VINTAGE HIFI BLOG

Retro Workshop, Audio Repair Services, Southampton

7/3/2019

Today we had a very pleasant visit from Peter Carr of Southampton based audio repairs company "The Retro Workshop"

Peter specialises in repairing vintage gear from the 1930's to 1980.

He's happy to work on Dansette style record players, valve radios, radiograms, and everything in-between.

He's a lovely chap, and we enjoyed drinking tea, chatting all things audio (and gardening) and listening to some good music in the demo rooms.

He brought over a set of his home made amps, and they sounded very good indeed!

We think it is very important to band together all like minded people in our business and would highly recommend his services for general vintage audio repairs and maintenance.

www.retroworkshop.co.uk

www.facebook.com/retroworkshops

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HiFi Hangar project night (aka build along with Bob)

24/1/2019

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Sorting out and earth hum on a Sony turntable

We have a number of electronic engineers that regularly help out, helping you breathing life in to many an interesting bit of kit.

We would like to thank Regulars like Ted, Ben, John and Kevin (and many others) for helping Bob and making these nights both fun and productive.

.... and a special thanks to John's wife for the lovely cakes!

Whether it's a home made amp at the 'Breadboard' stage or a dodgy turntable, we are here to help.

Full restorations or a quick fix, please feel free to pop along and get stuck in...

The 'Build Along with Bob' project nights are really taking off, the recent events have been very popular.

Ted checking over a prototype preamp design.

The nights are held every 3rd Wednesday of the month at our shop from 6.30pm, check out up and coming dates on our calendar

Local Goldring Lenco expert Ben, breathing life into a GL75 turntable

Lenco platter, machine polishing, before and after

Sorting out a jumpy cd player draw

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Christmas Soiree and 'Spin What Ya Bring' Event - 22nd Dec 2017

11/11/2017

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Well, its nearly that time of year again and to celebrate another year we are holding a Hifi Hangar Christmas soiree.,

It will be starting from around midday and going into the evening to merge with our 'Spin What Ya Bring' listening night.

During the day we will have minced pies and drinks and in the evening from 6.30pm onwards we will set up a vintage hifi system in one of our listening rooms. All our customers are welcome to come along and bring music to play during the evening.

There is a bit of a challenge that if you bring along any Christmas songs it should be something alternative that we would not normally have heard on Christmas.

So get your thinking caps on and start searching the archives for any interesting Christmas covers by unlikely artists or lesser known Christmas songs from other countries. So please no Mariah Carry or Cliff Richard!

Hope to see you here

Steve, Sarah & Bob

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Ed Greer from 2 Point 2 - 'Russian Doll'

9/11/2017

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Today we had visit from a lovely chap called Ed Greer.

He came in to chat about a vinyl based system to play his Treasured new wave pop collection... pride of the collection is his only copy of the 1984 single Russian Doll by 2 Point 2.

He was the singer/songwriter of the single and can be seen in the publicity shot, behind his friend and fellow band member. It was put out on the Rock City label which was home at the time to Gary Newman.

There were only 250 copies made and even though the single was played on capitol radio, the Label spent most of it's time promoting the ever popular Newman so unfortunately 2 Point 2 joined the many others who gave it their best shot, but sadly never made it to stardom.

He hadn't heard the song in ages, and was quite emotional when we played it to him on one of our shop systems.

It's a very catchy number, especially the A-Side Russian Doll.

Thanks again Ed for sharing the memories with us, and unlike most one-off singles, it is actually very good!

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Winner of the Music First preamplifier

1/9/2017

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Music First Audio showed an amazing act of generosity at this years Three counties Record Fair, when they donated one of their stunning £1600 Preamps for a charity auction, to support the work of Bordon's Pheonix Theatre and Arts Centre (Charity No. 1166858)

We also had some great support from some of our regulars, including Ben Ronbough, and Ted Gomm.
Ted gave 3 days of his time, setting up, helping on the day, and also spending Monday with us packing down tables taking them back to the hire shop....

So, when the draw was made for the Pre on Sunday afternoon, and it was Ted who had the winning ticket, it couldn't have turned out better!!!..

Karma indeed...

