Hello Dear All, My name is Henri, and I live in Cambridge, UK. Boomboxes bring me so much joy and a nostalgic feeling of my youth in the 80's. I have a few stereos, and wish I had a bigger house to expand my collection. Don't tell my wife about it Essentially, I would like to learn how to fix radios and other audio equipment. If anyone can recommend how to achieve this goal without doing a degree course, I would be grateful to hear from you. I look forward to exploring this forum and chatting to its members. Best regards, Henri
Welcome to the forum! 1/2 the fun of the old equipment is fixing it and nowadays most of it needs a tune-up. There's a great thread over on AK that talks about the tools you need, at minimum you'll want a small set of JIS Screwdrivers and a soldering iron. https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...udio-gear-eh-heres-the-tools-you-need.333423/ I've also posted some articles on repairs https://stereo2go.com/forums/thread...decks-articles-from-around-the-internet.4777/ There's 100's of electronic repair books on archive.org you might have to do some searching but they are on there.
Thank you so much for welcoming me, and for the useful information. I will surely go through all of that. Best regards!
Read this thread of mine. I've made quite a few YouTube videos on how to repair cassette boomboxes and I have five YouTube channels that I'd list in this thread below. Check them out if you would. Welcome to the forum http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads...istory-2678-video-links-5-779-715-views.9608/
Complex repairs can be mostly avoided, I believe, by carefully scrutinizing the e-bay ads and buying items in better condition and from a good seller. This will cost more than buying a beat up "unknown" from a junk picker shop where they pull any old thing out of dumpsters etc., One has to carefully consider just what it is one wants to buy... and why. That's my mantra anyway. This way I can justify spending a high price on buying an item in full working condition and in good cosmetic condition that "only" requiring hours of detail cleaning and, in the case of cassette mechanism, rubber parts replacement. And maybe "only" a replacement of the capacitors. Ugh. Sony CF-550, Sony CF-470, Sony CF-480 and Sony CF-1990 and the Panasonic RX DT707 were such models that I spend dozens of hours on each one. Just... had enough of all that now. Great fun, superb sense of exhilaration in getting everything working 100%, to experience the audio quality of such and such a model etc., but no more. Right now I have lost all interest in boomboxes, Walkman's or Discman players because I feel I have already got the few "good ones" I like the look of. Moving on to other green pastures. Yesterday for example I spent about 5 hours rebuilding a Dyson DC66 vacuum I found at the dumpster on Monday. Good psychical condition with nothing broken. Just blocked with hair, power head jammed with hair, roller wheels all seized with hair etc,. etc,. Just this morning got it all back together and 100% working. What a thrill! It was a $499 Canadian dollar vacuum when they were being sold. Still $299 on the Dyson site for a refurbished one. And I got to "experience" this Dyson model. Previously found a thrown away Dyson Animal V7 that had nothing wrong with it but a dead wall charger adapter. $27 for a new knock off from Amazon fixed it. Dyson? Engineered for a dream world, not the real world, not for real homes where folks can't and don't maintain or respect their possessions. The small feeble roller wheels (5 of them on the base plate of the powerhead) must have picked up hair and jammed up within the first 6 months. Idiotic design. And the brush roller... in two pieces... intricately held together with Torx screws everywhere. Just like the vacuum forums techs say as they laugh at Dyson "expensive throw away" vacs. Give me another Hoover Wind Tunnel or Panasonic / Kenmore any day. Yes I almost threw it straight into the dumsper where it belonged... sorry Mr Dyson in the UK somewhere busy designing the latest "ghostsbusters golly gosh gee whiz it looks like Star Wars vacuum". But I actually felt sorry for the vac. Knowing all it needed was some help to get a new lease on life. Sigh. Well here it is all cleaned up... add to the collection? Anyone want it?
I have rebuilt many vacuum cleaners, my favorite one, those an oreck and it's a professional model and it needed a few odd parts. A new belt and now it works great There is the oreck it's buried in the garage because we don't use it because we have well. This would make the fourth vacuum so it's like the emergency vacuum if you would lol
