxes.
- Seeburg bubber (piece of garbage I got just for the cabinet)

Any restoration horror stories? I recently brought a Seeburg Q160 back from the grave but there were so many plain scary things in there (speaker wires from the amp output to an electrical plug, etc) not to mention the nasty grime of spilled beer and cigarette ash that builds up lol.

How about before/after photos if you have restored something?

Dang Pintopia, nice collection! The Seeburg's do sound great stock, the Q160 had a really nice sound once finished.

It still couldn't touch the sound of my Wurlitzer 3000 though but its nowhere near stock. I modified the tone arm to accept a modern magnetic cartdridge and installed a rack mounted pre-amp inside that feeds the internal amp as well as external amplified speakers. The result is better than CD clarity on a good record.

Here is the seeburg before and after.

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Well since its a standard bubbler cabinet, I'm looking for donor guts from something with a garbage cabinet. At first I was going to try a Rockola mech (thus the under counter jukebox) but then I realized why Rockola changed the door design (to fit the mech). So it looks like my best bet is going to be an NSM jukebox. I've come to really like their CD mechs as they are fast and compact.

The Seeburg mech is not an option. I actually have all the parts but its such a garbage mech with a garbage board that it just makes you kind of ill. If anyone is curious I can take photos. The board itself works sometimes but errors out with a timer issue, I've replaced the timing chips and the so it's probably elsewhere. They used a standard Phillips commercial player so thats alright but their changer mech is the slowest on earth but thats not the worst part... The wierdest part of the setup is the fact that they used an off the shelf cheapo reciever (yeah Am/fm, tape, Cd) to run power to the system switched via the recievers switched ac outlet and hacked in a switch to CD (with option to switch to FM if no disk playing).

It's all very clever if it were a home hack job but bearing the Seeburg name and sold as a commercial machine it was just sad.

Wow toucan that little mini Rockola is about the coolest CD jukebox ever! Love the great 45 players. Truely works of art!

I hear the woosh and that doesn't sound right to me.

I think i can also hear the cardridge picking up some noise from the motor but thats way under the woosh sound.

I'm assuming you tested or replaced the tubes?

Does that amp have the auto leveling feature? Since the woosh comes in at queter parts it might be that circuit causing it (if it has it).

Magnetic cartridge installed in my 3000. I always meant to go back and clean up the mounting plate so it isn't noticable but just haven't gotten to that yet since were always listening to it lol.

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Yeah for some of the wallbox prices you could get a whole jukebox (unrestored that is), but I guess those are much more popular being that they can fit almost anywhere.

Internally that unit still has the moving player with a horizontal rack right?

From the Q160 i worked on, Basically the carriage motor goes into seach mode whenever the mechanical switch in the control box is on (it has two coils, a reset and a stepper so that when reset it will run until the stepper fires twice opening the circut). If it always runs right away I would first check that and see what is happening there. It is mechanical so could be gummed up, shorted or a coil could be bad.

As far as selecting every record i believe that is triggered by a signal from the one tube on the control unit (can't think of its name) but it basically detects a polarity change from the memory unit being scanned by the carriage and sends a pulse to a coil there which closes a switch triggering the record retrieval. Usually if this fails no record will be picked up so I would start by checking the pickup coil on the carriage and make sure all the leaf switches there are in proper adjustment.

Oh, and sorry if I'm wrong here but doesn't the carriage run based on a relay on the carriage as well? If your switch in the controller is working normally but the carriage is still running when the switch is open the run relay on the carriage may need to be looked at.

Sorry I'm not more specific, its been a couple years since I last worked on a seeburg and I don't have the manuals in front of me.

Nice! I have thought about building a touch juke as well but so far have not been satisfied with any of the touch based juke software out there. What do you find works good?

That 222 is a bueaty... Nearly got one a while back but the price was too high for me at the time.

Gryszzz... Once you get one that plays 45's then you get to have fun hunting 45's . Something else my Wife and I enjoy doing together. Were always looking for some great titles to change things up or a better copy of something we have that is well worn.

Good tip! That will defiantly help narrow things down.

I was also remembering how i one time had something similar that would occur whenever any selection was made. A wire had broken in the selector unit (buttons) and had hit ground. The result was that it would trip the memory unit for every single slot.

Here is the very first piece of Jukebox equipment I ever purchased (probably 15 years ago now).

I have never hooked it up so It's always been kind of an decorative piece for me.

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Thats a pretty cool looking cabinet. Not sure what it would be worth exactly but if I were looking for a project 100 seems reasonable, especially for something with a visible mech.

Bueatiful machine!

Thats a bueatiful machine there!

lol duplicate

The RockOla cybersonic (i think thats what they called them) has an aux audio input. What I would do is get a bluetooth reciever and hook that to the aux input.