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Lock, Stock & Barrel - How we helped to create 2 giant speaker walls in Dubai

12/7/2016

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We had a call from a company in Dubai, who specialise in club and bar re-fits.

They had an idea of building two giant speaker walls, for a sports bar/ restaurant called Lock Stock & Barrel.

We were asked if could provide 300 speakers for the project, and naturally, we agreed...by that afternoon we had filled an entire pallet, which impressed the company, and so the challenge was set.

Check out some of the final shots below... i'm sure you'll agree.. it's awesome!!

Above is a picture of the sample wall we created in the back of our warehouse, now it was the challenge to find 150 pairs!

They did not have to work but had to look in reasonable cosmetic condition.

Almost half way through.

It took only 3 months to source all the speakers from every make imaginable, sizes from small mini bookshelf speakers to large floorstanding ones.

Ages ranged from 1960's through to the 2000's.

In the back of the truck and on their way

We think that the final result of the speaker walls in Lock, Stock and Barrel are really effective and looks the part. It is nice to think that there is a place to see retro hifi out in Dubai!

Further info about the venue :-
https://www.facebook.com/LockStockDubai/
https://urbanologie.com/article/3426-lock-stock-and-barrel

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The almost mythical Rogers LS3/5 speakers

22/10/2015

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Yesterday, i had a call from a guy, who has a pair of the LS3/5 (WITHOUT THE A).

There were only around 20 pairs ever made and were used to show case the product to potential licence holders, and i am not sure how many pairs survived, but this pair are in incredible condition and i believe that the pictures have only been shared with myself and Paul Whatton...
So this is a world exclusive!!!

Here is his story....

"My grandfather worked for BBC research team to Kingswood Warren -. He was a research scientist at the BBC for several decades having started his career at PYE in Cambridge after the war. He had a number of Patents to his name and was part of the team that first delivered live TV pictures across the channel in 1950 - he was also part of the pan-European team that decided on PAL as the defacto colour TV protocol.

He left the BBC and moved up north to be a lecturer in Electrical Engineering at UMIST in Manchester. He sadly died 15 years ago and I was very close to him. He was always an earlier adopter of tech with the first Phillips CD Player, Nicam Surround sound Amp (together with a pair of the Rogers repros) for his TV/VCR set up and an early Motorola Mobile in the 80s - I am sad he never saw the internet age as he would have been all over it I’m sure!

I loved listening to these speakers in his study where he would often pretend to conduct his favourite Halle Ochestra CDs after a few glasses of wine! "

SO HERE THEY ARE....

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Guest Video Blog - Repair of noisy motor of Nad 5120 turntable - By Jonathan Ives

20/5/2015

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Here is a detailed video by our friends Jonathan Ives who has a thing for Nad 5120 turntables, we gave Jonathan this turntable as it had a noise motor. In this video he shows you how to completely strip and clean the motor step by step. . You can find more videos like this on his youtube channel. Thanks for letting us share Jonathan

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4 Interesting Disc Spinners, you may never have heard of.

8/4/2015

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We get plenty of unusual record decks in, here are 4 that you may not know even exist...

Vieta G900 Turntable

When you first try and pick this rare Spanish turntable up, you realise it's a serious deck... the top 2" of the plinth is made from solid marble and the arm and control board are milled from a 6mm solid aluminium sheet.

It is Direct drive and has trim controls for all speeds, It originally came from the Spanish dealers ready fitted with an SME 3009 S3 and Shure V15 IV... A proper Direct Drive that never, as far as i'm aware, had a UK importer.

I can't help thinking that this would have been a hit in the UK, if marketed over here. Probably based on a Japanese deck, such as the Hitachi Direct Drives of the time.

Rega Planar One Turntable

ERA Turntable

Lovely looking and very good sounding French TT, that was imported in the 70's by a number of UK dealers, it was nice and compact, and came fitted with a SME 3009, this was believe was fitted by the UK Dealers, as French examples do have a different arm, but all the UK sold ones i have seem to have SMEs on.

The styling was clever, in the fact that it went for the smallest footprint possible, as well as going with black vinyl, which was fasionable at the time, but also had a proud strip of wood, to fit with other equipment that was commonly used at the the time.... very smart even today.

