Yesterday I answered an ad in the local FreeCycle group for a "Tandenburg Reel to Reel". The ad also mentioned "Also, several tube amps and tuner and equalizer. Five pieces in all with nice walnut rack." Since I take all email groups in digest form, I'm never the first responder, but in this case I was. The woman making the offer was very nice and I made the 50-minute drive within my county to meet her this morning. What I was met with was rack-mounted system left from her father-in-law that they'd tried to sell complete on Ebay but only got interest from Japan. The owner was not involved enough to try to market the pieces individually but knew the cost new was over $5000 and that it did have value. But she still gave it all to me for free! What is included is:
Tandberg TD-20A complete with rack-mount kit, 10.5" reel hub adapters, and two boxes of quarter-inch 10.5" tapes all on aluminum reels, probably fifty in all. I believe this one is two-channel and it's not the ES black version.
The "tube" stuff turned out to be all "00" series black SAE components:
SAE 2600 amp (400wpc @8ohms)
SAE 2400L amp (200wpc @8ohms)
SAE 2100 Pre-amp with parametric EQ
SAE 8000 Mark VIII FM digital tuner
SAE 4200 speaker switching system
I know, I know,
but I just got it home and it has overwhelmed my house. I had to take it all out of the rack just to get it out of the basement where it was living and I've not had a chance to test any of it yet. The rack is six-feet tall with rack-mount rails full length down both sides and had a pull-out turntable drawer in the middle under the reel-to-reel. The speaker controler was marked "Tannoy" on two output terminal sets but the owner said she couldn't find the "huge" speakers that came with it and figured her older son must have taken them. I'm guessing some of the HPD series 15" and 12" pairs.
I've never owned SAE equipment but the 2600 is a heavy darn thing at probably close to 60 pounds, and it's huge! Big VU meters, too. I'll be testing each piece individually. The owner said it all worked except the tape deck heads needed "magnetizing". She was using the tuner but had some problem when trucks passed by with CB radios so she stopped using it all. A friend looked at the pre-amp but said he didn't know how to work on "tubes" and blamed the CB interference on the lack of grounding tab on the power cord. Uh-huh. Oh well. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while; I guess this was my day.
Anyone have any experience with any of this stuff? I'm probably not keeping the Tanberg just for space reasons and because I have no use for it. The included tapes are supposed to be classical and jazz. I'll give a listen and look for labels but I suppose the reels are a worth something, with tape or not. The rack-mount frame is unusual and something I've not seen before but it looked awesome in that big rack with those big reels on it. I'd be interested in hearing what you all think of the SAE amps which may help me decide if I hang on to them or try and turn the whole system into one week of college tuition for my daughter.
I guess I could trade the whole deal for a pair of L300 or 43xx 4-ways, but then we've already established I am a bottom-feeder.