Just playback from your phone connected via bluetooth. The amp will kick on when a signal is recieved and treat it as background/house audio. The jukebox's cd mech will take playback priority but it does a nice quck fade out/in.

It may require some config in the settings to enable. I think the aux audio also has a seperate volume control in the setup.

Indeed!

One fewer here now... sold my wall mount NSM to a buddy of mine. Already miss it, at least I get to visit still.

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Congrats!

Yesterday while working on shopping a game, we played our Wurlitzer 3000 all day long non-stop. Such a great machine!

Ran into a (but different) on a Seeburg Q160 the other day occasionally playing warbly (lol). Hex screw on the bracket holding down the automatic needle brush had loosened causing it to torq towards and sometimes coming into contact with the record edge.

Right on! Late spring nights are perfect for the jukebox. Way better than having the TV on.

Something I love about a 45 player you don’t get on a CD machine is that once you get your song selection dialed in you can play games like... lets just play everying on 3 or all J songs and it’s always a great mix!

I haven’t owned a 100-b before but assuming its similar to others I have:

There should be an RCA cable going from
the CD player controller board into to the amp. It sounds like the CD3 is dying which is super typical at this age.

You can find a mail in repair service for the player for less than the MP3 conversion.

Being that the payer is not visible in that box there’s nothing wrong with going MP3 and it will actually change tracks faster.. but it’s more of a hassle to organize and load songs.

Congrats! You may find the player needs to be rebuilt (seems every cd player I get does by the time it comes off route) but once running it should be rock solid for years.

It’s in storage currently while were moving but I have a Rockola cybersonic hideaway jukebox I may finally have a use for. It’s kind of a unique thing that I’m really looking forward to setting up.

I’m not sure on that particular machine but in general Jukeboxes without a visible player tend to be worth significantly less unfortunately. The good thing is that it does look to be in nice condition cosmetically.

Nice! I had a similar form factoe NSM (Digital Thunder). The sides did light up with mini florescents that were toast. I just removed all the old lighting stuff and ran some LED strips into the channels.

Great looking Seeburgs! Yeah the seeburg mech is quite a machine, really a marvel.

Question for those with multiple jukeboxes: Is there a good solution out there for managing playback through a single set of speakers or external amp with prioritization of source?

For 45 Jukeboxes parts can be found but for most Jukeboxes its a matter of finding used, repairing or making something. For the most part they are tanks though and manuals can be found which like early pinball manuals have tons of info on how to diagnose and service. Also like pinballs, many times issues are more a need for adjustments and cleaning, not parts replacement when it comes to the mechanical bits.

For that budget you can be a little picky. It’s probably not going to get into any highly desirable models but I bet you could find something stylish with a visible player that just needs a good cleanup, some adjusting and amp rebuild. If it doesn’t have a visible player in that budget I would expect something attractive, clean and fully working under budget.

As others mentioned lock the mech before moving. The manual will say how, often there is a locking bolt you can install.

I personally like the early stereo Jukeboxes. There they are still mostly electromechanical, setup for stereo, and there are a number of visible mech models to choose from.

The seeburg mech is a marvel and one of the funnest to watch. Once properly running also pretty reliable but I think the Wurlitzer mechs in the same era also great and easier to work on. I love my Wurlitzer 3000.

That thing almost looks like it was meant to mount on a wall. Is it?

Edit: nevermind I see the rest of it now lol.

Second that with A&B. I’m lucky enough have a spare CD pro on hand but they are getting harder to find.

Not really a good option for players with visible mechs but has anyone tried one of those cdadaptor kits?

WOW! Thats a big collection!

Well.... duh.

Depends on your room, speaker arrangement and music selection. Back when stereo was new artists really tried to leverage it and it can make a difference there. Most of the time you probably wouldn’t notice a difference and many times Jukeboxes on location are set to mono anyway.

I say if it sounds awesome in mono keep it like that.

If it does end up bugging you....

You can try plugging in another source to rule out the player too.

Also, does that model have the equalizer board separate from amp? If so might be worth looking at.

I think with the stereo/mono mode it combines the signal ahead of the amp so if you have both sides being driven in mono mode both of your amps channels are probably ok.

Boy thats a beautiful box that I’m sure someone can make really shine. I can’t ever see myself keeping anything like that even though the mech is cool. I just like 100+ record players personally. Even then I’m always torn when it comes to what to remove when a new record comes in.

Nice! I’m a fan of the NSM wall mount CD players. I keep buying them thinking I’m going to use the mech for a project I’m working on but never have the heart to gut them and after keeping for a while before theY go to others who also cherish them.

Suckers are heavier than they look tho.

I am not familiar with that model but if I were looking at it the symptoms would have me looking at the tone arm mounting and any adjustments available there. If things were offset I could see it starting somewhere in the middle then never reaching the end of record switch.

If you press the cancel button does it return ok?

That kind of setup works a lot better with CD Jukeboxes that have an aux / background music input built in.

