Contrast that with the inside of my current player bought about a year ago. What a difference 40 years makes.
They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore
Vintage Audio Pr0n
From back when the name Nakamichi meant something…
I Know No One Cares…
…but I've settled on my favorite combination for deskside CD playback.
I never really intended to jump back into the portable CD lifestyle after abandoning it with the advent of iPods and later iPhones, but yet here I am. I'm currently listening to the complete Koyaanisqatsi score at angelic volume and truth be told, I'm loving it.
Vintage Audio Pr0n
Some Thoughts After Having Been Back Into This For a While Now
Sony D-10 (1986-89)
This was the first second portable CD player I owned shortly after the format showed up, back in the mid 80s. (The first was a Sony D-7, and I had nothing but issues with the headphone jack on that unit so I'm in no hurry to get another one.) Of the four players I now own, this one, hands-down, produces the best sound. Even though it's been fully serviced, I was still surprised how much noise the laser sled assembly makes when searching for tracks or when returning to its rest position at the end of play. It's also extremely sensitive to shock and vibration, something I have no memory of from back in the day. I know I used to drag it between my apartment and office downtown, tucked away in my backpack while I walked to and from MUNI stations and while riding the train but I certainly don't remember it being as skip-prone as this particular example is. Or maybe it's just like I wrote before: we didn't expect perfection and just lived with it. It's a question I suppose I'll never have a definitive answer for. Nostalgia notwithstanding, I also think it's among the best looking players that Sony ever produced. An all-metal enclosure, and a (in the case of this particular unit, a rebuilt, modernized) battery pack that clips on the bottom spoke to Sony's attention to quality and design.
Sony D-15 (1988-89)
This was supposedly the direct descendant of the D-10. It's marked by some design changes and improvements internally as well as externally. It also sports the addition of LED illumination in the display window (when the player is plugged into mains at least) and an internal battery pack. The sound from the D-15 is very close to the D-10, so much so that I'm hard pressed to find any huge real differences. Like the D-10, the case is solid aluminum, giving it a nice heft. The mechanism in this—also fully serviced—unit is much quieter than the D-10. And even though neither units possess anything resembling Sony's later "G-Protection" shock technology, I've found this player to be still more resistant to bumps and other jostles than its predecessor, and when bumped seems to recover a tad more quickly. In addition to the built-in battery pack, like the D-10, it can use the same external clip-on-the-bottom-of-the-unit BP-100 battery pack, although the guy whom I bought the D-10 from warned me not to charge the rebuilt BP-100 through the D-15 because of some voltage differences required by the newer battery formulation he used in the rebuilt unit and had compensated for in the D-10. So better safe than sorry since he obviously knows more about electronics than I do. I can power it from the BP-100, but I can't charge the BP-100 through the D-15.
As mentioned, the D-15 does have a provision for an internal rechargeable battery pack, but of course Sony no longer makes them. Thankfully there are third-party replacements available that can be recharged through the player itself or via a standard USB-C charger. I have one on order…
The one thing both the D-10 and the D-15 suffer from is an extreme sensitivity to dirty or scratched discs. Whereas the two later players (below) will handle most everything without a hiccup, the tiniest speck or scratch will cause these two to lose their minds, sometimes never recovering. I'll put a disc in and halfway through will start stuttering. I will pull the disc out and look at it under bright light, and yeah, sure enough, there's a partial fingerprint or a tiny speck of schmutz that I didn't see before. So I'm trying to get in the habit of wiping down each disc beforehand that I play in these units.
