Pioneer SX oldschool receivers was my jam back in the day. The polished stainless steel fronts and bouncing power meters was the shit. You can feel the power.

I just love the old receivers with the knobs instead of the new crap with a remote that's needed to adjust all the settings and if ya loose the remote your up shit creek. The old ones were great to look at too, real works of art. I'll have to look for mine.

I have the Pioneer SX-1250. It's a freakin tank, takes two people to move it. Although it's power full, it isn't the best sounding one I have. My two rebuilt Marantz receivers (2230, 2270) sounds soooooooooo warm and inviting. Playing vinyl on a Technics 1650 (best changer ever made) though the 2270 over a pair of HPM 150s is magic.

I grew up on the end of cassettes (early 2000's), and recently went back to them (purchasing ones that cater to my up-to-date music taste though of course, no kids music like back then) and "use" a select few daily in my car for real legitimate listening. They sound amazing - much better than all that compression using phone adapters and whatnot. I love them. I've probably gone through three of my favorite usual tapes a hundred times now on car rides, long or short. Very loud...

I've been looking for a good turntable for the pinball basement for a while now to no avail. Used to be able to find okay cheap old stuff at thrift stores, those days seem to be long gone now. Now it's either expensive new stuff or expensive old stuff. I just want a $30 beater, no need for audiophile stuff for my basement. If I can make the room, might just get a jukebox. I have my grandparent's amazing complete stereo upstairs wired into the basement and if I want to hook it up eventually I have a really high-end movie theater receiver from the late 90's I got off of Craigslist for $20 two years or so ago.

I don't use the seperate amp, receiver, cassette deck or the eq anymore, they're in storage. The speakers are JBL 4311B Studio Monitors

Guess it's time to take some pics.

Ok have some pictures form what i call my junkyard of hifi sadly my biggest receiver currently is there until i get to fixing it or drop the big bucks for a restoration. When you have 9+ receivers and enough sound processing equipment various reverbs,equalizers etc for a new one each day of the week and too many speakers it breaks i just shelve it.

Current gear in the junkyard is follows

Sansui Qrx-3000
Sansui Qr-6500
Dennon Avr-2500
Technics Sa-400
Yes the stereo gods will be mad my
Sansui Qrx-9001 The Quad monster of the 70's

Working gear

Sansui 350a on bench in pinball work room
Sansui 5000 main amp 1st floor
Allied 490 basement amp along with my newest one got form original owner who bought new in the 70s
Pioneer Sx-828
These two are in my current quad setup using an outboard decoder.

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The new stuff they make is amazing. Just buy one of those tables for $150 and you will be good to go with what you want to do with it.

I still have a love/hate relationship with tapes. They can sound amazing, but they degrade and can also sound like shite for no reason.

I have a Marantz 2245 and a Pioneer SX850. Those are connected to Polk Monitor 10 speakers that I rebuilt. Great sound for the gameroom.

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I rebuilt my Cerwin Vega D-9s last year. I'm looking for a monster receiver, mine is only 120 wpc. That will drive them up pretty good. Still have my lps and a Sherwood linear turntable.
Sputnik

I also go back to vinyl and i have a little vintage set up...

Sony STR-7055 receiver
Kenwood LS-408 speaker
Technics SL-1200 mk3 turntable

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For better or for worse my Zenith Allegro console.

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I have a Yamaha CR-820 and some Boston A150 speakers I was trying to sell, if anyone is interested. The speakers need resealed. The receiver is beautiful. lights work. There is a small probably cigarette burn on the top, probably 1/4" dia spot. I have the box and the manual for the receiver. Unfortunately I accidently threw out the styrophone packing. I'd like $250.00 for all. If interested, shoot me a PM for more information. I would prefer not to ship. I would donate to pinside if I sold through here.

But are you old enough to remember having an under dash record player in your car. My older brother had one in his '65 Mustang. I thought was sooooo cool at the time.

My other hobby not related to pinball is the restoration/repair of vintage audio equipment. In my present collection, I have restored/repaired:

Yamaha C-80 Preamplifier
Yamaha M-80 Amplifier
Magnepan MG-I speakers (these were fun to rebuild, tedious but fun. These sound absolutely amazing!)
Carver TFM-15 Amplifier
Carver PM-900 Amplifier (just finished)

Looking for other equipment now as I've run out of projects. Typically look over eBay and a few other Audophile sites for classifieds.

