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One of my best friends in high school had one of these. It was an amazing deck.

It's a "got-into-hifi-in-the-1970s" thing.

If you didn't, you wouldn't understand…

 

Gotta love classic Yamaha gear!

I want these speaker terminals on my Yamaha. Plug-and-Play supplier not making my layout yet, and I'm not willing to pay to have someone do this manually, so we wait…

So…I did a thing today. 😁 And yes…when all was said and done, IT LIVES! (Color me surprised!)

When I got this 1200MK2 turntable a couple years ago, it came wired with a European electrical plug with a US adapter tacked on. Being the anal-retentive bitch that I am, that wouldn't do. So I ordered a US cord (basically a meter-long extension cord that I cut the end off of) and replaced it. Sadly, I failed to take into account how much of the cable was actually inside the turntable, and the resulting length of the cord was much less than I would've liked, making it difficult to plug into my power strip.

When I pulled the entertainment center out from the wall a couple weeks ago to do some long-overdue cable maintenance, I decided it was time to do something about it. Despite my soldering skills being that of a six-year-old, I felt it was necessary to dive back into the guts of the machine and make this right.

While perusing YouTube later that day, I happened across a video that showed how replace the power cord with a socketed version and another that showed how to install an adapter that allowed you to use any signal cables instead of the mediocre OEM ones that came with the turntable.

I conferred with my friend John (an expert on Technics turntables), showed him the video, and verified he thought this was something I could do myself. (It wasn't rocket science, but with my soldering skills I was naturally nervous.)

Two weeks and about $85 (not counting shipping) later, I had the parts.

The process was surprisingly simple, even with my abilities. (TBH I've seen a lot of electronics repair videos since I initially swapped the power cord on this table so I now knew what mistakes to avoid.) In total, both swaps took about 45 minutes; a lot of that time being taken up with disassembly and reassembly of the table itself. And dare I say it, the new audio cables (nothing special; the same cables I have connecting everything else in my system) I bought for this project actually do improve the sound. (I never thought I'd find myself saying that cables improve sound, but here we are…)

If you've got a SL-1200/1210 MK2/3/4/5 (basically anything prior to the MK7) and hate the original Technics cables, this is a surprisingly easy and recommended project. You can order yours here.

When we last left our illustrious hero, he had taken his set of Technics Micro Components to Prescott to be serviced.

I will be the first to admit that—at least for me—eBay is the work of the Devil. While I loved the Technics SL-1300Mk2 turntable that I'd had for over nearly 20 years and was still working without a hitch, I suffered from ongoing SL-1200Mk2 envy. (For those of you who don't know, the 1200Mk2 models, aka "Wheels of Steel" have been the go-to turntable for DJs for the last forty years, and for the longest time were just about the only direct-drive turntables remaining on the market.) I checked the 1200Mk2 auctions periodically over the years, kicking myself when I had the means and opportunity to buy one new in 2004 but neglected to, but it seemed that the ones being posted were obviously DJ workhorses and had definitely seen better days. Call me crazy, but I like my audio equipment to look as good as it sounds.

But shortly after the fire and we had settled into our new abode, I spied an auction for a 1200Mk2 that supposedly had only seen home use. It was flawless. Knowing how quickly these units disappeared from circulation, I threw caution to the wind and put in my bid. I won the auction.

It arrived, packed for the ages. Shipping turntables is always fraught with danger, but it was obvious the seller knew what he was doing, and it arrived in pristine condition. And pristine it definitely was. My faithful 1300Mk2 was packed up and put in the closet.

As expected, it took Randy nearly a year to get to the repairs on the Technics Micro Compoents, and while the power amp did have a small issue upon its return, he quickly addressed the issue and got it working as expected.

After that one final repair, I got everything home, hooked the units back up, and while they worked fine, after having lived with the more powerful and frankly more robust Kenwood 6600, they failed to wow me in the way I'd been hoping the would after the restoration. I disconnected everything, put the Technics units into closet, and reconnected the Kenwood.

In May 2022, on a whim, I did jumped into Satan's playground once again and performed a search for the venerable Kenwood KR-7400 receiver that I'd been so happy with for over a decade. I wasn't unhappy with the 7600 by any means, but I just wanted to see if there were any 7400s available. Turns out there was one, which was kind of a rare occurrence. The unit was described as "Powers On. Dial lights out, but no sound from tuner." The unit was absolutely mint in appearance, however. Knowing now that Randy had the skills to get these beasts-of-a-bygone-era working again, I figured it was worth the $150 that the seller was asking for it, justified the purchase as an early birthday present to myself, and a week later it arrived on my doorstep.

The seller's description was accurate. It did power up. The tuning knob was loose, and it didn't spin effortlessly across the dial. The dial lights were burnt out and I got nothing but static from the tuner. The inside was filthy, and the veneered end panels had seen better days, but other than the end panels, it was cosmetically mint. Kind of disappointed that I couldn't just swap this unit in to use while the 6600 was with Randy, I decided instead to use my place in line to give him the 7400 to work on instead.

