vintage stereo equipment

Anyone know where to turn for help in restoring vintage stereo equipment? I am waiting on delivery of a 1963 Grundig stereo console (kind of a Danish modern look) with a working turntable and tube amp., but the seller said the tuner isn't functioning. I searched around on the web, but didn't come up with much. I figured this was the proper device for my Baxter, Denny and Lyman albums.

Wow! sounds cool! And yes, very appropriate for your Baxter, Denny and Lyman albums.

Lady velour just picked up a great Hi-Fi. Its working fine but is missing a couple knobs and I haven't needed to to replace any tubes (yet). But i have been asking around where to get them when the time comes. Radio Shack could, on a slim chance, have the parts. Your best bet is to find an old radio/appliance repair shop. They can send you in the right direction. Also ask antique dealers in your area, they can help. That's how I have been finding out about parts. If worse comes to worst you can always gut it and install a new turntable.

Johnnie Velour's Note:
I haven't been to any of the said stores but this should help you out.

** Johnnie Velour is not responsible anything -- ever! **

Kiliki and I have found a few old guys who run little fix-it shops who have lots of old parts and can and will fix anything. I think that's the way to go. Not through the Internet. One guy has fixed our color wheel for the aluminum istmas tree and our vintage blenders. He usually works very reasonably, thought sometimes is slow.

As for vintage stereo, I'd look for the same sort of thing. An old TV repair place that has a guy who in in his 60's. Back when TV's had tubes. The tubes can be found on Ebay, often in bulk. If you need them, he can tell you what you need.

My "vintage" stereo is only from the mid-70's and has no tubes. Quadrovox. MMmmm. But those tube are generally pretty simple if you are used to the technology.

When Sven was here for Hukilau and we went to our most drool-enducing antique store in Atanta, there was a turntable stereo unit I had passed up at the thrift store for $35-40 going to $550. Made me sick. I have to buy this stuff and not skimp any more.

Thanks guys. Yellow Freight called today and will drop the "furniture pallet" off at our place tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out. Swanky: Your aluminum x-mas tree sounds cool. Marian's dad worked for Alcoa and they grew up with aluminum trees.

We live just down about a 1/2 hour from Alcoa, but the aluminum spinning Christmas tree is 50's staple in the house.

Kailuageoff, The guy from Rock n Roll Heaven, has a guy he uses, that can fix just about anything. And he is local. I am sure he will share his knowledge with you if you call the shop or drop by. He knows a lot himself about the vintage stereo's. The two crazy 60's stereo's I have in my shop came from him. He will help you get that baby up and running!

[ Edited by: HETO-TIKI on 2002-10-08 12:17 ]

Look for a local audiophile store that services tube equipment. If you can't find one, check these out:

http://hifiheaven.com/electronics-parts.htm

I swear to god, we had that Grundig when I was a kid!

I know what you meant as soon as you said it kinda had a mid-century look to it. Brown wood base with dark smoked plastic top, right?

I drove home at lunch today to meet the man in the Yellow Freight truck. He wasn't especially careful unloading it, so I was getting a little tense. Once unwrapped the cabinet appeared to be in pretty good shape, but the amp was sliding around loose on the inside (not a good thing). Before driving back to the office, I plugged it in to see if the turntable worked as advertised and it did. Didn't have time to put an lp on, however.
I know Rock'n'Roll Heaven, so that's a good lead for repairs. Thanks.
TikiFish: I think I know the stereo cabinet you had. Is it the one that looks like a jukebox with sliding doors on the front? If so, this cabinet is a litle different from those, but was proabably made by the same company. It has cloth covered speakers on either side, sits on top of four skinny legs, and has a drop-down door on the front to access the amp/tuner, and a lift up lid on top to get at the turntable. The sides are definitely some kind of faux dark wood, but other parts appear to be teak, or at least have a honey tone to the wood.
Why do I have a feeling this thing is going to cost me a lot more than the $200 I spent for it on ebay?

Gundig update: When I switched on the turntable the platter began spinning, the album dropped on to the platter, the tone arm lifted and hovered over the edge of the disc, the tone arm dropped on to the disc and the silence was deafening.
I called a Hi-Fi guy The Muggler wrote me about and he says he can work on it for me, but is kind of busy right now. I guess I'm stuck listening to my surround sound Yamaha til then.

I'm sorry to hear that. Once I bought a portable record player from the 50s at a flea market. They let me try it out with a record at a testing station. After warm-up it worked fine so I bought it. After taking it home I plugged it in and the sound had stopped working! Arrgh!

Another time I bought a Dual turntable at a flea market and they said they would hold it for me until I was finished browsing the rest of the sellers. I returned later and they were gone, with my money and my turntable! I may have been naive but I have had sellers hold items before with no problems.

I'd say the table and arm and all that is purely mechanical, but the sound is all electronics, that's why it didn't work. The later is likely far more fixable than the former. Could be as simple as a new tube. But you should also leave it plugged up a while before you play it. I have a tube type radio that takes minutes to warm up. Works perfect once it gets going.

Well, this has taken forever, but I finally got our local mad genius ancient radio repair guy to work on my Grundig stereo -- thanks Muggler for connecting me with him -- and he released it from his shop today.
He replaced all of the capacitors and one of those pesky "rundfunk gleichrichter" units, so everything is working fine now.
For my inagural listening session I mixed up a martini and put Tak Shindo's "Accent On Bamboo" on the turntable. This particular disc has lots of martini scratches (as Jab affectionately calls them), but played just fine given the heavyweight tone arm and industrial strength needle this set has.
My total bill for repairs was $150 and I'm very happy. If anyone needs an expert in audio equipment archeology, let me know because this guy is freakin amazing.

[ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2003-08-25 20:11 ]