Going thru the amp would be pretty problematic, but an automatic A/B speaker switch might work given a separate amp. Bluetooth streaming device to mini amp to auto A/B switch to speakers.

If I were to try it I might try this out: Russound AB32 Ab Selector https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000F239MY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_UE05Db2HDJ37Z

You’ll also need to be careful that your speaker setup for the juke is within the resistance range that whatever amp you use for your streamer can handle.

Anyone know of a NSM Amp repair service in the US? I have a NSM ES V.1 amp with the right channel out. It looks like there is a signal all the way through but unamplified. Left channel is fine and the line out on the aux board has a good signal from both channels.

Or if anyone else has experienced something similar, do you have an area on the amp I should focus on first?

Isn’t the Rocklola label manufactured by Antique Apparatus? It might depend on when it was built.

Also NSM made a CD jukebox in the bubbler style and those are solid too, although the mech a little less interesting to watch, they to change disks a lot faster.

Whatever you do, avoid Seeburg for the classic CD bubbler. I have one and its an absolute disaster. Currently gutting the cabinet and putting in NSM guts.

Sorry for the delay, for sure. Its a bit sad how a name like Seeburg ended up in the end.

So the mech is a rotisserie kind of like rowes mechs except they use a sliding tray to convey the disk to the player.

The piece de resistance is the Technics receiver used for the amp. They hacked into the main board of the reciever so the jukebox controller would make sure it was turned on and optionally switch to the FM radio when a disk was not playing.

I only ever got the juke to play once (error codes with the controller board). Disk selection and pickup was incredibly slow. Oh yeah.... considering it used just off the shelf receiver, there was no speaker transformer nor 70 volt.

Amazingly they actually used a CD Pro player which I saved... maybe I’ll also use the reciever as a garage radio, who knows. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
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A couple more photos (closeup of the circuit board) and the manufactures badge. It appears to be Seeburg International out of Chicago.

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Yeah sure does. The cabinet is a standard bubbler cabinet as only one company makes those and supplies all of the jukebox manufacturers.

So it should work out retrofitting in an NSM.

I can’t remember where I saw it, I want to say it was a TV program but could have been a deep trail of links from years ago. My understanding was that they owned a copyright for the design. I imagine they may still be since I still see the same basic design with a slightly modified door to accommodate touchtunes.

Thats a pretty sharp looking jukebox. I love the art for what it is.

Yeah, a pinball you can relatively easily disassemble and move in pieces which makes the basement stairs far easier but a jukebox is another animal.

It took three of us to get my jukebox into the basement and we had to take off the stair railing to do it, but my stairs have a U-turn in the middle making it exceptionally challenging. I still wonder how we managed to do it.

Most older amps are at a point where they need to be re-capped if they haven’t been already. I know there used to be places you could get cap kits but its been a while.

I always enjoy finding money in machines I pick up. At most I’ve only ever found a few bucks tucked away in nooks and crannies, but I don’t trust anything without at least a quarter or two lurking around.

Does the jukebox have a “background music” input. You can put a streaming device inside and plug it in to the standard RCA ports. I’ve done this even for CD jukes that work just because its nice sometimes to just have them playing and with a selection the CD overrides the background.

Otherwise, maybe you can find a conversion for your model here:
http://www.cdadapter.com/

Boy thats a bueatiful machine!

Awesome project, thanks for the writeup! Not at all unthinkable, if the mech is hidden, it does not matter what does the actual playing.

I would say pretty much all the 60’s 45 jukeboxes are tanks and Seeburg or Wurlitzer are great in that era. You might want to get one with a stereo amp, especially if you plan on having satellite speakers, but mono jukes sound great too.

For a 45 jukebox the main thing I like is a visible player of some sort. Late 60’s is the band of models with both a visible player and stereo.

I personally love my Wurlitzer 3000. It’s completely electromechanical (other than the amp), was one of the last with a visible mech and is stereo. The stock amp isn’t the best sounding but I run a line out for some external amplified speakers which fill in the very nicely and it sounds wonderful like that.

Whatever you find consider how you like the look, research the amp (some are better than others, but most can be upgraded) and don’t be afraid of a little work if its complete.

Fortunately Jukeboxes are much more affordable than pins, but they can get pricy as well.

Agree with the others. You should be able to find that model for 500ish in complete condition and sorta working. I got my 300 complete but not working for 100. Fortunately it didn’t take much to get working.

I usually buy from Jameco or Mouser. With caps you want the same capacity. Voltage can be anything the same as or higher than original. When looking at the original caps you may have to do some conversion of scale between micro, mega, etc. to find what you need. Basically same rules apply as when replacing caps of anything else.

Sometimes a reputable seller on ebay is worth saving some of that time/effort. You may still need to get an odd cap or two (and/or have one or two left over) as often kits are assembled to support a series of amplifiers.