I am a late convert. They offer a nice punch of power in a small package and do sound wonderfull when they are recapped.

Ummm, was not born yet. In the late fifties, Chrysler had optional record player. Ford sold a Rotunda or a Philco unit to be added at the dealership. Vintage cars usually had just 1 speaker. The Ford unit did not fair well on bumpy roads. Hot cars in the summer were also poor storage areas for vinyl records. Please correct me if I have the facts wrong, as none of my family had record players in their cars.

8 Tracks had 4 channels. 1 thru 4. Cassettes like records have sides.

Now where are the reel to reel units?

I have my parents Sony TC-255 reel to reel in pieces right now. The parts are in. I just haven't picked them up yet.

My Mom's Dad was a preacher and used to record church services with this player to be played on the radio. I'm excited to hear them and convert them to digital.

There's a local flea market that has one of these and it sounds so good. It's a consignment and the store owner said the owners decided against selling it. He played it for me though. I should make an offer.

I might go pick up an RCA dual cassette recorder this weekend. I've got a few cassettes but no player right now.

If you're looking for a record player you might have to modify your search.

Consoles are usually pretty cheap because they take up so much space. But if you like the look of wood grain (like I do) they usually sound pretty good and provide some good storage.

Portable players also work really well. A couple weeks ago Dad pulled a Symphonic portable unit out of the closet. It was one like he had as a kid. He got it a long time ago but never played it. They look like a briefcase with a handle and lid.

He cleaned the case up with some bleach cleaner put an old flapper record we had never heard before and it started right up. It sounded great for such a little thing.

Do you think it's a question of pairing it with the right speakers? Does volume have anything to do with it? I imagine more powerful receivers would work better when pushed harder.

My stuff isnt that old but its some nice high end late 80s equipment.

Adcom series one GTP 350 preamp tuner
Adcom series one GFA 545 amp
Rotel RDV 1060
Dalquist DQ12s

Stuff still plays as good as the first day I bought it.

The thickness of the tape in 8 track was its best feature. Hardy tape compared to the cassette.

I was recently given a pair of Magnepan MG1's. The Magneplanar series began life in roughly 1976 (give or take). This revolutionary design used a mylar sheet with the voice coils attached to it, backed by many individual bar magnets. If you don't know about them, here's a good link that provide some basic info - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnepan

I remember these from my college days and was always fascinated by the nature of how the sound was produced. The gentleman that gave these to me said that they were given to him but he didn't even know if they worked. He gave them to me because I immediately knew what they were (upon seeing them in his sign shop) and that I knew how to repair them if needed. They are now in my shop after being restored. Some pics follow:

3rd is the crossover (pretty simple)
2nd pic is showing both the mid/bass coil (on the left) and the tweeter coil (on the right). Take note of the crusty stuff around the loop ends. That is corrosion on the aluminum wires used for the coils.
1st pic shows more corrosion damage

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The red stuff you see coating the wires is a 3M product Magnepan used back in the day to help prevent corrosion. Obviously, after 40 years the coating has failed in placed. After checking these I discovered that both speakers did not work at all (either set of coils). A thorough visual inspection revealed numerous breaks and missing sections of wire. Since this wire is aluminum there is no real way to make a mid-span splice/repair. The only way to restore these speakers is to remove the old coils and replace them. This requires using Acetone to breakdown/remove the old 3M product. The difficult part is the fact these wires are bonded to a mylar sheet and great care must be taken to prevent punching holes in it thus complicating the repair/restoration.

1st pic shows the speaker panel ready for restoration
2nd, 3rd & 4th pic shows using an acid brush to apply the Acetone (sometimes lifting the wire and getting under it)
1st pic you can actually see some of the tweeter broken in many spots

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It takes a while but you finally get all of the 3M product off and you can see the mylar underneath. In fact, in the first pic you can see the clear mylar and the bar magnets (left of the acid brush). Unfortunately, after removing all of the wires and 3M junk, I did find some holes in the mylar. These can be repaired by using mylar tape (Scotch brand by 3M) and some spray adhesive as the glue on the tape is not strong enough to stay bonded to the surface during the vibrations of the music.

