Today, out thrift shopping, I happened across a couple of pieces of stereo equipment. You know, that’s exactly what I need is more stereo stuff. I must have a third stereo in my house. Maybe it will go in the guest bathroom.
That’s not what I was thinking, exactly. The thought I had was, “I’ve seen this before.” I’d seen pictures of it in forum posts of people bragging about their systems and others drooling and praising those people’s stereos. This was one of those stereos. It was old, like older than me, old. And it was neat looking in that retro way. From pictures I’d seen, I knew what it would look like powered up. The power level meters would have a beautiful, soft aqua glow. But on the whole, it’s not my aesthetic.
BUT, it is one of those impossibly rare finds, and the price was reasonable. Only $20 per piece, $40 out the door. This is the same thrift shop at which I bought my other retro stereo. That stereo only cost me $18. So I walked swiftly back up front to get a shopping cart (because these components are easily 60 pounds together) and made off with my spoils.
Back at work and back online, I do a quick search on the eBay for the components. Each one is selling for about $1000. So, assuming these pieces work, I have a $2000 stereo for the price of $40. But again, it’s not really my thing. There seems something sacrilegious about running a CD player through a 60’s era stereo. This system was made for vinyl, and that’s not what I do.
In fact, to give an idea of what the preamp is capable of, it has inputs for two turntables, three (3!) tape decks, radio tuner, and another input. You can output to three different destinations including a monitor output. It almost seems like a piece of equipment you’d find in a broadcasting studio. It has a function called “expansion” that is supposed to work the opposite of a compressor: make quiet parts more quiet and loud parts louder. Crazy.
So my initial plan is just to clean it up and flip it, assuming it works well. Even if it doesn’t work well, the place I plan to sell to is a repair shop.
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