At long last, music centre no. 2 is up and running!
Just around the corner from Relic Towers is an office premises with a small forecourt, where various items (but usually books) are often left out for anybody who’s interested to take. Many years ago I found this unit, complete with speakers, which somebody was throwing out. Of course, I couldn’t resist!
After a year or so had passed, I finally started working on it. I had got as far as restoring the receiver chassis to full operation, including the dial lighting and all the indicator lamps, when the dial cord broke! Although I purchased some replacement cord shortly afterwards, there it sat, for several years, waiting for me to get around to doing the repair. Once this was eventually done, the incentive to complete the job readily took hold.
What we have here is an interesting example dating from quite early in the evolution of Japanese music centres. The ‘Super’ suffix would appear to denote a magnetic phono cartridge and some ‘bells and whistles’ on the cassette deck; it is otherwise quite basic. But one area where it differs from later models is the very substantial plywood cabinet containing an equally substantial hand-wired chassis for the power supply and receiver electronics. Whilst late 1970s music centres made extensive use of plastic to keep costs down in a very competitive market, this one is representative of an earlier era.
So, looking at the receiver first, there’s not much to it. To the right of the power switch and headphone socket is the radio dial, noticeably smaller than those on later models. It’s UK-specific, showing the wavelength in metres for the long and medium waves and a very limited selection of stations labelled for easy reference. ‘Radio 2’, ‘Radio 3’ and ‘Local’ are shown for FM (there’s not enough space to fit ‘Radio 4’!), ‘Radio 1’, ‘Radio 3’, ‘Radio 4’ (pre-1978 London frequency) and ‘Lux[embourg]’ are shown on MW and there’s nothing on LW! An ‘FM Stereo’ lamp is situated in the top left-hand corner (it probably goes without saying that this unit is an LED-free zone!).
Next comes the tuning knob followed by the usual four amplifier controls, and above these is a set of rather chunky selector buttons. These select the three radio bands plus ‘Phono’, ‘Tape’ and ‘Aux’ (DIN socket). In addition, Sanyo saw fit to incorporate a row of miniature lamps indicating which button is pushed in (presumably for no other reason than it looks good). No provision is made for manual stereo/mono switching for FM, instead the button is labelled ‘FM Auto’. This seemed to be fairly common at that time (my parents’ music centre had the same), but unlike a car radio, which gradually merges the left and right channels as the signal gets weaker, units like this have a simple binary threshold and in practice it’s not a particularly brilliant concept. It’s OK if you have a very strong signal, in which case you get good, noise-free stereo, or if you have a very weak signal, where you’ll get mono. But anywhere in between these two extremes you have Hobson’s choice of hissy stereo.
The record deck has a fairly solid but crude construction similar to contemporary BSR and Garrard units, with a two-speed idler wheel drive system. A bit of fiddling about was required to get it to work properly because the motor had sagged on its rubber mounts. It has an auto-return mechanism which switches off the motor at the end of play, but unlike the above-mentioned products it doesn’t disengage the drive. You have to manually turn the speed control to ‘Off’ when you’ve finished playing records, particularly if you’re not going to do so again for a while. Fortunately, the previous owner complied and the idler wheel is still perfectly round. As already mentioned, a magnetic cartridge is fitted to the counterbalanced, but not adjustable, arm.
The cassette mechanism is again solidly built and works surprisingly well (I was expecting a lot of age-related problems!), although the motor is a little noisy. It’s one of those designs where the floor of the cassette compartment is attached to the lid (which opens with a bang – no oil damping!), meaning that access to the heads and capstan for the purpose of cleaning is restricted. Someone must have thought it was a good idea at the time. It also has a peculiarity in that the fast forward key doesn’t latch down – I had to examine the mech closely in order to be sure that this really was a ‘feature’!
A counter and a recording indicator light are fitted, and, together with the record level controls, two small meters and microphone sockets on the front panel, I would guess that this would have been everything on the base model. This deck, however, also includes separate bias and equalisation switches for normal and chrome tapes, and a third switch for Dolby B noise reduction (then called ‘Dolby System’, as Dolby C was still some years in the future). There’s also the customary ‘beat cancel’ switch for recording from AM radio, in this case on the rear of the unit.
Also on the rear can be found the speaker sockets (unusually, RCA connectors), the aforementioned 5-pin DIN in/out and screw terminals for an FM aerial. The speakers themselves are two-way systems but otherwise make no pretence to being ‘hi-fi’. The six inch diameter ‘woofers’ have limited bass and cranking up the bass control just makes them ‘boom’. The cabinets are lightweight but undoubtedly stylish.
Overall, the performance can only be described as ‘mediocre’. Given the amplifier and speakers, the magnetic cartridge offers little sonic improvement over a ceramic one, although it may be slightly kinder to records. The cassette deck seems competent enough but I have yet to try making a recording. I would doubt, though, whether it would be able to match the slightly newer Toshiba (q.v.); this has quite an impressive performance and cassette technology was evolving rapidly during this time. Perhaps it should be mentioned that the cassette decks on both of these units have not had very heavy use and the heads are in good condition.
Another downside is the physical depth of the unit, together with the fact that the overhang of the lid at the rear when open also has to be accommodated. As a result it requires a location with a depth in excess of 20 inches. The Toshiba, on the other hand, is not only shallower but also has a fancy lid hinge design which eliminates overhang, and the sockets are recessed, meaning that it can be placed on a narrow shelf or cabinet and against the wall.
So it’s hardly the best as old music centres go, it falls a long way short of ‘hi-fi’ but nevertheless has an undeniable 1970s charm (although more James Last than ABBA, and definitely not Led Zeppelin!). It was certainly worth restoring and my thanks go to the previous owner for not disposing of it in the more conventional environment of the local tip!
The Technojunk Files 