Sony D-171 (1997-98)
This is my old workhorse, purchased new in 1998 and put in storage at some indeterminate date. I pulled it out when I really started getting back into CDs (after remembering I still had it) and have enjoyed using it again. Obviously a decade had passed between the D-25 and the D-171, and in those intervening years Sony really got the design of these machines down to a fine art. Gone are the multi-level circuit boards and dozens of snaking wires. All the circuitry is now on one board. The D-171 is all plastic, but has held up amazingly well over the years. Still no skip-protection circuitry, but it does handle jostling better than either of the two earlier models, recovering almost instantly if it receives a direct hit. It also has something called "Mega Bass" that offers two increases in bass frequencies, neither of which are particularly welcome to my ears. When doing a direct comparison, the overall sound quality is rather muddy and a little "thin" in comparison to either the D-15 or the D-10 through my Grado over-the-ear cans, but certainly okay when listening through a pair of Skull Candy earbuds (dating from 2016 or thereabouts) while falling asleep. It also has the advantage of being powered by standard Double-A batteries (including the Duracell/Energizer rechargeable variety) when not plugged into the mains. Supposedly there was a rechargeable battery pack available that charged through the D-171 itself and slipped into the standard Double-A slots, but I never owned one back in the day and while there are replacements available online, I honestly don't see the need. The laser sled is still quite audible when searching or returning to its rest, but it's neither louder or quieter than the D-15. And as I discovered last week, the D-171 also has the advantage of being extremely easy to get into for repairs.
Tuesday night as I was getting ready for bed, I popped a CD in and pressed play and saw the disc try to spin up and then stop, giving me the dreaded "No Disc" error on the display. Wondering if it was the disc itself, I tried another one with the same results. With it being too close to midnight for me to investigate further, I put it aside until the next day.
It turned out that one of the ball bearings that hold the disc in place on the spindle had popped out of its holder and was rolling around inside the player. Five screws and some gentle prying later, I had the unit apart and located the culprit, pushed it back into place, and everything worked normally again.
The one downside to my old player (other than the general sound quality in comparison to the other players) is that it produces a loud, annoying beep through the headphones when in pause mode—and there's no way of turning it off.
Sony D-EJ100 (2004)
This was one of those impulse, totally unnecessary "because it looks cool" purchases, and has become my go-to player for my daily commute and use at work. The sound quality still isn't as good as either the D-10 or D-15, but it is better than the D-171, and it's perfectly fine for 8 hours at the office. And it has shock protection! Since it's continually reading data into memory before passing it to the amplifer and on to your headphones, all but the worst upset is ignored. Like the D-171, the D-EJ100 is all plastic, but the particular unit I bought was either generally unused or taken very good care of by its previous owner as there's nary a scratch on it (except for the bottom, which was to be expected). The laser sled makes about the same amount of noise when it's slewing as the D-171, which is to say it's audible, but not annoyingly so.
It has a few other features beyond "G-Protection" as Sony calls it. Like the D-171 it has a two step bass boost, but also has a wired remote that connects between your headphones and the player if needed) so you can change tracks and volume when the player is sequestered in your bag or backpack. (This unit came with one, but I've yet to use it.) Also like the D-171 it arrives out of the box with a loud, annoying beep when paused, but this can now be turned off!
Have I mentioned the batteries? When not plugged into the mains, it's powered by standard (or rechargeable) Double-As, and battery life on this unit is amazing. It's rated at 50 hours, and I'm here to confirm that if anything, that's a lowball estimate. It may not have been running for a solid 8 hours a day—more like 5-6—at work, but it took nearly three weeks for the fresh set of batteries it arrived with to run out.. Yeah, I know with iPhones and other modern media players, that probably doesn't sound like much since our new devices get recharged on the daily, but I think it's outstanding for a twenty year old piece of tech.
Fiddling While Rome Burns
We all need our escapes from the seemingly never ending existential dread that surrounds us these days, and Anubis knows I have mine. I've never escaped via illicit drugs or alcohol (no, really!), but as you've surmised if you've followed me here for any length of time, you know I do have my…obsessions.
Today I did a thing. I brought my 1984 Yamaha amplifier into the 21st century by swapping out the existing speaker binding posts with the newer style 5-way binding posts that accept so-called "banana plugs." These also don't balk at the thicker, 14-gauge wire I currently have running to my speakers.
It really wasn't something I'd previously considered because the amount of work involved in swapping these posts out individually was well beyond what I ever wanted to do on my own. But one day I stumbled upon a link in an audio discussion forum to a guy who builds plug-n-play assemblies that simply replace the existing part. Done and done.
It took me the better part of an hour to swap out the part—mainly because I have the soldering skills of a 6-year old and the eyes of a 66-year old—but once I got everything put back together I was pleasantly surprised how easy it really was…and I was even more surprised that I did it without blowing anything up!