I got it back in February of last year and as you can tell, it was stunning:

He wasn't able to address the loose tuning knob or the fact that it wouldn't spin effortlessly across the dial the way my previous 7400 had done, and the LED I'd asked him to use in the stereo indicator light (as had likewise been the norm on my old 7400) seemed way too bright, but everything worked, and it sounded good. It worked well enough that I took the 7600 up to him for any service it might require.

After we moved last spring, all the little issues with this 7400 started wearing on me, and quite frankly, it just didn't sound as good as it's younger sibling that was now up in Prescott. Knowing it would probably be a year before work was completed, in September I said fuck it and called Randy and told him I wanted to get the 6600 receiver back as-is. No problem, he said.

And once I got it back, I verified that indeed, it wasn't just my imagination that it sounded better than the 7400.

So the 6600 was the centerpiece of my system until just last month. Seeing ads for, and watching YouTube reviews of the new Yamaha amps and receivers kind of got me; I caught the bug. I would've loved to buy a new Yamaha R-N100A receiver, but I just couldn't justify the $1800 expense. As good as my Kenwood 6600 sounded, it was still missing something, and once I dove back into the world of Yamaha, I knew what it was: that Yamaha sound. Remember the Yamaha A-700 amp I bought new in 1986 and then replaced in 2001 after foolishly selling my original unit? Well, shortly after Thanksgiving I once again  found myself on eBay…

To be honest, I'd looked more than just a few times over the past couple years for an A-700, but each time all the units being offered were pretty beaten up. But when I looked again this time, there was a unit up for sale that looked like it had just rolled off the factory floor…and supposedly had no issues. (Not surprising, considering Yamaha build quality.) I thought long and hard before I hit the "Buy It Now" button, but I justified it by telling myself I could sell the now fully-restored Kenwood 7400 to recoup the expense. At the same time I picked up a matching Yamaha T-1 tuner:

So now my system consists of the Yamaha A-700 integrated amp, T-1 tuner, a Yamaha CD-S303 CD player, Technics SL-1200Mk2 turntable (with an Ortofon Blue cartridge), and a pair of JBL 166 Horizon loudspeakers. And with retirement looming, this is undoubtedly my last stereo system…and I'm okay with that. When I can actually just sit down and listen, (no other distractions) it's pure bliss.

I have to apologize for this latest series of posts; in finding the links to insert I realized that I've written about all this—or at least most of this—before.

I'm old.

Upon arriving back in Phoenix in 2002, I lived with my Dad for a year while I found work and put money away to move into my own place. When I did get moved into my own place, I was almost immediately hit with the cancer diagnosis and was summarily let go from the contracting job I'd been at for the previous nine months.

This of course caused a tremendous financial strain and forced some tough decisions while I was undergoing treatment and scraping by on unemployment. (Looking back on it now, I'm thankful I wasn't working during the treatment because I never would have been able to keep that job because of the effect the radiation had on me.)

It was obvious I was going to have to sell some of my audio equipment. Both my mom and dad offered to give me the equipment I'd given them over the past couple years; an offer I readily accepted. And as much as I would've loved to have kept my Yamaha gear, keeping my mom's Pioneer amp and tuner for my own use and selling the Yammies and Dad's Technics receiver made more financial sense. I sold one of the 1300MK2 turntables as well as the Technics Micro Components. Between this and the generosity of friends and family, I was able to stay afloat until the treatments were long behind me and I'd actually started working again in the spring of 2004.

Two years later, I was again solvent enough that I had some "play money" in my budget. It was then that I picked up a receiver I'd longed for since initially getting into this hobby—the one my friend Gary had let me use some twenty five years earlier—a Kenwood KR-7400.

Three months after acquiring the Kenny, I was visiting my friend Lee (whom I'd given my Infinity 1001A loudspeakers to—the ones I'd bought upon graduating high school.)

They weren't connected to anything. He was using them as plant stands. I offered to buy them back, but instead he simply gave them to me. The veneer on one had lifted from water damage, and the surround on the subwoofer had disintegrated, but otherwise both still worked.

After returning home, I sanded the top down, and realizing the veneer had been damaged beyond repair, I ordered some black oak vinyl and resurfaced both speakers. I replaced the grille cloth and sent the damaged woofer out to be refoamed. Once I got that back and put everything back together, the sound was as good as I'd remembered it. I sold the tiny Cambridge Soundworks satellites/subwoofer system I'd been using.

There's no denying I liked the sound of the Kenwood. I liked it so much in fact that it stayed with me to Denver and back, through a less-than-ideal LED dial light swap, and was in continuous use until 2018 when—feeling nostalgic—I picked up a another set of the Technics Micro Components as a birthday gift to myself.  In a fit of madness, I didn't bother retrieving the Kenwood from the house after the fire, leading me to pick up another one last year (but I'm getting ahead of myself).

The Infinity loudspeakers were retired for good in 2000, shortly before the fire. They were replaced by a pair of JBL 166s that absolutely blew them away. The Ininitys were in storage until a few months ago when I finally ripped the bandage off and took them to Goodwill. I thanked them profusely for all the good memories and four decades of service and relinquished them back into the universe.

