This joint needs some more vintage hifi

mhardy6647

Comparing them to the Altecs -- even then, yeah, kind of large.
Koss CM-1030s; kind of interesting. The spec sheet says 74 lbs each (medium-weight by local standards). The manual's available at hifiengine, FYI and FWIW :- )

Polkie2009

cnh wrote: »

Right, John Koss not Henry Kloss, lol! My what an interesting yet understandable slip! Have Henry on the brain.

Easy to confuse the names. I actually bought a number of Koss headphones back in the day.

Polkie2009

mhardy6647 wrote: »

... sort of like the reindeer pelt I picked up at Arlanda (the airport) in Stockholm when I was spending a fair amount of time working with Swedish collaborators. I had kept looking at them in the airport shop; they were (are) very beautiful and very inexpensive. I finally bought one.

I fretted all the flight home about what I'd say about it to US Customs. When we landed at BOS, we hit Customs and Immigration just behind a planeload of passengers from some Central or South American point of origin. I told the agent I had a reindeer pelt and he laughed pretty hard. "Did you see the stuff the previous planeload were trying to bring in?" he said. Of my pelt, all he wanted to know was "Is it alive?"

"Not currently" I replied cheerfully, and he waved me on through.

Mark, we bought a beautiful reindeer pelt in Vail Co. back in '68, it was gorgeous and soft .

jcaut

Haven't checked in here in a while-
cnh: Nice STA-2270! I'm a fan of the old Realistic gear, particularly the early '80's and older stuff. But I've been thinking I'd like to have one of the "newer" receivers, like a 2270 or 2280. By most accounts they're pretty good. Actually, I've been looking at the 2500 and 2600 which are a little newer still, and really were the last decent ones RS sold.

While we're talking Realistics, here's one I just finished working over. This is an STA-72. I bought it on the auction site and I'm sure I paid too much for it, but I liked the look of it, and it's a bit of an odd-ball. It's not in any of the catalogs. Just from the looks, I'd guess it to be in the '76-'78 range. It's made in Korea, and has walnut-look vinyl on the case. The output stage is NPN, quasi-complementary, and it's apparently rated 12 wpc.

I found specs and a little info about it on AK, but I think they're fairly rare. It was listed in the auction as "working", but... When I got it, it would power on and most of the lights worked except for the color-changing dial pointer. It had a terrible hum in all inputs and FM only worked on one channel. I re-capped it which cured the hum (it was actually coming from the phono amp and bleeding over onto everything else). Replaced the driver transistors and a shorted film cap, burned up resistors... LOTS of the electrolytics were bad: Not leaking, but just open, dead. Basically went through the whole thing.. but now it's working well and it's a cool little unit! Kinda has a "Sherwood" look to it.. I know I need to learn to take "before" pictures too, and not just "after", but here are a few more:

oldrocker

Cool

boston1450

Beautiful Realistic there. Most all the ones ive stumbled on sounded pretty good. Very under the radar receivers

mhardy6647

Attractive little hifi, there. :- )

Is that a Canuckistani Radio Shack receiver, perhaps? I don't recall a US model with those cosmetics.
The "computer look" blackout dial smacks of some of the mid-1970s (and decidedly lower-end) Concord-branded (in the US) Japanese-made receivers (FWIW).

Scan_Pic0006 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

As an aside: Based on some quality time this summer listening to an old (and in fact, unrestored) HH Scott LK-60B integrated amplifier, I think there really may have been something a tad special about that cap-coupled, quasi-complementary soiled state circuit topology :- )

jcaut

I was hoping you'd chime in with some info, Mark! Yes, that Concord does look a whole lot like it. I read a comment somewhere else that suggested it might be a Canadian model or possibly a "franchise only" model. It's certainly down-scale from the STA-77A I have, but construction-wise it's not bad. Sounds nice, too. I've only had a set of modified Mach One's connected to it since I got it working again, but it's real easy to listen to. There's very little background hiss or hum now. A bit of a turn-on thump, but not too bad.

jcaut

Bingo! I think Mr. Hardy nailed it. This Concord CR-250 is almost exactly the same receiver.

jcaut

And while I'm posting, might as well go ahead and show this little Kenwood that gave me (and my wife as well, because it was sitting on the dining table in pieces for about a month ) fits. This one had a problem that I'm pretty sure was a factory defect: It worked, but it had about 200mV DC on one channel. After much disassembling, reassembling, probing, scoping, and swapping of parts, I finally found a break or cut in a jumper that was hidden by glue. It still needs a couple of light bulbs. I like this series of Kenwoods. KR-5600.

mhardy6647

jcaut wrote: »

Bingo! I think Mr. Hardy nailed it. This Concord CR-250 is almost exactly the same receiver.

the odd-er 70s receivers are crawling out of the woodwork lately! :-P
Must be the coming of Hallowe'en or somethin'...

