Marantz 1200 Int. Amp and 10B Tuner

[hakka26]

Picked these up last Sunday. Long story and most of it is on another site. Basically, I got in late Saturday evening and took a look at CL. Saw a post for "Marantz Stereo—$50." Opened the post and read: Marantz 1200 amp and 105 tuner. Not working but may be good for someone who can do repairs. $50 or best offer. The ad was six hours old but I shot off an email and got a reply that they were still available. Replied that I would like to take a look. Reply with phone number and message to call Sunday came a few hours later. Got up Sunday. Did I really need more projects? What the heck called at 1:00pm and left a message. 3:00pm I got a return call. Seller told me he retested the tuner and it appeared to be working. So I said I would bring a DMM and test the amp. It was about an hour drive. The units were sitting on their sides by the front door. Both had wood cases. I knew those were worth $50+. He grabbed the amp and took it into the kitchen and plugged it in. Said, the power light didn't light so he didn't think amp was working. The DMM was flashing all different numbers. Oh well. He said that he decided to check the tuner at 2:00 am:blink:. Since it worked he changed the ad and I think took out the best offer. No prob, I gave him the $50. I carried the amp and he the tuner. As he put it into my car I thought, "that is awfully large for a 105." He directed me to a thrift where he saw some speakers. Took a look, Bozaks—$395, passed. By the time I got home it was dark. After some chores emptied the car. Couldn't believe how heavy the "105" was. Got out the magnifying glass and read, "Marantz 10B!":eek: To make it short, both units work including the scope on the tuner. Amp needed a bulb and jumpers. Crappy pics. I'm preparing to go out of town so I won't be playing with them until after Thanksgiving.

[mech986]

GEEZZ-O-PETE. If i had the photos initially, I'd have ID'ed that in a flash!!

Great score Hakka,

If only I'd been doing that on Saturday instead, we're in the same neighborhood. Could I come by some time to look and drool? I promise not to make a mess :applaud::applaud:.

Bart

[bigyank]

Damn! :applaud: Never get anything like that in my neighborhood. Great score!

Yank

[hakka26]

Hey Bart,
Good to hear from you. You're a big part of why I'm in this hobby. Those are my crappy pics. Took them at midnight. The amp is sitting on its side on my bedroom floor. There were no pics in the ad. Shockingly, I was the only one to respond to the ad and he told that if I hadn't called he was going to take the amp in for a repair estimate this week. Much older gentleman. Spends most his time biking on the beach with an ipod (he's in Marina del Rey). Got cabinet specs from Altec and built a set of A-7s with enclosed tweeters (why he told me about the Bozaks). Has them hooked up to a Sony 60XX or 70XX that he traded an old Marantz amp for awhile ago(another story). Going to be awhile before I get set up. In the past couple months I've picked up a set of Ohm Fs, JBL L100, Sansui 9090DB, Akai R2R(for the ~$1000 of metal reels) and now the Marantz' and spent a little less than $150:blink:. I was just trying to find a spot for the SAE set up I bought almost two years ago. Trying to hold to my $20/piece budget just to keep the herd down. Hasn't helped :rolleyes:



GEEZZ-O-PETE. If i had the photos initially, I'd have ID'ed that in a flash!!

Great score Hakka,

If only I'd been doing that on Saturday instead, we're in the same neighborhood. Could I come by some time to look and drool? I promise not to make a mess :applaud::applaud:.

Bart

[Onsitecomps]

I owned a Marantz 1200B many years ago, when I was around 17 (I'm 37 now). I got it free from my former music teacher, who said it was defective. It turned out to be fine - one of the jumper plugs in the back was missing, that's all, which made it seem one channel was blown. I fashioned a new one and the amp worked splendidly. I had it for a couple years until I loaned it to a friend who burned one channel out, and before I could repair it, it was stolen from my home in a break-in.

I really loved that amp and have always wanted another one. I'm trying to collect any information I can find on them. I was wondering if you might consider posting or emailing me some more photos of it. I would be especially grateful for photos of it's innards, including the amp boards. This is actually easy to do on this unit. It slides right out of the wooden case and has a black mesh screen as the top cover, which comes right off.

Any photos at all would be much appreciated. I'm also looking for a schematic for the amp section, or even better a scan or original of the entire service manual. I'm considering attempting to recreate a version of this amp using modern components, but staying true to the original circuit. I really loved the sound of this amp that much! :)

If anyone is interested, the 1200/1200B was sold from about '69 to 75 for around $600 IIRC, and had 4 TO3 style output devices per channel, mounted on rather hefty heatsinks on either side of the amp. Given the time period, these were likely all 2N3055's, used in a quasi-complementary output stage. It had a pair of soda can sized power supply filter caps, and a very large EI style transformer. This amp is very heavy, and was rated, I believe at 100W/ch @ 8Ohms. This was a very honest, probably even conservative rating, as I had it hooked to a pair of vintage Wharfdales and the combo sounded like a much larger system. The sound quality was pristine however, and I honestly have never owned nor heard a system I enjoyed more. Certainly there are better amps and speakers in the world, but everyone has their own taste, and this is the one that does it for me.

Anyway, lol, sorry for the long post, but I really would appreciate more photos and as mentioned, if anyone has access to schematics i would love those as well.

You can drop me a line at onsitecomps AT REMOVETHIS gmail DOT com.

Thanks very much in advance :applaud:

David Costa
www.onsitecomps.com (http://www.onsitecomps.com)