Origin Live Oasis B Turntable

This was a new one on me until recently... The Original Rega Planet TT, was followed by the Rega Planar 2 (as far as most people think) but there was actually an original Rega Planar (one) It comes with an Acos Badged Lustre Tonearm as standard and is badged rather than printed like other Regas.

The motor is at the left of the sub-platter, rather that at the back and both the sub platter and platter are turned from aluminium and has rubber damping, which doubles as record supports. Rega Research have confirmed with us, that this is one of only 200 or so original Planars ever made.

It was produced in 1974, making the Rega Planar 41 years old and still going!!

This first effort by the southern turntable gurus, is a very very rare beast... the address on the paperwork was the company founders home address, before they had their first premises!

We have contacted Origin Live about this deck and even the hadn't heard of it!

It's a clever evolution of the Rega idea, with a cut out from spindle to arm, this cut-out is isolated with Sorbathane.
The Platter is solid Delrin and is has a re-badged Rega RB250 installed.

I can recall this deck sounded very good indeed and had a nice functional look about it... Love the Red button!

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Budget 'giant killer' speakers

26/1/2015

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Well, anyone who knows me and the shop, will know i have a love affair with vintage JPW speakers, specially the P1, AP2 and AP3.
It's just the way they sound, their sheer speed and openness and most importantly their effortless ability of making music sound like music and not hifi.
The important and relevant point here, is that they are not an exotic speaker, far from it, they can be picked up for a tenner, if the foam surrounds need replacing... in the right system and the correct room acoustic, they can sound truly 'High-End', capable of embarrassing speakers that cost many thousands of pounds.

So, this blog is going to have a look at other similar designs of the 70's and 80's that also have a bit of magic about them, another fave of mine is the AR range, most notably the 8 and the 18 but also including the 4Xa and the 7. As you might know, the designer of the early AR's founded KLH, which produced many fine designs, but for the purpose of this piece, we will pick the 317.

So, in a nutshell we are focusing on speakers that share the following features:

1) 2 way ported or sealed
2) 8" paper cone bookshelf/standmount speakers
3) Wide front baffle (wider than they are deep)
4) Foam surrounds
5) Simple cross-overs

Any one or combination of theses features could explain why this form of simple design works so well.

It's not going to be a technical piece (apart from Richard Verney's bit) as I am by no stretch of the imagination, a Techy! It's Just a real world look at how these simple 'old school' designs may be just what you after if low to mid level listening in a smallish room is your chosen path.*

*(It should be noted, that these are small speakers and are not designed for Parties or for high-level listening, they excel in fluid midrange, imaging and focus, being at home with vocal and acoustic music)

Other notable candidates are the Heybrook HB1, Mission 700 MK.1 and of course, the wonderful smaller Peter Snell design, such as the K an the J.

All of these speakers have quite high Sensitivity and use large paper cones and quite low budget tweeters, paper ones in the ARs and 19mm vifa soft domes in the Snells, Mission 700 and JPWs (1 inch in the HB1) so there seems to be a blueprint here, probably back to the earlier Acoustic Suspension designs from AR, such as the 7, 4 and 3 (thought the AR3 is quite large and 3-way and not really in the same group) I guess they just worked, and other companies (mainly from the UK) mainly ran with that ethos, thus shaping the look of budget to mid priced British designs of the late 70's and 80's.

Heybrook HB1

Acoustic Research AR18

Snell Type K

In the 70's and 80's, when most of these speakers were marketed, transistor amps were almost the only option, as valves were considered old fashioned and coloured by the 'Flat Earthers', mainly because the valve amps that were being used up to that point were mainly ancient Quads, Leaks and Radfords, that to be honest, needed a good service.... and it wasn't until the mid to late 80's with the resurgence of valve amplification from tube amp designers and enthusiasts, such as Tim De Paravicini, Peter Quortrop, Eric Anderson, Dave Chesil, Guy Seargent and others, that people started using these high efficient bookshelf designs with the then newly available valve amps.

The new amplifiers were still mainly based on the old trusted Mallard, Williamson and other designs, but were of course made with new components and valves and were not tired out and 30 years old! noted valve amp brands of that period were, Audio Innovations, Audio Note, EAR, Edison & the Velleman Kits.