;- )

I perused www.radioshackcatalogs.com last night and didn't turn up anything like the R/S receiver that started this particular subthread... even the Canuckistani circulars tucked away under "other catalogs". That is/was an odd duck.

mhardy6647

1) The provenance of those generic branded/store branded Japanese hifi components of the 1960s and 70s is both fascinating and hard for us non-specialists to trace. It was pretty common to see the same components under a slew of different names, depending on the store chain or catalog house involved. There were several big OEMs (Standard Radio and Automatic Radio are two of which I am aware), but the 'big-name' Japanese conglomerates and hifi/radio manufacturers also certainly did OEM work (e.g., Matsush!ta (edited, of course, for the delicate sensibilities of this forum's s/w), Mitsubishi, Trio/Kenwood, Fukuin/Pioneer, Nippon Victor/JVC, etc.). Lafayette Radio Electronics, e.g., sold numerous Trio/Kenwood audio and radio products under their own brand over the years.

I know I've posted this before, but here's a 1960s generic Japanese stereo receiver, branded "Viscount". No idea of the provenance, much less the OEM of this one, but it's another one that was also sold by R/S under their estimable "Realistic" brand :-P
[img][/img]DSC_9820 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
(the one on the bottom, of course)



2) ... and, speaking of Concord receivers: the one and only one (to date) that's passed through here, courtesy of my erstwhile favorite local emporium (the swap pile at the Harvard town dump), of course!

todaystreasures by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

mhardy6647

Not to be obsessive or anything :-P but...

This LRE receiver is (was) definitely a Kenwood (as they were known in the US).

LRELA800 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr



source: http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=22396
(edit: the LR-800 is a tad older than the KW-55F in the pilfered photo above; the Kenwood's got a signal strength meter vs. the "magic eye" tube in the LRE receiver)

but... who knows about this one? ;- ) Perhaps the same OEM as the Viscount/Realistic above?

LRELA215Rx1965 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Polkie2009

jcaut wrote: »

Haven't checked in here in a while-
cnh: Nice STA-2270! I'm a fan of the old Realistic gear, particularly the early '80's and older stuff. But I've been thinking I'd like to have one of the "newer" receivers, like a 2270 or 2280. By most accounts they're pretty good. Actually, I've been looking at the 2500 and 2600 which are a little newer still, and really were the last decent ones RS sold.

While we're talking Realistics, here's one I just finished working over. This is an STA-72. I bought it on the auction site and I'm sure I paid too much for it, but I liked the look of it, and it's a bit of an odd-ball. It's not in any of the catalogs. Just from the looks, I'd guess it to be in the '76-'78 range. It's made in Korea, and has walnut-look vinyl on the case. The output stage is NPN, quasi-complementary, and it's apparently rated 12 wpc.

I found specs and a little info about it on AK, but I think they're fairly rare. It was listed in the auction as "working", but... When I got it, it would power on and most of the lights worked except for the color-changing dial pointer. It had a terrible hum in all inputs and FM only worked on one channel. I re-capped it which cured the hum (it was actually coming from the phono amp and bleeding over onto everything else). Replaced the driver transistors and a shorted film cap, burned up resistors... LOTS of the electrolytics were bad: Not leaking, but just open, dead. Basically went through the whole thing.. but now it's working well and it's a cool little unit! Kinda has a "Sherwood" look to it.. I know I need to learn to take "before" pictures too, and not just "after", but here are a few more:

Didn't Foster use to make some of the Radio Shack receivers too?

sucks2beme

Local CL here is chock full of stuff. A resale guy south of Ft. Worth
is closing up shop. He had hundreds of items listed (for way too much money)!
There's another guy on the North side that always has a bunch of beaters. Buys them for $10 and sells them for $100. About half are basket cases. My area of the metro area is way too upscale to have the good stuff. There is a Carver mpx-6200
that I've been thinking about that works and hasn't been beaten with an ugly stick.
It's dropped to $75. I'm holding out for it to drop to $50.

mhardy6647

Polkie2009 wrote: »

... Didn't Foster use to make some of the Radio Shack receivers too?