The year after the fire was obviously an emotional one, and Ben and I both gave each other great latitude when it came to spending. The Technics Micro Components, the SL-1300MK2 turntable, and the JBL loudspeakers had been saved from the fire, but I'd grown weary of the sound, and found myself wishing that I'd held on to the Kenwood.

I went on eBay and the only ones available were pretty beat up. I got to thinking what about the KR-7600, the model that replaced the 7400 the following year? None of those either, but there were a couple KR-6600s available, one of which—while not having been completely recapped—had just been serviced otherwise and looked minty fresh. At around $300, it was a steal. I bought it.

I did want it recapped, however, so that meant locating a tech who was familiar with vintage gear. My search led me to Randy in Prescott (about a ninety minute drive north from Phoenix). The Kenwood worked great so it wasn't a priority, and—not having any experience with this guy—didn't want to entrust him with my newly acquired toy without first making sure he knew what he was doing.

So I had him service the Technics Micros.

[to be continued]

The trip to San Diego to pick up the turntable was fun. It also served as an opportunity to hook up with a guy I'd been chatting with for several months. Yes Virginia— that kind of hookup.

Anyhow, I got the table back to The City in one piece and plugged it in. The seller had mentioned that the arm lift and automatic return function weren't working, but I figured it would be a simple fix. It turns out they weren't, but thankfully the table could be used in manually until I could get the problem looked at professionally.

And that led me to Joel Thorner, a god among men in the vintage turntable business. Sadly, Joel is no longer with us, but his apprentice at the time and I became (and remain) fast friends to this day. Joel affected a repair on the broken part that was causing all the problems and was nothing short of genius at its time. Nowadays acquiring a 3D printed replacement part made of a much sturdier material than the original is a simple matter; in the late 90s no such tech was available. (BTW, I still have that turntable, and while it is not currently in active use, the repair is still holding some twenty-five years later!)

My system didn't change much until fall 1999. Then all hell broke loose.

I discovered this little thing called eBay. On a whim, I started typing in model numbers of equipment I'd lusted over back in the day.

The SA-800 was my first eBay purchase. It slid into my system, displacing the beloved Yamaha A-700 amplifier. It had a few issues…there were a couple light bulbs burnt out and the switches were noisy, but it still sounded damn good. And since I got it for only $165, I really couldn't complain. (These things are now selling on the auction site for literally ten times as much.)

I found a source for the bulbs and got them swapped out, but I never did get those switches properly cleaned. Now, I would have no trouble accomplishing it but back then I just didn't have the knowledge or materials necessary to do it properly.

I turned around and eBayed the A-700 for enough to cover the cost of the SA-800.

About two months later I got another set of the Technics Micro Components. I just couldn't stay away from those bouncing LED power meters! They formed the basis of a new system for my bedroom.

For many years I'd been lugging around complete sets of Frank Lloyd Wright blueprints that my dad had found back in the 70s when we had been remodeling a house. I really didn't care about them all that much, but I knew they were historically valuable and couldn't just get rid of them, so that's why I held onto them. One night I thought, "What if I put just one set up on eBay and see what happens?"

Bids appeared immediately after my initial posting. Over the next seven days they kept rolling in. At the end of the auction the final selling price was around  $3500. I was in shock.

And I had two more complete sets of totally different houses…plus several individual sheets that weren't tied to anything in particular!

Needless to say, for most of the year 2000, I was rolling in cash. Sadly, it was gone as quickly as it had come in. Because…audio, both vintage and modern. I didn't spend it all on audio equipment. I paid some bills and got stuff for the apartment that I sorely needed, but yeah…the majority of it went to audio.

I got into Minidisc. Loved the medium. Absolutely loved it. Even after mp3s started hitting the scene several years later I clung to those little jewel-colored disks.

I got another SL-1700MK2 turntable for the bedroom system.  I got a pair of Cambridge Audio speakers for the bedroom and another to run into the bathroom. I bought a Pioneer receiver for my dad. I bought a Pioneer amp and tuner for my mom. I bought a (smaller) Technics receiver for my friend Rick. I was buying stuff that I didn't even want to keep; stereo equipment from my youth that I just wanted to use for a bit and then flip back onto the market. I even nabbed that dual 8-track receiver I bought back in high school just to see it again.

I am not proud of that period in my life.

Looking back now, it's obvious I was trying to fill a emotional void, to return to a happier time in my life, and yet, all the comings and goings of this old equipment from my youth failed to accomplish that.

In 2001, this madness all came to an abrupt end. I finally realized what I'd been doing and most importantly why. I'd sold my last Frank Lloyd Wright blueprint months earlier and had a new car payment to worry about. At the same time I'd grown weary of that big Technics SA-800 receiver with its noisy controls and longed for that elusive, seductive Yamaha sound. A seller in Los Angeles was offering the same A-700/T-700 combination in near-mint condition that I'd purchased fifteen years earlier at Jerry's audio in Tucson. We closed the deal, and with one last post-FLW hurrah, I drove down to LA and back to SF that same day to pick it up.

A few days later 9/11 happened.

A month after that, I was let go from my job.

And with the arrival of 2002, unable to find work, I found myself saying goodbye to San Francisco for the last time.

[to be continued]

If you're not interested in this stuff, just go ahead and skip to the next post, because I have a feeling it's gonna be a LONG one.

"That's what she said!"

Anyhow…

I blame Ken.

I met Ken in 1972, shortly after starting high school and moving into a new home in a brand new subdivision about a half mile from where we'd lived for the previous eight years. Ken was a NJB whose family had relocated from Chicago a few months prior to our arrival on the street. Our families immediately became friends and Ken remains my only buddy from high school who I'm still in contact with.

Prior to meeting Ken, my idea of hi-fi equipment was the all-in-one Lloyds stereo my family had purchased from Smitty's grocery store and my dad's confoundingly esoteric reel-to-reel tape recorder that I was never allowed to touch. When I met Ken, however, that view was shattered.

Ken had a Harman-Kardon receiver, a Dual turntable, and a pair of—I believe—Dynaco speakers. And shortly after we met, he acquired a Teac cassette deck. It wasn't like I was unfamiliar with the medium, but until that time my experience had been limited to pre-boombox portable players. Needless to say, I became immediately enamored of all this gear, but at the time—only receiving a meager weekly allowance for yard work and taking out the trash—my ability to acquire my own was…limited.

Every summer, Ken and his family would return to Chicago for a week or so, and while there, Ken would attend the Consumer Electronics Show, returning with shopping bags full of hi-fi brochures. (He still has all of them, but refuses to let me scan them because, "They're in the garage somewhere and way too hard to find.") We would sit in his room and pour over all this material, dreaming of the day we'd each be able to own our ultimate system.

Later that school year I'd managed to scrape together enough funds to get my own stereo. It was a Panasonic dual 8-track player. Not hi-fi per se, but it was still a cut above the Lloyds player in the family room and it looked cool. It also allowed me to explore my own burgeoning musical tastes in private. Why 8-track, instead of the obviously better cassette medium you ask? Because it's what Tom—a boy I was hopelessly crushing on my freshman year—listened to. It didn't have a built-in record player, but several months later I scraped together another couple hundred dollars and bought my first hi-fi turntable, a Philips GA212. It was a simple manual, belt-driven table but it had touch controls!

I've made so many ultimately regrettable purchases over the years simply because I was both an early-adopter and easily wowed if the product had a coolness factor, and that turntable was no exception. It turned out that when the light bulbs that illuminated the touch controls burned out, the controls stopped functioning altogether…

The following summer, Ken returned from Chicago with not only the usual bags of product literature, but also a brand new turntable: a Technics SL-1300.

Upon seeing it, I was definitely guilty of violating the Tenth Commandment.

Tragedy struck Ken's family a year later when his dad suddenly passed away. Shortly thereafter his Harman-Kardon receiver disappeared and was replaced with a Yamaha B-2 VFET power amp, a Sony TAE-5450 preamp, and a pair of Celestion Ditton 66 speakers. There was some—controversy—when this happened because his Dad had refused to foot the bill for these toys when he was alive but Ken had bought them with some of the money from his dad's life insurance proceeds…

Concurrently, my other friend Gary was also getting into this stuff. (I think it was a guy thing in the 70s, y'know?) He'd purchased a Kenwood KR-7400 receiver, a Technics SL-1400 turntable (a semi-automatic version of the fully automatic 1300), a Nakamichi 550 cassette deck, and a pair of Infinity 1001A loudspeakers. His system wasn't as "good" as Ken's but it sounded great. Gary let me babysit it one summer when he was gone on an extended vacation, and I could easily see myself owning such a setup. And it was something actually within my budget now that I'd had a summer job.

Sadly, all this still remained out of reach for me until after we'd all graduated. Graduation brought in enough funds that I actually could indulge some of my long-simmering desires.

During the interim between the time Ken got his Yamaha B-2 amp and our graduation, Sony had come out with its own line of VFET amplifiers. While I would've loved to snag my own B-2, the prices were in the stratosphere (and still are on the used market), it was simply out of reach. Fortunately, Sony's offerings were much more affordable (at least in the lower power ranges) and provided me the opportunity to get that VFET sweetness. I've written about this before, but suffice to say that the sound of a VFET amp was so superior to anything else out there at the time that there was no way I was going to settle for anything else, even if it meant putting off replacing my troublesome Philips turntable. Remember how I said I was an early-adopter and easily distracted by coolness? And remember how I said it nearly always comes back to bite me on the ass? The Sony was no exception.

Anyhow, I ended up buying a pair of the Infinity 1001As loudspeakers like Gary had, and a Sony TA-5650, a 50 watt/channel integrated VFET amplifier. The sound was beautiful; angelic choir beautiful.

It also ran so hot you could fry an egg on its top cover.

It died within three months. I had it repaired under warranty.