Does it make the amp sound any different? No, of course not. But I like the look and the future ease of using those banana plug connectors.
Vintage Audio Pr0n
Yeah, I've owned one…several, actually…over the years. They seem to come and go from my life and I never really understand why. They're good, solid tables—they contain the same components as the venerable 1200Mk2 series—and Technics finally addressed the arm cueing issues of the previous Mk2 automatic and semi-automatics with this design.
By the Late 90s…
…and early 00's, Sony had their Discman shit down to an art. It's really too bad the whole product line died only a couple years later with the advent of the iPod because it really is amazing technology.
Yeah, the Discman cases went all plastic, but everything was now consolidated onto a single circuit board, a definite improvement in terms of serviceability. Remove four screws from the bottom and the top/tray pops right off…unlike my beloved D-10 which has two double-sided circuit boards linked by a ribbon cable, multiple wire connects, and is much more complicated:
Or this, my original D-7 from 1986 with a belt-drive spindle motor. And look at that laser transport!
Still a feat of miniaturization and engineering considering that full-size CD decks only came on the scene a few years earlier.
Remember…obsessed.
In 1976, This Was The Future
72 Hour Review
Was it worth it?
The Good
The sound quality of this D-10 is absolutely amazing. I can't get over how much better it sounds over my late 90s D-171 that I pulled out of storage a few weeks ago. While I can't do any direct A-B comparisons, just transferring a CD from the D-10 to the D-171 sounds as if I've stuffed cotton in my ears. I hooked the D-10 into my main stereo system last night via the line out jack on the back of the unit, and while it didn't sound as good as my modern Yamaha deck, it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.
The build quality is top-notch. As I wrote before, it sports a solid metal case throughout—which was the norm from Sony in 1987. I consider the visual design of the player itself to be one of the company's best, rivaled only by the previous D-7.
(As an aside, I owned a D-7 prior to getting the D-10 in 1987. It too was a fine player, and in fact I'm not sure why I ended up ditching it and getting the D-10, other than the allure of "new, thinner, lighter, shinier" thing. As I wrote previously one or the other of the units—perhaps both, it's been over 35 years now and my memory fails me in these details—had a notoriously wonky headphone jack that required multiple re-soldering jobs on my part to keep it working. That might've been the reason I replaced it with the D-10 if indeed the D-7 was the headphone jack culprit and not the D-10.)
The Bad
Cosmetically the player has its fair share of scuffs and scratches. Not unexpected considering it's age—and I doubt that if I somehow kept my original unit after all these years it would look any better. The scuffs and scratches tend to leap out in photos, but in real life you can't even see them unless you specifically go looking.
When the laser is slewing back and forth while manually selecting tracks (or when the disc ends and it returns to its resting position) it's loud. I don't remember if my original unit was this loud, but I suspect it was. My D-171 is nearly as noisy when performing the same tasks, so I don't think it's a matter of lubrication or anything, as I know this machine was lubed as part of it's refurb. I suspect it's because we've grown so inured to silent devices that provide instant access to our music over the last couple decades we've forgotten how things used to be—and which we were completely fine with at the time.
I've noticed the unit does struggle with certain disks, specifically the "Premium Series" remastered disco albums that I've featured in previous posts. They play, but a lot of audible distortion shows up almost immediately. The discs I have trouble with—as much as I love them—are of…questionable…pedigree, so that may explain a lot of it. With discs from reputable mainstream and indie labels, I haven't had the issue. (They occasionally skip a bit on my D-171, but they play flawlessly on my Yamaha deck.)
The Ugly
As I wrote before, there is absolutely no skip-protection on the D-10.
When this unit came out, The feature hadn't been invented yet (or the cost of implementing it was prohibitive) and it seems all you have to do is sneeze in its general direction and it will jitter and skip. I don't remember my original one being so sensitive but if it was, I wonder how I actually lugged it around San Francisco in my backpack while listening on my daily commute, unless—like the slewing noise—this was just something that was an accepted part of the new technology. But like I said, since it's going to live on my desk and not get used while moving around, this is a moot point…as long as I don't inadvertently bump it! (To its credit, it does recover almost instantly.)