So it is said.
Foster (Fostex) cerainly made some loudspeaker drivers for R/S -- some of them pretty decent.

Polkie2009

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Polkie2009 wrote: »

... Didn't Foster use to make some of the Radio Shack receivers too?

So it is said.
Foster (Fostex) cerainly made some loudspeaker drivers for R/S -- some of them pretty decent.

Right on, yes,Fostex made a number of products for recording etc.. and a few musicians I used to know, bought some of them back in the day. Good to see the company is still around!

mhardy6647

alive and well:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/fostex/



Several Fostex-based projects at the ol' Hardy hacienda... mostly not vintage, though.

DSC_5663 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

This pair of bass reflex DIY cabinets (not made by me; they'd be way uglier if they had been!), loaded with Fostex FE207E twincone FRs, was the first pair of loudspeakers I brought "on line" at the new house as we were transitioning up to the wilds of Northern NH :- )

pumpkinman

Harman Kardon 430 I picked this up about a week ago. This Sunday a Marantz receiver and a pair of JBL's. Don't know which models of either but the price was to good to pass up.

leftwinger57

Bill you gots the itch bad.1st getting those speakers far flung out of state and now vintage a receiver. I have to ask, have you ever been to a punkin chunkin festival w/ the air cannons shooting your buds all over the place... Your big night is just 9 days away..... lol lol

mhardy6647

the hk430 is a nice piece of hardware (and very attractive as well, at least to my taste). They pair nicely with the vintage Polk Audio Monitor Series loudspeakers, too.

I do have an hk430 but it is kind of a borderline basket case. Don't have the heart to ditch it, though.

hkrack 012414 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr


There are those who feel that the hk430 is one of the few soiled state components that can make a pair of Klipsch Heresys sound good. I don't have any data on that myself, though.

pumpkinman

@mhardy6647

I must agree with you on how attractive this series is. Been looking for one at a reasonable price and I felt $60 was not to much. Vintage receivers go for far to much moola on eBay. IMHO The Marantz, JBL's, Sony CD player and cassette deck will set me back $100. Another upside is the JBL's have had the foam surrounds updated only 2 years ago. I plan on throwing the CD player and cassette deck on Craigslist for $30. All I remember about the JBL's is that they were a 2 way bookshelf. Possibly from the 70's. I'll post pics as soon as I get them.

P-man

mhardy6647

Easily worth sixty smackers, I'd opine, if in good working order. Easily -- they look good and... they sound good. Can't beat that for sixty Samoleums.

cnh

Yep! Those 430s are nice. I have one sitting on my office floor (among "other" things-I'm a "messy" fellow, love chaos, wife "hates" it).

430 sounds good with almost any vintage speaker. I have some Dynaco A25s on it with a middling LAB TT, and a '90s Sony CDP (another good thing about early HKs is that they smooth out those digital highs on cheaper CDPs-never harsh). Like butter. I never tire of its sound.

I also have a 730 downstairs (basement exercise area) that is not hooked up but will probably be tied to some Celestion DL6 Series II bookies.

Enjoy!

Polkie2009

pumpkinman wrote: »

Harman Kardon 430 I picked this up about a week ago. This Sunday a Marantz receiver and a pair of JBL's. Don't know which models of either but the price was to good to pass up.

I remember these back in the 70's. Solid , well made unit as I recall. Enjoy!

mhardy6647

Scan0012 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

^^^ typos and all... :-P

pumpkinman

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Easily worth sixty smackers, I'd opine, if in good working order. Easily -- they look good and... they sound good. Can't beat that for sixty Samoleums.

Yes it works fine. A little noisy but Deoxit fixed that problem.

pumpkinman

Today's pick up


I picked up a Marantz SR 4000 reciever, JBL L40 speakers, Sony CDP-C500 carousel CD player w/ original remote and a Teac R400 cassette deck. The 10" woofer surrounds were replaced 2 years ago.

All for $100.

voltz

mhardy6647 wrote: »

alive and well:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/fostex/



Several Fostex-based projects at the ol' Hardy hacienda... mostly not vintage, though.

you mean like this one

mhardy6647

I thought someone here built a pair of those ;- )