Since I'd splurged on the amp, I didn't have funds to upgrade the turntable until about six months later. The Technics SL-1300 turntable that I'd been drooling over for the previous three years had been discontinued, but it was replaced by the SL-1600, an updated version that retained nearly all the design cues but had improved circuitry, tonearm, and suspension.

I was happy with my system.

Then, in spring 1978, I met Steve Golden and was invited up into the inner sanctum of the DJ Booth at HisCo Disco. In the booth was a pair of turntables that were to fascinate and enrapture me for decades.

Without much fanfare, at some point Technics had updated the original SL-1300 series beyond what they'd done with the 1600. Like the original 1300 and the 1600, the 1300MK2 was a direct drive table, but this one was quartz-locked, providing the utmost in speed stability. And not only was it quartz-locked, but it had quartz-locked pitch control and a digital readout.  (Pitch control is the system that allows a DJ to make small changes in the speed of the record to match beats when mixing from one song to another.) This feature wasn't the biggest seller for me. It was that digital readout, the multiple integrated circuits used to control the deck (remember, this was 1978) and just the utter sexiness of the table that pulled me in. I wrote Panasonic (parent company of Technics) and requested brochures. When they arrived I almost orgasmed.

The beast sold for $500 in 1978 ($2500 in 2023 dollars). I was working, but I wasn't making anywhere near enough money to shell out that amount all at once, so I took out a loan. My folks thought I was crazy, but they cosigned the loan nevertheless.

Remember my early-adopter curse?

Yeah…

The turntable worked flawlessly for about a year. Then, one night I went to put on a record and it started spinning out of control no matter if I'd set it to 33 or 45.

I took it to the local authorized repair center. They determined that one of those fancy-schmanzy ICs had gone bad.

Several weeks later, not hearing anything back from them, I inquired as to the status. "The IC is backordered. No ETA."

I was jonesing for my music by that point. I'd just received a nice tax refund, so I thought I'd go pick up a 1500MK2 (the fully manual version, a couple hundred dollars cheaper) and use that until the 1300MK2 could be repaired.

Unfortunately, like with the original 1300, this MK2 line of turntables had been discontinued, replaced by the 1600MK2 series.

I didn't care as much for the styling of these new turntables. They weren't as sexy. Gone was the digital display, the under-platter strobe dots, and the precise pitch selection. On the upside, the tonearms were much, much better.

Now, of course, 45 years later, I think this line is just as sexy as the previous one in their own way. There's no denying that Technics was at their height of turntable design during this period.

So despite all the negatives, I plunked down $300 or so for a semi-automatic SL-1700Mk2. I could've gotten by even more cheaply by getting the fully manual 1800Mk2, but the price difference wasn't enough to offset the convenience of at least having the arm return to its rest when the record ended.

With still no movement on the 1300MK2 repair,  I wrote Panasonic directly and explained what was going on with the local shop. They instructed me to retrieve the deck and send it directly to their service center in Los Angeles. I did that, and about a week later it was shipped back, fully repaired.

Unfortunately…it was left at our neighbor's house (whom we did not get along with), alone with their two feral pre-teens. You can figure out what happened next.

After contacting UPS and Panasonic, I was told Panasonic would file a claim with UPS and I was to ship the remains back to Panasonic for replacement.

A couple weeks later I received a "new" 1300MK2 from Panasonic. I say "new" because it was an obviously refurbished unit. It had no serial number, and to me it never really "felt" right. I stuck with the 1700MK2 I'd bought and ended up selling this Panasonic replacement unit about a year later.

Prior to all this turntable drama happening, one afternoon I was walking down the stereo aisles of the now long-defunct LaBelle's Catalog Showroom, and I passed a set of components that literally made me stop in my tracks and do a 180. Another Technics creation:

Okay, there was nothing wrong with my Sony. It was behaving itself and hadn't blown up since that initial incident a few years earlier. But damn…to me these were sexy beyond words. And they sounded good. Again, the $800 list price for the complete set ($3900 in 2023 dollars) was a little beyond reach, but I could afford to buy the individual pieces as funds allowed, and LaBelle's had steep discounts on everything so I'm sure the total I laid out for all three totaled no more than about 2/3 of that.

I started with the tuner. I'd been without radio since I got the Sony after graduation but it wasn't that big a deal to me. Phoenix has always been a radio wasteland, so it wasn't really missed. That changed one morning after I got the tuner when I woke up and turned it on and instead of hearing the usual jazz station I'd always tuned to, I heard disco. KXTC DISCO 92!

The preamp followed, hooked up to the power amp section of the Sony. And finally, I acquired the power amp with that bouncing LED power meter that caught my eye as I walked down the aisle months earlier.

At some point before August 1980 (I remember this date because it was when I moved out of my folks' house and into my own apartment), I grew tired of the sound from these components and made the mistake of putting the Sony back in the system. I'd forgotten how wonderful the Sony sounded. I boxed up the Technics amp and preamp and sold them to a local resale shop. I kept the tuner.

And then the Sony blew up again.

No longer under warranty, this was an expensive repair, but worth it.

Until about 1982, my system was stable. I was happy with how it sounded and everything was working as it should.

