Curious if anyone might be able to recommend sellers who offer well calibrated /restored portables? I see a lot of listings from sellers on ebay offering refurbished players/recorders but hard to tell who to choose or who might be well known/skilled and has a store with quality offerings. I'm thinking more along the lines of someone who has a store and offering portables they restore themselves and whose work is of high quality. I searched around on here some but couldn't seem to find a thread similar to this (feel free to let me know if there already is one). Definitely not looking for a list of people to avoid or any bashing of people by name (please), just curious if anyone knows some people they might suggest. Doesn't have to be ebay, I'm not sure where else to look but appreciate any input.
Ebay seller mantel555 is trustworthy. He's one of the few who seem to know what they're doing, is honest when describing his items, and asks for reasonable prices. But that's just my opinion. You really shouldn't trust anyone on Ebay, or even on Stereo2Go unless they have a lot of good references, because otherwise you have no idea what their qualifications are or how ethical they are. The word "restored" is so vague, it has no meaning anymore. For example did they replace all the belts, or just one of them? What about the pinch roller and the idle tire? How about the controls, do they really know how to apply DeOxit properly? Did they drown the circuit boards, letting it drip everywhere? Did they force too much of it into the pots, diluting the internal grease and eliminating the smooth resistance they once had? Did they strip or crack the screw posts and then try to hid their mistake by using glue or gum to hold the screws in? Do they thoroughly test the device and report all its problems, or do they conveniently neglect to mention that the tuner can't lock onto stereo, or that the left/right balance is skewed? How about the soft eject mechanism, did they restore that with new lubricant, or did they just ignore it? Sorry for the negativity, but there's a lot of dishonesty in this hobby. Just be careful.
I wish there were some stores but some of the problems with vintage electronics is they can be complicated and technicians are getting harder to find, they'd rather work on a old Marantz Stereo than a boombox. The other issue is supply, they have to keep finding equipment to sell and if you've been paying attention, prices are going through the roof even on roached-out equipment. And like Reli said, who knows what restored means? Even "works" doesn't mean anything, I've had a few DOAs, but they're so rare you don't want to send them back. If you haven't seen Oak Tree Vintage, they've been around forever, I've never bought from them but I like that they post the test figures for their equipment. They sell a ton of cool stuff, just no boxes. http://www.oaktreevintage.com/
I spent some time at the local (for me) repair establishment, George Meyer AV, and the guys there are all 'old skool' and seem to know what they are doing. Before the Woolsey Fire I was thinking of retirement and, to keep my Idle Hands busy, about offering my services for Discmans and bbox repair to them. No such plans any more: looks like I have to continue with my day-job until I die
When our local record store added vintage equipment, he wanted me to help him out badly and I almost did, more for fun then profit but he decided to close up everything and sold it all off.
Wow. It's a bit of a bear pit buying on eBay. Always prefer buying from other collectors myself who I have met through S2G or other forums. I would suggest buying from established eBay sellers who also do repairs and have plenty of good feedback. The glowing description of some I bought because they were rare and were listed as fully functional left a lot to be desired. Still trying to deal with the fully functional Aiwa that had battery corrosion silently eating away the copper trails that could not be seen under the PCB. The battery bay had been carefully cleaned before selling it but the listing made no mention of any previous battery leak and the photos showed no sign of external damage.
