Pioneer SX-636, Goldring GL78, Shure M75EJ type 2
Well something nice into the shop today. Taking me right back to the early 1970s. A time when I would have loved to had been able to afford to own this sort of equipment!
A customer brought these two pieces of equipment in, wanting them both to be services and put into operation.
Pioneer SX-636.
Lovely example of Japanese quality HiFi, dating to around 1974 I think. May be a bit earlier. This had been around the world a few times and ended here in Spain after a journey from the Gambia! It still had the FM antenna connected. Not knowing when it was last used. I gave it a quick visual and connected some loudspeakers. I wired it to a current limited Variac supply and gave it some gentle beans. Left it at around 70 Volts for a few minutes to wake the electrolytic capdensors up. Got to 90 volts and got great audio via the FM radio! Eventually up to full power and all appeared to be happy. All the controls were very intermittent. So, with the case off and the bottom cover removed, some cleaning fluid was injected in all the right places. Every control worked perfectly. All the dial lamps were good as were the stereo and FM indicators. It was connected up to dummy loads and run up to full output. Both channels were perfectly equal. Some decent loudspeakers connected and I have to say, the sound was first class. Good bass and crisp on the top.
I am not one of these guys that says “I will recap”. The owner wanted to keep things as original as possible. The receiver works flawlessly so why bother. Yes, I replaced two tantalum capacitors as these may have died in the future.
The tuning mechanism was free and spun over the dial. Just to show how good the design was, upon switch on, not a hint of a pop from the loudspeakers and, no relays in sight. Wonderful.
Now on to the Goldring GL78 turntable.
Thankfully, this had not been left with the start lever in the ON position, which would have damaged the idler wheel. The usual problem with this series of decks is the vertical bushes at the end of the tone arm. Now these are available from a good friend of mine – Retortech audio in the UK, John LaForge. But, given Brexit, any little jiffy bag send to Spain will be subject to physical abuse, 4,800€ tax. So, I resorted to making two. The various parts of the deck were lightly oiled and a replacement stylus fitted to the original Shure cartridge, M57EJ type 2.
What a great little HiFi set up. 50 years old, 99% original components and going strong. How say that!