1st pic shows cleaned area for tweeter and bar magnets
2nd & 3rd pics show tears that need to be repaired
4th pic show the panel all cleaned and holes repaired. Note that you can see through the mylar to the wires hanging off my shop wall.

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I had previously finished restringing both voice coils on the first speaker. the coils are held in place using 3M Super 77 adhesive. I started with the tweeter coil (32 gauge aluminum wire) and sprayed a coating of the Super 77 in the tweeter section. Once the Super 77 becomes tacky (knuckle test - adhesive doesn't stick to knuckle), I started laying down the tweeter wire being careful to keep the wire centered between the magnets. I left approximately 1 ft of wire on both ends so that I would have plenty of "slack" to work with.

1st pic shows tweeter run and masking tape holding the "tails" in place (white stuff is the Super 77 adhesive)
2nd pic shows the use of an old fuse to assist in making the 180 degree turns to start another run

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Next, is running the mid/bass wire (22 gauge coated aluminum wire). Basically the same procedure as for setting the tweeter wire; spray some Super 77 down, wait for tackiness and begin placing the wire. This one however is a bit trickier as the wires have to lay side-by-side during the long runs but must lay on top of one another on the loops. Also, care must be given when forming the 180 degree turn to keep the end from curling up and away from the mylar. I found that by twisting the wire (toward the mylar) as I made the turn kept the wire flatter. Once the first run is completed, you need to bring the end back around to the beginning and do it again.

1st pic shows the first run of the mid/bass wire
2nd pic shows both mid/bass runs completed alongside the tweeter wire

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Once the new runs have been allowed to set in the adhesive, you need to apply the 3M NF30 (Milloxane) sealant. Although the can sent by Magnepan had a small brush applicator included I decided to use a 1" foam brush for applying the sealant. I applied two light coats, waiting 12 hours between each one. Light coats is the key here as you want the mylar to remain flexible.

While these were drying I decided to work on the crossover network. I had ordered some replacement capacitors as I assumed the existing ones would be dried out after 40 years and the values changed. Just for grins, after removing the caps, I tested them on my little component tester. Yep, confirmed; both capacitors were definitely way out of spec. They were supposed to be 12mfd and tested out as roughly 38mfd; definitely changing the bandwidth of the circuit.

I also decided to replace the "connection block" (nothing more than some connector rings riveted to the mounting plate) with something a bit more forgiving to work with. The old connections were made using silver solder due to the dissimilar metals being used (copper wires, copper connectors and aluminum wires). Although I was trained in the Navy on how to solder to aluminum with silver solder, the process is not easy and I'm far out of practice. All pieces to be soldered need to be scrupulously clean and heated to the right temperature. I made one attempt and decided on a better method. I substituted a standard screw terminal connection block. All wires/component wires were sanded clean, dipped in No-Ox-ID (to prevent oxidation/corrosion) and then placed into the block.

1st pic shows entire panel coated with Milloxane
2nd pic shows original crossover network with connections
3rd / 4th pic shows tested value of old capacitors
5th pic shows new connection block with new capacitor

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Here is a list of equipment I bought in Dec 1979. That I still occasionally use.
Dual CS606, with a Ortofon ULM cartridge.
Sherwood Receiver S-7250.
Sound Shaper Two, Mark II equalizer.
TEAC A-103 Cassettte, recording feature stopped working.

Have upgraded everything except the turntable.

Great series of posts. That's a lot of work.

Sounds tonight.

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I was tempted to pick up one of the 23xx ones, to get some more power. However, after awhile I realized I didn't need any power and the 22xx models were fine enough. Even my 2230 can crank it pretty good.

I've always been tempted to try tubes...

I mostly use tubes on the digital media. I think it warms up the music to a vinyl/analog sound. The Mc Intosh is solid state and I run the Thorens turntable into it. The Macs and records are warm enough, imho.

I have two Marantz rigs with one being the monster 4400. Pics tomorrow. Cool post!