Mission 700 mk.1

Acoustic research AR8

KLH 317

So, the combination of the 2-way paper coned bookshelfs and the new wave of valve amps, just seemed to work, and continues to work today, even though these speakers were alsost certainly designed for budget Transistor amps, such as the NAD 3020, Creek 4040, Cyrus, Obelisk and Rotel... and with Valve amps being very popular today, with affordable designs being made available by companies such as Icon Audio, Puresound, Howes acoustics, and various companies offering kits for home building, valves are back with a vengence and these classic speakers can be picked up for pocket money, so now's the time to have play and discover the joy of bargain basement speakers that will open your eyes as well as your ears!!

I have feeling that if I cover the specs and merits of the speakers mentioned, this blog will go on for pages, so instead, I urge you to pick up one of these design, probably for next to nothing from a famous on-line auction site or from a event such as the Audio Jumble and have a listen for yourself.

Next time I have a 5 minutes, I may do a bit on say, the JPWs or there ARs, but for now, i'll let good friend and audio engineer Richard Verney tell you about his pair of KLH 317 speakers he picked up from me for a mere £70, they even had their original boxes!! All i had to do was fit a set of new 10" foams and they were ready..

The KLH 317 speakers revisited by Richard Verney (pt1)

The KLH 317 are a decent sized stand mount speaker with an 8 inch paper cone bass driver, and approximately 2 inch mid/tweeter. The crossover is a fairly simple design, of the type where the two drive units are in series, and bypassed by L and C for tweeter and bass respectively. The crossover response is something like this:-

The construction of the speakers is shall we say, ‘budget’, however, the performance is startlingly good. One can guess if this is because they perhaps use low distortion alnico magnets, the paper cones, or the choice of a low crossover frequency with a larger than average tweeter. Whatever the exact magic is, they offer transient response, and ‘speed’ better than most modern plastic coned, ceramic magnet, small dome tweeter designs. Once you get over the idea that such tatty old speakers actually sound this good, it becomes worthwhile to tweak away weaknesses. For the KLH, I upgraded the crossovers with Mundorf Evo Aluminium Oil capacitors from Hifi Collective: http://www.hificollective.co.uk/componentshome.html , replaced the terminals, and also got rid of the insane tie-wrap holding the inductor down, which was preventing the screws clamping the terminal plate to the back of the speaker cabinet properly – it went through one of the screw holes.

I braced the cabinets crudely with hot melt glue and some wood offcuts, and put in about twice as much wadding inside the cabinets as previously. Dedsheet was added to the bass driver metal frame, and around the toilet roll style bass reflex tube. I did try some dedsheet on the cabinets, but feel this adds mass without providing much damping, the net result being a cabinet which just rings longer at a lower frequency than before – the desireablity ( and audibility) I was unsure about – so ended up not doing anything to the cabinet walls apart from the bracing. Next up I want to pad the tweeter down with a bit more resistance – the sound is too bright at the moment, and also do my normal trick ( adopted later by Wilson, and also seen on BBC LS3/5a) of putting some felt on the front baffle around the tweeter to reduce ‘splashyness’. Here are some pictures of the bracing, damping, and extra wadding:

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Author - Steve Ansell

" This page, is to share what we feel may be of some interest to our fellow hifi junkies, It will cover articles and restoration projects from both us and our friends, please feel free to contact us, if you would like to contribute to this page.."

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Retro Workshop, Audio Repair Services, Southampton

HiFi Hangar project night (aka build along with Bob)

Christmas Soiree and 'Spin What Ya Bring' Event - 22nd Dec 2017

Ed Greer from 2 Point 2 - 'Russian Doll'

Winner of the Music First preamplifier

Lock, Stock & Barrel - How we helped to create 2 giant speaker walls in Dubai

The almost mythical Rogers LS3/5 speakers

Guest Video Blog - Repair of noisy motor of Nad 5120 turntable - By Jonathan Ives

4 Interesting Disc Spinners, you may never have heard of.

Vieta G900 Turntable

Rega Planar One Turntable

ERA Turntable

Origin Live Oasis B Turntable

Budget 'giant killer' speakers

The KLH 317 speakers revisited by Richard Verney (pt1)

Author - Steve Ansell

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