This joint needs some more vintage hifi

mhardy6647 · February 2016

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Marky's on a refoamin' jag...

004 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

123 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

085 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

081 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
(note the "all original" dustcap!)

098 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

102 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

109 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

boston1450 · February 2016

Nice job Mark. It can be very therapeutic to the mind & bring many more years of enjoyment

[Deleted User] · February 2016

Nice! My wife would like to see me get moving on my speaker projects and
get them out of the closets.

cnh · February 2016

Very nice work, mhardy! Wish I could TRUST myself as much. I have at least two or three sets of speakers that need a refresh of this kind. The last thing I had to do was reseal the cab on an old Ratshak Nova 8 speaker only to find that I also had to solder the negative lead back onto the woofer and unpack and repack the red fiberglass damping (add a little mortite to it), all of which caused unnecessary anxiety to a non-DIYer! lol But, hey it now sounds just like the good one!

Polkie2009 · February 2016

Very nice work Mark, they look fantastic. Wonderful to see some of these vintage gear!

pumpkinman · February 2016

@mhardy6647

A little help if you please sir. I'm looking at a pair of the Advent Legacy II's with fresh foam. I got the guy down to $70. Fair price ?? I still need to go and see them Sat. As the pics didn't show much as far as cabinet condition. Then on Sunday I'm off to pick up a pair of Boston Acoustics A200 for $40. These need new surrounds and the one grill was destroyed by the family cat.

mhardy6647 · February 2016

If they're in fine shape, I could imagine someone paying $70 for 'em... but if you can snag a pair of Boston Acoustics A200s for forty smackers, I really, truly wouldn't bother with the Legacy IIs. They're not bad, but not anywhere near being in the same league as those Bostons.

cnh · February 2016

+1, BA A200s for $40! No brainer! I have a pair of these and I KNOW I paid more than that for them. [look for the SEAS tweeters if possible] They are most definitely superior to the Advents! But they do like some SS power. They sound better on a higher power SS amp than they do on a 30 watt x 2 tube amp, for example. Can't get enough juice from the tubes. And the A200s DO NOT LIKE to play at LOW volumes. They open up as you turn that volume up some, but then again YMMV.

mhardy6647 · February 2016

All of the recently mentioned/displayed loudspeakers will do their best with some fairly serious soiled state power amplification driving them. The hk in the photos I posted is more or less the best I can do. There're a couple of more powerful ss power amps here, but they're relatively lousy sounding ones from McIntosh, Phase Linear and the original Crown of Elkhart, Indiana.

The EPIs actually do pretty darned well with low/moderately powered vacuum tube amplification, but that's kind of a special case.

pumpkinman · February 2016

Funny but I just got a call from Audiocheapskate (diff. forum) he is going to give me a pair of the 70's Large Advents with the wood veneer. They will need new surrounds. If It's Free It's For Me. So I'm going to pass on the Legacy II's.
The A200's are not in the best shape but what the heck it's only $40.

mhardy6647 · February 2016

You have chosen wisely, young Jedi.

pumpkinman · February 2016

mhardy6647 wrote: »

You have chosen wisely, young Jedi.

I am many many things but young ain't one of them. LOL

mhardy6647 · February 2016

it's all relative, don't you know? ;- )

boston1450 · February 2016

jcaut · February 2016

^^^ Very nice!

Here's a pic or two of some things I've worked on recently. First a JVC JR-S301.
Over the years, I've always thought these were really goofy-looking. But recently, for some unknown reason, the look began to grow on me. I found a 301 for a decent price, and although what I really wanted was a -401 or 501, I bought it. It had a few obviously leaking caps that were causing corrosion on the board behind the EQ, and it needed lamps and a good cleaning. I went with LED's here, and managed to mostly maintain the original "look". The pointer lamp is the exception: I put a white led there that's brighter than it's "supposed" to be. My camera seems to exaggerate the effect, because it's really not that noticeable in person. Frankly I'm surprised at the sound of this receiver. I've never been overly fond of JVC, but I really like this one and think it's a keeper.

This one wasn't easy to work on, because there's no removable panel on bottom that allows access to the preamp/main amp part of the circuit. Here's a picture of the chassis with parts hanging out everywhere, lol! I did get it all back together though!

txcoastal1 · February 2016

Good job dude...from a cluster puck to a beauty

mhardy6647 · February 2016

1) Those old JVC receivers were quite nice. Not inexpensive when new, they were never too common; the price & "interesting" cosmetics, I think, limited their market penetration.

2) If I rendered a receiver into a pile of subassemblies like the one in the photo above -- it would be unlikely that it would ever go back together again, much less work! This is my way of saying, "nice work"! :- )

soundfreak1 · February 2016

Wow that takes me back! Had a 501 back in the day. It had some balls. Damn I'm old. LOL

mhardy6647 · February 2016

soundfreak1 wrote: »

Wow that takes me back! Had a 501 back in the day. It had some balls. Damn I'm old. LOL

again -- it's all relative!

;- )

boston1450 · February 2016

Those meters are sweetttttt

cnh · February 2016

Very nice work, jcaut! I have a JR-S201 which is even lower on the food chain, but even at 35 watts x 2 it sounds a lot BETTER than it should! Surprisingly so considering how low a model this is. People are always talking about the MORE powerful models, but hey, these smaller guys, if we can even call them small by today's standards, can put out some DBs. I've run them on Fried and ADS bookshelves with great results. And yeah, the looks do grow on you, slowly! In fact, currently, this is my daily driver!

mhardy6647 · February 2016

I'd love to have one of the larger JVCs of that era :-P
Or, one of the smaller ones, for that matter! Even (as CNH should be able to attest to) the "little" JVCs of that ilk are physically large and (more to the point) remarkably hefty.

As a pointless :-P aside, there were two generations of JVC components that featured such rather "unusual" cosmetics. Jcaut's lovely JR-S301 posted earlier is of the second generation.

The second generation were a bit more elegant looking, I'd opine, than the first -- that said, I am not at all sure which were better built "under the hood" or if one series sounded better than the other.

Polkie2009 · February 2016

JVC made some really decent gear that was affordable to the average Joe back in the day. I want to say their receivers had decent specs. I actually still have in a box, a JVC S.E.A. 10 band per side EQ I haven't used in probably nearly 30 years,lol.

mhardy6647 · February 2016

Here's one of the "first generation" of that style of JVC receiver:

JVCSR600 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

... and here (on the left) is one of the "second generation":

sansuibrochures by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

JVC also made one cassette deck with cosmetics to match these series. The "second generation" version's visible above. Here's the "first generation" version:

JVCcd200 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Most of the JVC cassette decks of the same era (ca. 1977-79, give or take) had more "generic" cosmetics.