Conclusion
Was it worth it? All things considered, I'm honestly torn between "meh" and "fuck yes!" The one thing that is certain is that I plan on enjoying the hell out of it for years to come, if just for the sound quality alone. I even checked with the guy I bought it from (whose advocation actually seems to be repairing these vintage Discmans) to ask if I can send it back to him for any future repairs, and he said yes. All I have to do is cover the shipping. And he's even someone who enjoys talking shop…
66 Trips Around The Sun 🥳
Nostalgia
To be filed under: Things I Wish I'd Never Gotten Rid Of
Nostalgia is a part of getting old, right?
The Sony D-10 was the first second portable CD player I owned. (The first was a D-7, and let me tell you that digging up that model number numerous trips to the dusty memory banks in my head, not to mention copious Google searches until I stumbled upon it.) Bought new in 1986 from Jerry's Audio (now a mere shell of it's former self) in Tucson, it went everywhere with me even though this was several years before anti-skip technology and it did tend to lose its mind when jostled too hard. Even without that tech, it still worked surprisingly well when casually walking, but anything more strenuous would send it into a tailspin. This basically relegated it to desk use at work while I was busy creating architectural drawings.
And it wasn't cheap—somewhere north of $300 ($850 in 2024 dollars) as I remember. But damn, it was awesome—and in my mind totally worth it.CDs were still relatively new and just beginning to catch on so was the tech. The unit itself was also heavy; no cheap molded plastic case here; solid metal all the way. It came with a custom rechargeable battery the size of a standard CD case that clipped on the bottom of the device and made connection via spring-loaded gold contacts. Chef's kiss.
As the years progressed, the only thing that proved problematic was the headphone jack. (Kind of an important part, when you think about it, and in all honesty I may be confusing this with the D-7.) The only thing that kept it in place was the jack's soldered electrical connection to the circuit board and with the constant jiggling of the headphones through ordinary use, they'd often crack from the strain and come loose. I don't remember how many times I removed the bottom cover to resolder those joints during ownership. I even shelled out the bucks for the optional remote control and pop-in infrared receiver since I did have it connected to my main stereo more often than not.
I don't remember the circumstances under which I finally let it go, but whenever I see one on eBay these days it brings a tear to my eye and I toy with the idea of replacing it, even with it's known limitations. Unfortunately, fully four fifths of the units up for sale at any given time are marked as "not working/parts only" and those that are working—or god forbid have been properly refurbished—are priced higher than I'm willing to pay for nostalgia's sake. So I admire them from afar and simply enjoy my much more contemporary vintage D-171 that I bought in the late 90s.
Vintage Audio Pr0n
Oops, I Did It Again
The Yamaha amplifier I acquired last year sounds amazing. I fall in love with it all over again every time I power it on and put on some music.
But it has a secret. It's a ticking time bomb. It's not the age; it's generally accepted that Yamaha equipment will outlive all of us if it's properly maintained. The dirty secret is that after being soldered to the main circuit board, several critical components in the power amplifier stage were glued to the board with adhesive that over the years has broken down and become quite corrosive and is known to eat through metal. If left unaddressed this will eventually cause an expensive, catastrophic failure of the unit.
I only learned about this a few months ago, and sadly, the A700 I bought last year is showing this same dreaded corrosion.
That black goo at the base of those two big capacitors is the corrosive glue. As you can see it's already eaten away at several of the resistors immediately below. And who knows what it's done to the underside of those caps? Might explain why the left channel was occasionally dropping out. The joys of owning vintage HiFi gear, right?
When I first noticed this, I contacted my repair guy up north as well as the local tech I took my Kenwood to last summer, and they both quoted an estimate "in the neighborhood" of $200-300 to clear away the glue, replace all the affected components, and do the general maintenance this unit undoubtedly requires after being in service for the last 40 years.
Shortly after getting this news (and at least in the case of my guy up north, facing the possibility of being without the amp for the better part of a year), I was perusing eBay and ran across an auction for an identical unit that already had this servicing done.
Since I'm on a self-imposed budget I did not immediately smash the "Buy It Now" button. Amazing self-restrait, huh?
Actually, the seller was asking more than I was willing to pay, but I still filed the posting away on my watchlist. Just in case things changed.
