by EWBrown » Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:28 am
Nice looking speaker, it looks almost in brand-new condition - and ditto for the car in he background!
(and now, for even a bit more off-topic)...
The Sansui 5000X also had tthose "thermal feedback" diodes, which were IMHO the touchy little "detonators" which fired off the transistors like the aforementioned string of firecrackers.
In those days the words "Made in Japan" still carried a stigma...
Sansui also had these weird little "mystery modules", strange little blue and plastic encapsulated circuits, which were made out of 100% pure Unobtanium, imported once every 3650 years from Zeta Reticuli (or available if one managed to cannibalize them from another dead 5000X).
Ahhh, yes, the Pioneer SX-1000, that was the second most popular PX-purchased stereo rig... IIRC, Radio Shack sold the exact same thing, just badged with their logo du jour, and house number, and a different colored metal faceplate, at about 4X the PX (PACEX) price. :o
They were also the legendary "string of firecrackers"...
Some of the old-timers over there actually had some Sansui or Kenwood tube receivers, but us "dumb kids" just used to snicker and tell them to "get withh the times"... little did we know.... Granted, those Japanese tube receivers used some of what we considered as odd tubes, IIRC, the Sansuis used 6BQ6 (small 6V6 -sized, capped TV sweep tubes) and others used 6BM8s, and several other other oddball "plinkers", I don't remember any recognizable tubes like 6BQ5, 6L6, 6V6, etc. Not until fairly recently did I leard that some of these receivers had very nice OPTs, made by Tango, lurking inside...
The most common cheap stereo "system" I saw over there, was this crummy little AM / FM / 8-Track job, with two small wooden book shelf speakers. These sold for $39 at the PX and just about EVERYBODY bought one (I confess, so did I). The running joke was that these were like (rectal openings) in that everyone had one... Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_02
These all had a built-in fatal flaw, in that the "spike" diode that was connected across the track-changer solenoid would eventually fail, in the "shorted out" mode. it wasn't a matter of "if", it was a matter of "when". We used something like an early version of a 1N4004 as a replacement, and it did the job...
We all got real good at fixing these things in the repair shop, and I got the procedure down to about 15-20 minutes for a complete "turn-around".
One of the last ones I fixed, belonged to a 2nd Lieutenant who brought it into the shop. I had it back to him in about 15 minutes, and then he told me that he worked in personnell records, and asked for my name and "return to CONUS" date.
Well, I dunno if he had anything to do with it, or not, but I got my "freedom bird" papers about six weeks ahead of my scheduled date ! Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_06 Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_02 So did a couple other guys who arrived in-country the same time I did.
/ed B in NH
Last edited by
EWBrown on Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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