There’s something intrinsically transatlantic about the receiver, or tuner-amplifier; typical examples of the all-American ‘super receiver’ featured heavily in Tandy catalogues of the 1970s/80s. Indeed, a quick internet search reveals the US version of this model, complete with wooden side panels. This one, though, with long wave, was aimed squarely at the European market.
When our hospital radio station closed down there was a quarter-century’s worth of accumulated junk which needed disposal. This unit was found in an unmarked cardboard box, obviously brought in for the station engineers to repair and then forgotten about. It did have an intermittent fault which I think I’ve fixed but I’m not absolutely certain.
It’s easy to see the primary feature of this model: a five-band graphic equaliser, which JVC termed ‘S.E.A.’ Having at one time earned my living by testing professional 30-band equalisers, I can appreciate that those like the one seen here are really little more than gimmicks, but they would become a major selling point as the 1980s progressed. It also has a pair of LED bargraph output level meters which display ‘Watts into 8 ohms’ – the speaker impedance is significant because they are in fact simple voltmeters and will not give a correct reading with any other load (they even give the same reading with no speakers connected!). These features aside, it’s a fairly basic but well-built unit with a meaty 42 watts per channel output. JVC have included their ‘Super-A’ power amplifier circuitry here, which they claimed to have lower distortion figures than any of the competition. This may have been true but since the competition’s distortion figures were already well below the threshold of human hearing, it’s really quite academic.
In order to show the colourful nature of the unit, with its cool blue-green dial and plethora of red and green LEDs, I’ve photographed it powered up and tuned to a local station which can be received with a length of wet string, and therefore gives a full signal strengh indication with a similar length of copper wire. However, I suspect that, like most other Japanese tuners, the signal strength meter is calibrated simply to ‘look good’, and a much stronger signal is required for perfect, hiss-free stereo reception. Then again, FM stereo hiss is audible only on Radios 3 and 4 these days…
JVC decided not to include two sets of tape inputs/outputs (with 1-2 and 2-1 dubbing facilities) on this model, instead there’s a single ‘Tape-1’ monitor switch plus another labelled ‘SEA Rec’, which connects the graphic equaliser between the selected source and the recording machine, where it is probably more useful. Other switches are for Mono (which also disables the inter-station muting on FM, therefore allowing weak signals to be received), loudness, individual switching for two pairs of speakers and, of course, power. To the right of the tuning knob are input selectors for the three wavebands, Phono and ‘Tape-2 (P.B.)’ (playback) – which possibly reveals that the designers really wanted to have dual tape facilities but couldn’t for whatever reason. Otherwise they would have called it ‘AUX’ like everyone else! Incidentally, the two-band US version has a ‘hi-filter’ switch in place of the LW button, which explains the ‘on/off’ labelling.
Interestingly, at a time when large, prominent volume knobs were coming into fashion, here the volume and balance controls are relatively insignificant horizontal sliders on the right-hand side. The aforementioned five-bar signal strength meter is below the dial, together with an FM tuning indicator and an FM stereo ‘beacon’. And round the back can be found the usual sockets and connectors, including those for AM and FM aerials, plus a fold-out bar antenna for the AM bands.
This unit is much too good to be festering in the junk room – I really must set it up and use it (probably in the bedroom). After all, that’s the only way to determine if I really have fixed that fault!
The Technojunk Files 