And then the Sony blew up again.

Repairs on the Sony TA-5650 were now prohibitively expensive since I no longer had the luxury of living rent-free at home. I was beginning to think it was time to say goodbye to the VFET, especially if I was going to be looking at that thing self-destructing every couple years.

Since the last time the Sony had been repaired, there had been a lot of strides made technologically in the hi-fi industry and it seemed integrated circuits were taking over everything. Of course, being the early adopter I was, I heard the siren call of this new technology. But would this be a repeat of the coolness-over-sound quality mistake I'd made with the Technics micro components?

Yeah. It was. Coolness won out. Again.

I mean there was nothing wrong with the way the new Sony amp sounded, but it definitely wasn't cut from the same cloth as its predecessor. Despite that, it remained in my system for several years and was trouble-free the entire time. From 1982 through 1986 my system consisted of this Sony TA-A5 integrated amplifier, the Technics SL-1700MK2 turntable, and my trusty Infinity 1001A loudspeakers.

In 1984, after nearly 12 years in this "hobby," I got my first cassette deck:

It wasn't anything special (despite the claims of the above advertisement), but it worked well enough to make tapes for the car and to give to friends.

A little over a year later I moved back to Tucson. While there, I helped a friend (Kate, whatever happened to you?) buy her first hi-fi. We went to Jerry's Audio and picked out a nice Yamaha receiver and a pair of Phase Tech speakers. I don't remember if she got a tape deck or turntable with the system, but I do remember being very impressed by the new Yamaha equipment.

I was so impressed in fact, that—having grown weary of the mediocre sound, the functionality, and the novelty of the knobless Sony TA-AX5, for the second time in my life I took out a small loan and came home with new stereo equipment: a 100-watt per channel Yamaha A-700 integrated amplifier, and a T-700 digital tuner.

A few months later, armed with a generous tax refund, I returned and picked up a Yamaha CD-500 compact disk player (my first!) and a KT-540 cassette deck.

In 1986, after moving to San Francisco, I finally retired the venerable Infinity 1001As. When I returned to Tucson for Christmas that year, I went to Jerry's and picked up my own set of Phase Tech PC60 loudspeakers and stands. Several months later I picked up the matching subwoofer from a shop in The City.

Toward the end of 1987, I started getting rid of my vinyl collection and sold the Technics SL-1700MK2 turntable. As I've written about before, this was one of the dumbest moves I've ever made in my life.

At this point, my system consisted of the Yamaha A-700 integrated amplifier, T-700 tuner, K-540 cassette deck, CD-500 CD player, and the Phase Tech PC60 loudspeakers/subwoofer. In 1990, I retired the CD-500 and bought a Yamaha CDX-730 CD player. The system remained essentially unchanged for the next decade, although when I briefly moved back to Arizona in 1995 I sold the tuner because Tucson was a radio wasteland and I'd plugged into DMX, rendering over-the-air broadcasts superfluous.

In 1997, after moving back to San Francisco, I met Barry Walters, the then music critic/columnist for the SF Examiner. The first time I visited his flat, it took my breath away. There was a twenty-foot long, floor to ceiling bookcase dividing his living room/kitchen from his bedroom in this fourth-floor walk-up attic apartment—and it was completely full of vinyl records. There wasn't a single title I threw his way that he could not walk over and retrieve from his collection (and I threw out some pretty obscure stuff). Around  the same time I was messing around with Barry, Amoeba Records opened near the east entrance of Golden Gate Park, and looking through the bins there brought such waves of nostalgia over me I knew it was time to buy a new turntable.

Unfortunately, no one was really making turntables at that time that weren't absolute crap aside from Technics and their legendary SL-1200MK2, which was totally out of my budget. I called a used stereo equipment store in Berkeley and asked if they had any Technics MK2 series available because I really wanted another 1300MK2. They said did occasionally, but did not have any currently. But hey, they'd just gotten a near-mint 1600 in. Would I be interested in that?

Of course I would be interested! I drove across the Bay Bridge that afternoon and came home with the same model of the first "good" table I'd ever bought.

But that got me thinking. How could I find another 1300MK2? This was pre-eBay and the internet was still in its infancy, so it's not like I could just go online, input the model number and come up with a dozen being offered for sale.  I think I eventually made a connection through AOL with a seller who was located in San Diego.  After agreeing on the price, I arranged to drive down and pick it up in person, not wanting to risk having it damaged in shipping.

[to be continued, because this is already way longer than I anticipated]

The other half of my recent vintage stereo purchase arrived today, and all I can say is, "Wow!"

I haven't done any cleanup on it yet because it was only delivered this morning and I rushed home at lunch to hook it up, but it—like the amplifier—is about as close to mint as you're going to find for a 45 year old piece of gear. Unlike the amp however, it was packed properly to ensure it made it across country in perfect condition. Why the seller packed one (the heavier one!) like crap and the other so perfectly is a mystery I may never unravel.

In my brief listening session at lunch, I can attest to everything good I've read about the T-1, and since—with retirement looming—this is in all likelihood going to be my last stereo purchase, I'm more convinced than ever I made the right choice with these pieces.

