Category Archives: Vintage

Bose® 901 Series II Active Equalizer #81471 Repair

Posted on April 16, 2016 by jwk

From Rain City Audio: This Bose® 901 Active Equalizer, Series II #81471, just came through the shop for a repair. It’s owner sent this one all the way from Ontario, Canada for expert repair from Rain City Audio. This one … Continue reading →

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1957 Grundig 5060A High Fidelity Tube Radio

Posted on April 14, 2016 by jwk

From Rain City Audio: German radios are considerably less common than U.S.-made radios from the same model years, but offer excellent performance and very beautiful styling. This Grundig 5060A from 1957 does just that, offering AM Broadcast, two Shortwave, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Electronics, Hi-Fi, Projects, Radio, Radios and Tubes, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

1946 Setchell-Carlson 416 “Frog Eyes” Radio Repair

Posted on March 19, 2016 by jwk

This little post-WW2 AM Broadcast receiver made a trip from the central Skagit Valley down to Seattle’s Rain City Audio for service. The owner had one of these decades ago and recently picked up another, and wanted it to be … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Electronics, Projects, Radio, Radios and Tubes, Vintage | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

“Won’t that ruin the vintage sound?”

Posted on March 16, 2016 by jwk

Audio as a hobby sits in an interesting place in the world. There are hard numbers and objective measurements made with lab equipment on one end, and on the other end you have the subjective and variable linguistic descriptions assigned … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Commentary, Electronics, Hi-Fi, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Magnavox 1ST611R Tube Console Stereo Overhaul

Posted on March 8, 2016 by jwk

From Rain City Audio: A customer recently brought me the guts from his Magnavox 1ST611R mid-century stereo console for an overhaul. He’d had the console for a while, working but with some trouble, but wanted to finally get it back … Continue reading →

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Bose® 901 Series II Active Equalizer #64364 Overhaul

Posted on February 27, 2016 by jwk

This Series II Bose® Active Equalizer came through the shop. It had suffered age-related failures in its electrolytic capacitors, and the resistors had drifted with age and moisture to produce the wrong curves. Fortunately, it’s nothing some maintenance can’t solve! … Continue reading →

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Bose® 901 Series I Active Equalizer #6878 Repair

Posted on February 20, 2016 by jwk

This early-production Bose® 901 Active Equalizer came through the shop recently for a repair. These Early models were the very first production run, back in 1968, and have a pretty significantly different circuit design from the later models, and feature … Continue reading →

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Retro 1956 Cyclometer VTVM – Hycon Model 615

Posted on February 19, 2016 by jwk

A pretty cool, very rare piece of test equipment turned up on eBay recently: a 1956 Hycon model 615 AC/DC VTVM. This was a precursor of today’s digital, using analog servo circuitry to drive the numeric digit display. These were … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, Gadgets, Test Equipment, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bose® 901 Series IV Active Equalizer #253288 Overhaul

Posted on February 16, 2016 by jwk

This Bose® 901 Series IV Active Equalizer came through the shop for a full overhaul. Inevitably over the years, various parts wear out and degrade and can make the equalizer sound bad – or not work at all. Without the … Continue reading →

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HH Scott HHS-20 “Scotsman” Receiver Overhaul

Posted on January 27, 2016 by jwk

A local repeat customer recently brought in his old HH Scott HHS-20 receiver for an overhaul. It worked a few years ago when he put it away, although not without a few issues of its own, and when he dug … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Electronics, Projects, Stereo, Vintage | 3 Comments