One of the all-time best things I used to do when I was working was to come home and relax in my vibrating recliner and listen to my 1968 Magnavox console stereo softly playing music from my MP3 collection. The warm, rich sound from the old console style stereo just can't be beat for it's ability to lull one gently to sleep. BTW, the one in the video linked to above is not mine, but it is exactly like mine, right down to the model number 1P3712. I believe my cabinet is better condition though.
Then one day I came home, had my dinner and decided it was time for a nice little nap. I had iTunes cranking out music on the computer, which was relayed wirelessly to the Magnavox stereo in the living room via an RCA Lyra wireless audio transmitter/receiver set. I turned on the stereo, but no music came out. I cranked up the volume a bit and the stereo went all dark.
Fast forward 3 years, the Magnavox came with me when I moved from Vevay to Seymour, but of course it didn't work. One day, not too long after I moved, I decided it was time to fix it. Heck, I was an electronics tech back in the day, surely I could handle fixing something simple as this. Wrong! Try as I might, I could not get the unit to power up. In fact I broke the tuner dial cord in the process of removing it from the cabinet. I slid the chassis back into the cabinet and forgot about it.
Then a few days ago, a video was posted by one of the people I subscribe to on YouTube. He is an electronics tech guy that features various items he comes across and then shows what it takes to fix them. One of the latest was an Astro-Sonic stereo similar to mine. Hearing it in working order got me to thinking pretty hard about mine again.
Armed with a newfound sense of blind ambition, I once again removed the chassis from the cabinet and brought it into my room where I placed it on a cardboard sheet lying on my bed. During my previous attempt to fix it, I had removed a couple of wires in order to check the power transformer. I decided I should first re-solder those wires to their proper location before proceeding.
Then just for shits and giggles, I decided to check the output voltage of the power transformer to see what it was putting out. Making sure the unit was off and the volume was turned all the way down (there were no speakers attached), I plugged it into the power. When I switched it on, I noticed right away that the dial lights came on. This did not happen the last time I messed with it.
Feeling confident that the power transformer was at least putting out enough voltage for the dial lights, I decided to test the actual output of the secondary. To my great surprise, it measured around 50 volts. Feeling brave, I next took a measurement of the B+ voltage and it was -34 volts, just what it was supposed to be!
Okay, now I'm starting to get excited. "It's alive!", I thought to myself. Rather than risk any damage to the audio output transistors, I decided to hook up a set of speakers for further testing. Found a set from another stereo and I was ready for a sound test. Fired it up once more on AM and heard static coming from one of the speakers. Checked the balance control and sure enough it was turned all the way to one side. Set it to the middle and switched the power on once more. Now I had static in both speakers!
Adjusted the tuner and found WLW out of Cincinnati, not bad at all. Most of the band was very noisy, due to the close proximity of the computer. So I decided to try the FM band. Found a dipole FM antenna and hooked that up, FM came in very clear on several local stations! I could not believe it. The stereo had fixed itself, LOL. Check this video out to see how it sounds.
Of course it didn't. My theory is the power cord has a bad spot in it. I suspected this the last time I worked on it, but never actually hooked it up to the stereo, opting instead to use a multimeter to test the continuity of the cord. So at some point, I fear this will happen again, but for now I have ordered a replacement dial cord string and when that arrives I will fix that. A couple of the controls also need to be cleaned, so a can of DeOxit is in order as well.
Once those minor things are addressed I will clean it up real good and put it back into the cabinet. Then I can enjoy the rich, warm sound once again. I've missed nap time in my recliner. Yay!
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