wrk101

From my understanding, the Series II was one of the only ones with cloth surrounds. Later versions were all foam surrounds. I hate to disturb the original speaker cloth to verify. Guess I'll wait to see how they sound.

Crossing my fingers, as this pair of speakers has 18 total speakers, so that is a lot of foam to replace.

From one source on the internet: " Foam surrounds are used on Series III through VI while cloth surrounds are used on Series I & II."

But there are also some shortcomings of the early models "On the earlier models Series I and II, a tremendous boost in the lower frequencies was required. To a lesser degree...the highs were also boosted. This placed quite a demand on one's amplifier! The fact that the basic principle of the design was Acoustic Suspension which required large movements of the drivers to produce enough air movement for bass didn't help either...but it was a great sounding system as long as you had a 200 watt/ch. or more amplifier! "

curbtender

You may need a pre-amp. Or are you looking for a place for your ground wire?

Force 

Nice thread. Love the tubes. I sold my Fisher 400 tube stereo, but I've still got my Dahlquist speakers and Pioneer turntable. Will keep them forever.

sailorbenjamin

Can I go there? Here's my radio. It's a Norelco from Holland. The Europians went FM long before we did (was it WWII?) so I can get the local jazz station. It's also got short wave and long wave.
The phono isn't working these days. There's a rubber drive wheel under the turntable that has shrunk and doesn't contact the way it should. I tried disconnecting the phono input and wiring them up to a cd player but the signal was really weak. I'd need a preamp or something to get decent sound. Sometimes I use one of those little Radio Shack transeivers with the CD player but that gets to be a hassle.
I bought it at a church rummage sale almost 30 years ago. It moved to Minnesota with me about 10 years ago when I got married the first time. After that fell through I gave it to a girl I was dating and went to sea for a while. About 2 or 3 years ago she called me up, she was living in Boston with her boyfriend (I was living just an hour north of there) and she was moving again and did I want it back. Thank god. I really missed it.
It still thumps. Somewhere I have pictures of it without all the junk on it but I can't find them right now.


By the way, have any of you seen a fuse like this? It's a tiny thing, maybe 1/4" with a spool shape soldered to a stirrup shape. They came unsoldered a while back. An eye screw works but I don't think it's the right solution.

Kevin stafford

Enjoying this thread, I just picked up a near perfect Sansui Eight Deluxe receiver last night at Goodwill for 10 bucks. It is now set up in the living room with a pair of Sansui S-730 speakers. The bike workshop has an Onkyo receiver with a set of Optimus speakers.

bigbossman 

1977 Pioneer SX-780, aglow underneath a 1980 Mondia Super. Note the milled knobs and big, beefy toggle switches that softly "thunk" when you throw them. You just don't see that anymore - micro-switches killed them off:


Something else that you don't see much of, anymore. Analog gauges:

Grand Bois

I just donated a Sansui 777 integrated amp. I left a pair of Sansui speakers with 15" woofers in the workshop when I sold my last house. I just don't have room for all my stuff. I'm afraid that my house is going to end up looking like the ones you see on that Hoarders show. Twice I've bought bigger houses and managed to fill them up in a few years. Now I've got bicycles in three rooms.

Road Fan

By reconditioned on the Variac, you mean the capacitors are getting reformed by being powered up slowly, or the tech is just treating everything very gently until it's clear that the circuit is sound?

What TT, arm, and cartridge do you have? I have a dormant VPI original model, with an Eminent Technology arm and a Shure V15 Mk V.

Otis

You guys and your new fangled "stereo". Two speakers is like a 10 speed cassette and brifters. I'll stick with mono............

Road Fan

That's on the listening chair, aka Trek on a Trainer.

clubman 

Big, BIG Monkey Man!!! BAH BAH BA-BA-BA....


My goodness...the Dual (PL12D?) and The Specials is giving me flashbacks. ooohhhh...

Road Fan

I think the whole Boston connection started with Edgar Villchur and Acoustic Research Corporation.

Road Fan

Anybody need a pair of Stereo 70s? No guarantees, but I did use them about 20 years ago.

DavidW56

Someone please explain why the sound reproduced by these archaic machines is preferable to the sound reproduced by modern technology. All I recall from older sound equipment were many imperfections, distortions, and noise.

elcraft

Interesting, I know a Gen"Y"er who collects Vinyl and preaches the "Genuine Acoustics Gospel". Having lived through it, I still enjoy my vintage set up and my collection of LP's. The "Album" was such a great format for Art and Design. I see this thread running out of control, if we start to laud the great technologies of the very recent past- don't get me started on Nikon Film Cameras or Two Stroke Italian scooters...

bigbossman 

This. They run the voltage up in increments over a period of time, to get the capacitors to "re-form" to original specs. You can just flip it on and hope for the best, but it is a good amplifier and worth the cheap insurance to do it right.

strictly consumer grade stuff - Technics SL-D1 direct drive turntable with stock arm and Audio Technica cartridge. I forget the model, but it's green.

sailorbenjamin

Anologue is a part of it. Digital pixilates the sound. Big wooden sound boxes are helpful to acoustics.
I just get sick of all my CDs being scratched. My cassettes are all still fine even though I can't find a cassette deck that still has good drive bands.

sailorbenjamin

Can I do this myself or should I take it to a guy? What's the method?

bigbossman 

It's analog. It is not sampled, compressed, approximated, or digitally manipulated. It is a more faithful reproduction of the material. Vintage music was originally recorded in an analog fashion, and loses something in the conversion to digital.

Find a high-end stereo shop, and you'll find newly manufactured "archaic" equipment. Plunk yourself down in their listening room, and have them play your favorite music through some McIntosh mono-blocks and a pair of, say, Martin-Logan speakers.

If you're not impressed with the richness of the sound-stage, stick with what you've got.

bigbossman 

You need the Variac bench-test equipment to do it. That's the main requirement. It is a variable transformer that you use to slowly bring a long idle amplifier up to full power. Short discussion here:

https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20272

The thing is, a skilled stereo bench tech can use the Variac to find potential problems before they become real, expensive problems. So - I'd take it to a "guy", if it was something I cared about and/or it was valuable.

repechage

I gave up on stereo after I visited with a fellow bike club member, in his living room was an interesting set up, I don't remmeber the full details but he had a Rabco linear tracking turntable, two Revox reel to reel machines, some huge JBL's that he had suspended but were not used as he was evaluating some Quadraplaners (sp) electrostatic speakers. He had two computers running the show for for him and some music was on 5.25" floppy discs, pretty amazing for 1975.

Roll-Monroe-Co

Wow. My vintage audio equipment bears the same relation to others' stuff as my gaspipe bikes do to other people's bikes.

My wife and I are still using the Sony TA-AX310 amplifier (don't worry--there's a good reason you aren't familiar with this model) that my (now) wife got on discount because it was the floor model when she worked at L.S. Ayres in 1986. You have to jiggle the sliding volume control in order to get both channels and something that doesn't sound like it's coming from underwater.

bigbossman 

Interesting comment. I spun a Linda Ronstadt LP, and then followed that up with Carol King's Tapestry for my daughter. I showed her the simple but necessary procedures for using a turntable, and while we listened she picked up the album cover and examined it very closely. She was amazed at all the ancillary information that the jacket had - she had no idea recorded music used to come with all that extra background information.

I asked her if she had ever heard of the term "liner notes". She had not - so I got to explain all that to her.

She has been studying for finals the last couple of hours, and singing/humming Carol King tunes while doing so. I opened up the world a little more for her tonight.

Chris W.

WOW, I really dig this setup!

Chris

bigbossman 

I'd be interested.........