Adventures in Hi-Fi

Alas! My venerable Marantz 1060 Integrated Amp has bit the dust.

I’m almost afraid to open it up. I think the power transformer has gone bad; a prohibitively expensive repair. So, honoring my retro trend of recent months, I picked up the beauty pictured above, a RCA AM-FM Table Radio, Model 8R71, circa 1948. The power cord had disintegrated (common to electronics of that era) but it did have high quality vacuum tubes and, most importantly, an auxiliary input. One donated power cord and 20 cents worth of parts later it was back in business. The reception with the built-in antennas leaves a little to be desired, but is usable after it warms up for a while. I hooked it up to my CD player and was pleasantly surprised at the sound quality. I've only played "old music" on it so far, but it suits it: a little hum, the friendly odor of warm tubes, no deep bass or high treble, but with a balanced response and a phase coherence only achievable with a single speaker. Perfect for background music.

If those attributes weren't enough, this label on the bottom wraps it up nicely: