Hi everyone and thanks for welcoming me to the forum. I am from Germany and have just recently discovered the old cassette tapes from my youth and decided to get back into the groove again. Bit by bit, I re-purchased the pieces of my high-grade Yamaha stereo that I had originally bought with my first, self-earned money at 19 (and later sold). Now, I've gotten deep into restoring basic electronic equipment and, specifically, personal cassette players and have started with two rare AIWA HS PX-410. I did full recaps on both and was able to restore one to near-perfect condition; the other is still proving to be a challenge. ;-) I'm looking forward to learn more about the technicalities of restoring cassette players in here. Take care! Bijan
Welcome! Feel free to share your equipment, even your Yamaha Stereo. They made really neat stuff back then, I've got some pieces that I love, home audio and boomboxes!
Well, I had bought me a high-quality Yamaha stereo as my first own system at 19, the components of which I unfortunately sold piece by piece over the course of the following 20 years. Last year, on rediscovering my tape and record collection, the nostalgia virus hit me and I bought me back the individual components of my system What I found was mostly in mint condition and I got most at a fraction of the original prices because everyone seems to have switched to smartphones and Bluetooth speakers. I absolutely adore the minimalist, sleek design aesthetic Yamaha built for a while in the early 90s. They later replaced the clean, understated fronts and symmetrically arranged knobs with broken lines and awkwardly asymmetric shapes that I hated. Yet the design of 1990-1993 is a classic, in my view. I now have (back) my original TX-650 tuner, KX-670 tape deck, an AX-870, that I repaired myself (and never sold), and even the fantastic high-end CDX-1060 – a wonderful thing. I'm a very happy camper again. And now I bought me a very rare AIWA HS PX-410 as a personal cassette player for the main reason that it is among the extremely few that does Dolby C. I remember some of us who couldn't afford Sony's DD-line had these in school. Again, an absolute design classic, I believe.
A belated welcome, Fulltimehuman, that's a nice Aiwa HS PX-410 you've got there. I have only two Aiwa's in my predominantly Sony recorder collection: a silver plastic TP-M920 and a black metal TP-M8 which, as usual, cost me next to nothing. I live in the Netherlands, but a substantial part of my collection was found on eBay Germany. It seems that in the previous century, the Germans bought more cassette recorders than the people in my country, or perhaps we Dutch just hang on to own old analog stuff a bit longer.
Great equipment! I like most of the Yamaha Equipment, those older recievers with the rectangular knobs are so different but the build quality is really nice. I put them and B & O in the artsy catagory with their equipment. I do like the later 80's Yamaha's, they were still putting out good equipment when every one else was suffering and selling all-in-ones, I've got an R8 or R9 around here somewhere with black brushed metal front plate and really cool red LEDs, back when red was the cool color.
Thanks! That's an impressive collection. You seem to be focussing on 70s/80s equipment. Yeah, the Aiwa PX-410 was among those we all had in school around 1991-94. I could never afford my own, but remember them fondly. So, I just had to get one later in life.
what a lovely shelfe ! had to run to mine to check if everything is still there - nice Uher Monitor, nice Braun- deck, Fi-Cord 101 (...the bigger one behind is also a Fi-Cord ?) gosh, we should have a few beers together Willkommen Fulltimehuman, hier bist Du richtig
Nice stuff you've got there.... a Nagra SN no less!! Now that's a piece of Swiss precision I'd love to own, but those things are beyond expensive. I see you've found your Fi-Cord 101 as well. Hey, maybe you're the guy who outbid me on that rare occasion one popped up on eBay. I'd been looking for one of these gold and baby-blue beauties for ages and had all but given up on ever finding one, when a few months ago, out of the blue, some guy put no less than two Fi-Cords up for sale on Marktplaats (Dutch eBay): a 1959 A1 and a very early model 101 from 1961, both in impeccable shape. To my delight, no one else was bidding and I managed to pick up both recorders for 175 Euro. My 1959 Fi-Cord A1, a heavy dude... My pride and joy, a 1961/62 Fi-Cord 101, the ultra rare early model with solid brass spools and no 'forward & back winds', 'record' and 'listen' engraving above the push buttons. Great hobby, isn't it?
...absolutely ! don‘t think i outbid you as i got mine from a different source - its also the early model but unfortunately i don‘t have the brass reels (...envy !) let‘s not go to off-topic and start a miniature reel-to-reel fred ?
Nice, I love that old equipment that looks like I could go out in my shop and make. We talked a little bit about these models awhile back, there's some cool brochures in this thread. http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/fi-cord-101s.2069/