Thanks for the replies so far! Yeah it's rough buying out there and hoped to see a few good apples get recommended in this thread. I mean I love the hobby of repairing things myself and have done some real basic things myself like belt replacement and basic soldering, but when it comes to changing capacitors (smd or smaller, I just have older through hole soldering experience) or diagnosing electronic issues and such and measuring wf etc I have no experience and none of the associated equipment, and am already too invested in other projects to be able to spend the time to learn. So I very much appreciate those who are passionate about all things cassette and have years of experience repairing. I'd much rather pay the extra $100 or more on a unit that someone experienced helped to bring back to much better playing capability, since I'm personally just looking for a couple specific portables in excellent working shape and not building a large collection or anything. A few months back I was looking to get a well calibrated home stereo cassette player/recorder to archive 100 or more personal tapes to my PC (music I created and other sound collage) - I came across a seller on ebay named babis8086 who had excellent ratings/reviews and noticed he was previously a Nakamichi tech in the 90's. I appreciated seeing the tech details of what was improved on each deck on his listings and details for calibration and such. I bought a Denon off him and have been super pleased with it. Anyways just wanted to mention the experience above, it made me wonder if there were similar portable cassette world techs offering units they've worked on and improved, and list the tech details of what was done to the unit. A lot of portable cassette listings say 'refurbished' and just say new belts or 'cleaned controls' and such and rarely see much info past that. I guess it's a pretty specific hobby and interest so maybe it makes sense that there aren't like a dozen skilled people out there offering restored portables.
One of the issues with vintage is that it works fine today and it's dead tomorrow, I think a lot of sellers are passing them through and only turn them on for a check. Japanese label old items as "junk" meaning they want no liability in the condition but most of the stuff I've gotten over there works fine. I have noticed a lot of new listings on my local Craigslist for audio repair services, although they are mostly componenents. I feel like some old-timers are coming out of the wood-work and setting up a retirement shop, not a bad way to make some good part time money. Are you in GR MI? Location might help, we had some members at the beginning of the year mention they do repairs but I can't remember who they are, you'd have to scan the intro threads.
I have to believe there's some really good shops still around that area, with the beaches and vacation homes, there was a lot of audio in the old days. When I'm driving over to St Iggy I pass by this guys shop and try to stop in, every once in a while he has some cool stuff but he's straight north of you on the other side of Lake Michigan. https://manistique-radio-center.business.site/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral
Hi Reli, well currently looking for Panasonic RQ-SX and Sony WM-EX models. My thoughts are to get one nice example from each that is in nice condition and running/sounding great. I'm having a hard time deciding on which exact models in each of those lines since I've fallen in love with several - which is kind of what led me to wonder if there were a few people with shops and well running models, and any semi-frequent new additions.
You should find plenty of WM-EX6nn models for around $125-175 and most are from the late 90's and still working perfectly. The last of the Japanese models like the WM-EX677 are very good units with Groove and Dynamic Bass Boost. These units have soft touch controls, corded remotes are autoreverse, light weight full metal construction and use quality amorphous heads. While everyone is paying crazy prices for WM-DD Walkman these are still affordable. The others I suggest are the wireless versions WM-WX1 of the WM-EX1. A bit more expensive but with the factory wireless receiver/remote have really great sound and are largely trouble free running for hours on gumstick batteries. Belts are simple to replace on the WX1 and my EX677 from 1998 still runs with its original belt. Must change that soon.
Thank you for those suggestions! I am wondering if maybe some of the fav sellers are a prized secret or something along those lines Just to get back to topic here. But really I imagine just running some searching and reading the description and checking feedback ratings and such should suffice right now. I just thought it couldn't hurt to start a thread like this to check if there were some superstars out there selling nicely tuned portables. At any rate, I will do more digging and do my best and (hopefully) report back with a model or two that I bought and how the whole thing went. Eventually. Thanks for the replies and input to all.
This guy came up after watching Techmoan, his store looks really nice, my kind of place. It would be fun to hang out with some suds and talk audio. It doesn't look like he has any portables but that could change. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2LiTE-oOVW-kS0D0z9xtA I feel like audio is really coming back, look at the membership on AudioKarma, it's exploded over the last 10 years and there's a ton of younger excited members who really love the old stuff. At some point I have to believe more shops will open. As far as sellers, I used to only get my stuff locally, from the usual sources, thrifts, garage sales, flea markets and in the wild, but now a days I'm looking everywhere. I would place a wanted ad in the bottom section, maybe somebody will respond?