So pretty.

So I bought another piece of vintage audio gear off eBay.

What follows is no doubt going to be a long winded dissertation from an aging audio-enthusiast who no longer has any living friends with whom to discuss this shit, so if it's not your cup of tea, I won't be offended if you just skip to the next entry of nekkid menz or political griping…

For the last several weeks I've been contemplating dropping some serious coin on a new amplifier/receiver, but keep returning mentally to the incredible build quality and nostalgia of my existing equipment and the urge passes. I'm quite enamored of my current receiver, as exemplified by my numerous posts waxing poetic about it. But still, there's something enticing about getting a unit that's brand new and has all the modern bells and whistles built-in.

Don't misunderstand; my Kenwood is great and I'm happy with it…but there's something missing—a punch, a presence—that to be honest I haven't experienced since the days of my old Yamaha A-700 amp that I bought new in 1986 and owned until 1999. (I foolishly sold it after having been bitten by the eBay vintage bug and was able to pick up equipment I'd lusted over 25 years earlier for cents on the dollar.) When I think about the thousands of dollars I've spent on this shit over the past 24 years, my Starbucks habit pales in comparison.

Anyhow, that's why I'd been looking at new Yamaha gear. But my god…the price! Could I justify $1800 for a new piece of audio equipment when what I currently owned was more than adequate?

No. At least not at this point in time.

But it got me thinking. Can I get that famous Yamaha sound that I longed for…  inexpensively?

For shits-n-giggles, I went on eBay and searched for Yamaha A-700 amps. I'd done this before over the past couple years and was always disappointed. The units offered for sale looked like they'd been through rock tumblers. This time was different, however. There were several that supposedly worked and looked decent, but one stood out that was truly stunning for a 37 year old piece of black anodized equipment. (Black anodized aluminum does not generally age well and mercilessly shows every scratch and ding, unlike regular anodized aluminum which is much more forgiving to the eye.) And it was quite reasonably priced at $350. The seller indicated that everything worked and the unit sounded great.

Next I went over to YouTube and checked for videos of this model—to see if there were any common and/or glaring repair issues looming that I should be aware of before hitting that BUY IT NOW button. Both the A-700s I'd owned (yeah, I bought a replacement unit in 2002 because I missed the sound so much that this is not something new) were rock solid…but that was twenty years ago. The construction was first rate (as was pretty much anything you bought from Yamaha at the time). The internal components they used were of highest quality, so I didn't anticipate needing a recapping or anything (something I paid my tech up north to do with both my Technics micro series and the Kenwood 7400—and afterward were both ultimately put in storage as I returned to my Kenwood 6600).

This "new" Yamaha may need some work done, based on what I saw on YouTube, but nothing that would break the bank. So I went ahead and bought it.

Ben bemusedly just shook his head, but since he is as guilty as I am of spending money, he also pointed out that with my retirement looming in a mere 14 months, we both need to cut back on our superfluous purchases.

Hence the reason why theoretically I could afford to spend $1800 on a brand new receiver now (because in 14 months that will be an impossibility) at this point in time, I won't.

When I first saw one of these back in late 70s, I'm sure I popped a woody. It was the beginning of the "micro" or "mini" components (forever exemplified in my own mind by Technics C01 series). The receiver wars were winding down and HUGE was out. SMALL and sexy was in.

There's no denying the fact that the Nak 730 was sexy. While fully digital tuning was still a couple years away, the fact that the tuning meter was motorized, and a majority of the switches were touch-control was orgasm-inducing in audio enthusiasts such as myself.

Alas, like any number of other hi-fi components I lusted after at the time, at $1400 (approximately $6500 in today's dollars) it was hopelessly out of reach. But that didn't stop me from admiring from afar.

From Classic Receivers:

Nakamichi 730

About a week and a half ago I put on a new record I'd just gotten and almost immediately I noticed a rhythmic thump thump thump in the background. Since I hadn't noticed this before with any record, I immediately suspecting the vinyl itself. I stopped playback and the thumping remained. I did all the usual troubleshooting to no avail and did not relish the thought of lugging the receiver back to Prescott for my guy up north to look at (not to mention the six-to-eight month turnaround it normally takes him).

So went online and found a highly-rated vintage repair shop just up the street from where we live. I've driven past it a hundred times and never knew it was there. I called to verify they were open, and then drove the receiver up and told him what was going on. After paying the $40 inspection fee, the guy said he'd call in about a week with an estimate for repairs.

Got the call on Tuesday. He could find nothing wrong with it. Everything was dead quiet.

So I brought it home, hooked everything back up, and  heard thump-thump-thump.

This was maddening. So I disconnected everything except for the turntable and speakers. Thump-thump-thump.

Disconnected the turntable. Thump-thump-thump…but only when the receiver's selector switch  it was set to  phono.

I discovered the sound went down significantly when I touched the back panel of the receiver. This told me this was some kind of ground problem. But everything was grounded!

After about an hour of trying everything my years of experience in this hobby had taught me, I gave up and decided to see if Google had any answers.

It turns out there were lots of mentions of WiFi routers causing interference like this with vintage equipment.

Hmmm…

We have an Orbi mesh router. The satellitewas in the bedroom, directly on the opposite side of the wall from the receiver. For the longest time it wasn't in use, but I decided to power it up just a few weeks ago.

The light bulb went off.

I unplugged the satellite and voila! Dead silence from the receiver.

I moved the satellite about three feet, plugged it in, and the receiver remained quiet. Go figger.

A few weeks ago I asked if anyone knew a good wood worker. No response, so I went ahead and contacted the Instagram guy who had changed out his Kenny's faceplate end caps to see if he'd be willing to do the same for me.

Turns out they weren't solid wood; he had merely veneered the existing brushed aluminum end pieces. (I gotta tell you, I have tremendous respect for guys who can fix this stuff and do woodworking too.) I inquired if he'd do the same for mine, and his response was, "For a fellow Kenwood lover, of course." He quoted me $70 for time and materials and I removed them from my unit and sent them off.

Got them back yesterday. Was kind of surprised he hadn't wrapped all the sides. I can understand not doing the bottom of the caps, but the backs and the side that abuts the faceplate were left bare metal as well. If you ensure the fit is perfect upon reassembly, you'll never see the sides abutting the faceplate, but a certain amount of the backs are visible, kind of destroying the illusion that they're solid wood, but getting everything aligned that perfectly is difficult. Not worth making a scene over, but I did ask why. He said "you'll never see it," and that this was exactly what he'd done with his unit.

When I bought the receiver two and a half years ago, I noted that the plastic escutcheons surrounding the switches were broken in various places. A few weeks ago I also managed to get my hands on the original plastic escutcheons surrounding the switches, so after very carefully de-gluing them from the donor faceplace, I was able to replace them on my unit; something that was quite satisfying, and assuaged my anal retentive need for perfection. I must say that despite the issue of the backs of the end caps, I am quite happy with the way all this turned out—especially when I see how much better these receivers look with wooden end caps instead of the original aluminum.

Beautiful restorations.

I'm looking for someone to fabricate a couple of mahogany end caps for my Kenwood receiver. I saw that someone had done this on Instagram and I really like the look:

I have some self-adhesive vinyl veneer that I could apply to the existing aluminum end caps in a pinch, but I'd like the real wood if possible.

Naturally, I'd be more than happy to pay for time and materials. If you or anyone you know would be willing to do this, either email me directly or leave a comment below.

Yamaha CA-810 (1977-1980)

Technics SA-5470 Receiver (1977-1978)

I found this on Tumblr (or maybe it was Instagram) and it immediately sent me to eBay to see if any were available for sale. This is another piece of equipment that immediately conjures up memories of the Labelle's audio showroom of the mid-to-late 1970s for me.

These were impressive receivers when they arrived on the scene, but like I've written about before, I was too enamored of the shiny new Sony V-FET amps to pay anything else much mind. The original lighting of the dial and meters on these receivers had a very subtle greenish glow (something not easily restored unless you can source the special green-tinted incandescent bulbs these shipped with) that illuminated the dial itself and not the just the numbers; something that set Technics apart from the black-out dials of Marantz, Pioneer, and Sansui.

There are several currently available on eBay at very reasonable prices, but the absolute last thing I need right now is another receiver, so it wasn't a huge effort to eschew pressing the "Buy It Now" button.

But damn…it sure was tempting.

Sony STR-V7 (1978-1981)

sony-str-v-7-brochure

Last September, I bought my first CD deck since the early 2000s. I followed that up by replacing about a dozen of the couple hundred CDs that had disappeared in the aftermath of the fire two and a half years ago. Everything was fine for a while, but then one day several of the disks started skipping or just flat out refused to play. Disheartened, and deciding it wasn't worth my time or frustration to try and get them playing (there was nothing physically wrong with any of the disks and they played fine in my Mac), I removed the deck from my system and packed it up.

After stumbling across a YouTube video this morning about how to fix wonky CD players, I decided to give it a go. And wouldn't you know…it worked! I put on the CD that was the worst offender (Pet Shop Boys: Very/Relentless) and both disks played from beginning to end without a single hiccup.

So what did I do to pull to fix it? I got some isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs, and wiped down the laser lens and the rails on which the laser sled rides. There was a small bit of gunk on one of the rails, and that was apparently all it took to throw things off.

yamaha cdx-730 cdx-530 sales brochure

 

The matching tuner from the amplifier post a few days ago:

Sansui TU-9900 Stereo Tuner (1977-1979)

Sansui-AU-TU-Brochure

 

This piece of the set is much more affordable, with bids on eBay ranging from $400-$600.

Among the "monster" receivers of the late 1970s, this was never one of my favorites, although I understand it is very much sought-after by collectors. There was just something about the design I found off-putting.

Sansui AU-2000 Integrated Stereo Amplifier (1977-79)

Sansui-AU-TU-Brochure

 

I think I just orgasmed.

(But not $3800 worth. Yes, that's what they're asking for it.)