About a month ago I got an in-app email from the seller offering a significant discount, bringing the price down into the $200-300 range I'd been quoted for the repair of my unit.
Damn.
But hey, Mercury was retrograde and already chewing me up into a million pieces, and I didn't want to tempt the astrological gods, so once again I fought the urge to hit that button.
Over the past few days, the left channel on the amp has been dropping out with increasing regularity, requiring a bit of volume-knob jiggling to bring it back to life.
Tick tock. Tick Tock. Tick tock.
By now I figured the seller had either sold the unit or removed it from the site, but I went to my watchlist today and amazingly it was still available. Mercury's finally out of retrograde, timing blessed me with an "extra" paycheck this month, so fuck the budget. It's gonna cost the same whether I buy an already-repaired unit or send mine out to get fixed. And I can justify the expense by telling myself I can sell my original unit and probably recoup most of the money spent on the new one.
Happy Early Birthday to Me! I did say it was a sickness…
Cosmetically, it's not quite as nice as my existing unit, but those parts can easily be swapped. The important thing—the guts—are what's important.
What's sad is that this repair isn't that difficult; if I had a modicum of electronics knowledge and didn't have the soldering skills of a six-year-old, it would be something I could easily do myself. But I know that as it stands right now I'd end up making a bigger mess of things than what exists now, so…nope. Leave it to the experts who know what the fuck they're doing.
I'm Such A Nerd
Where's my pocket protector?!
So as I mentioned in passing a month ago (has it only been a month?) I got this blinkie-light thingie (a power/line level LED meter) for my stereo. For some reason this particular unit is rarer than proverbial hens' teeth (could be the age, or the limited production run, or both), so when it showed up on eBay I immediately snagged it.
I bought one new back in 1979 (minus the oak end panels) when it first came out, but after a decade or so of use I grew weary of it, and somehow it ended up in the trunk (or boot for those in the UK) of my then-boyfriend's car, thinking it would get dropped off at Goodwill at some point. Unfortunately, this was while I was living in SF and because parking on the street is the norm, when the inevitable car break-in happened, it was gone, along with whatever else happened to have been in there.
Anyway, after all these years I thought I knew everything it was capable of doing. What I didn't know—and just discovered today—was that it also had a peak-hold function that displays the highest signal level attained for a small period of time. I knew the silver button on the left side of the unit switched between line-level and RMS (power) display, but I started wondering why in addition to a switch it was also a potentiometer. So I turned it, and all of a sudden the peak levels were holding (the single LEDs that are separate from the main readout in the photo above), similar to how the meters work in my Technics amp. How long they remain on is dependent on how far you turn the knob. Who knew? There is no mention of this whatsoever in the admittedly-sparse instruction booklet—and frankly I think my original unit simply had a standard pushbutton, so it may explain why I missed this all these years. (This unit may be a later production run than what I had originally.) Sadly it only seems to work on the line-level inputs, not the power level side of things, but it's still pretty damn interesting that it can do this.
I'm such a nerd.
Triptych
Why there is both an integrated amp and a preamplifier/amplifier in this stack escapes me, but still…DAMN, Daddy!
Vintage Audio Pr0n
Triptych
One of my best friends in high school had one of these. It was an amazing deck.
Vintage Audio Pr0n
Blinky Lights
It's a "got-into-hifi-in-the-1970s" thing.
If you didn't, you wouldn't understand…
Vintage Audio Pr0n
Vintage Audio Pr0n
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…
Further Adventures of an Aging Audiophile
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.
There's My Sylvester!
I Can Understand the Resurgence of Vinyl…
…but cassettes are making a comeback? Seriously?
WHY?!
I was chatting with my buddy Ken a couple weeks ago, discussing our audio equipment, and he asked, "What cassette deck do you have these days?"
I told him I didn't have a cassette deck—and in fact hadn't owned one for nearly 20 years. He was flabbergasted, just couldn't comprehend how I didn't have one…
The Trials and Tribulations Of An Aging Audiophile (Final Part)
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.
The Trials and Tribulations Of An Aging Audiophile (Part Three)
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 Trials And Tribulations Of An Aging Audiophile (Part Two)
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]
The Trials and Tribulations Of An Aging Audiophile (Part One)
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]
Vintage Audio Pr0n
