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Help with Vintage Stereo

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 10:51 pm
by Necrovore
Hey Gents, I have a vintage magnavox stereo system that is tube driven that I would like to get working again. It is one of the old stereophonic type systems where you have the receiver/record player in one cabinet and the extension speaker in the other. Do any of you have expereince working on such gear?

If someone can help Ill pull it away from the wall and get all the pertenant info that you might need to help me with this otherwise it will remain as furniture.

Thanks in advance.

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:27 am
by Flames1950
You might check Antique Electronics Supply's selection of books/schematics and see if there's any info out there. I've gotten mucho info from their stuff on the old 30's and 40's tube radios I have sitting around.
Most of these old things need the same treatment as an old unused guitar amp, plan on replacing the power supply filters first off and then you could fire it up (with a variac if available) and see if you get sound. Old tubes may be old but they were made so much better that's it's actually been a rare occurrence that I've had to replace them in my radios. I can only think of one occasion where I had to replace a leaky coupling cap to clean up a weak, static-y sound.
If there's no schematics available start with the filter caps and work from there.
Whatever you do, don't mess with the tuning coils if it's got a radio tuner in there, realigning them looks like a bitch.

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:55 pm
by Necrovore
Nah turns out this is only a record player. I will need to take it outside to dust off the cobwebs that have caked themselves around the amp. Last time I checked was about 3 years ago and it did in fact turn on but the turntable itself needed work. Too bad that these old systems arent worth that much. I will probably try and restore it to working condidtion for nothing else but nostalgic reasons. The speeds on the tt are 16,33,45,78 Havent seen a setup like that in years.