Audioless Winnipeg Group!

Here is a rare treat.  Don't let the name fool you, this is one heck of a quality turntable.  In fact, I've owned several turntables by Realistic.  Why?  It's because it's the name behind the Realistic, and no it's not Radio Shack.  Rather, who built these pieces for Radio Shack.  In most cases, majority of their turntables was manufactured by C.E.C.  or Chuo Denki, who still exist today. Radio Shack in the early days had tons of equipment manufactured by Japanese OEM companies such as Foster/Fostex and NEC, Hitachi,  and C.E.C..  Hence, why you may see similarities with other pieces of gear from various different, like Hitachi, Marantz, Sanyo, Toshiba, Taya etc... In fact, our Taya DP-550 was an exact copy as the Realistic LAB-400. Getting back to the Realistic LAB-500 the question is: who made this turntable?  I don't really know, I initially assumed it was C.E.C. but it shared similarities with a fellow Mitsubishi turntable, and I...

These little guys are made in Hungry, and now they won't fill your stomach.  But, if you need a small pair of great sounding speakers then these will fill your ears with beautiful music. They may not look like much in stature.  But, they're sound bigger than they look.  For vintage small speakers, they're one of the best I've heard.  Especially, with anything with a 4" woofer and I do like the real wood veneer look.  They really make great and true bookshelf speakers.  All you need is a nice little receiver and they can fill a small den with great music. There's quite a bit of information on the net, so give them a google!

Now this is a great tuner.  It was TOTL back in the early 70s.  It's a 4 gang tuner and looks very nice, also has a pretty neat tuning needle.  I also enjoy the look, the wood side panels give it a classy look!

A nice and great looking entry level tuner for those who just need some basic FM and AM sound.  Can't really say much about it but it sounds pretty nice and Rotel did make some lovely looking pieces.

Now this is an interesting turntable.  It took me a while to finish servicing it due to it's overall size.  It's very slim and getting into the heart of the turntable wasn't easy! This is a sleeper of a turntable.  For many Pioneer fans, these series of turntables tend to fly under the radar.  You can say they're like a hidden gem in the Pioneer line up, especially the higher end turntables of this particular series.  These tables utilize a polymer graphite tonearm.  This meant, the tonearm not only has excellent rigidity and resonance (vibration) control but as well being light weight to meet with the demand of higher compliant cartridges of the time.  But, then CDs came along and development went elsewhere. Nonetheless, this is an excellent turntable.  It was second from the top, the PL-9, being TOTL.  And the PL-8 was one step higher above the PL-2 to PL-7 turntables, for the PL-8 had a better tonearm. It's in great shape too!  ...

It's been a while since we've posted audio gear on the blog.  But, I've finally gotten the time to finish a couple of turntables This is one of my favorite turntables for not only it performs well and dead reliable, the operations are smooth and it looks great to boot!  This is one solid turntable. In my honest opinion, the black finish is great.  It matches both modern and vintage pieces.  And, of course it has a nice tall platter and strobe to give a classy look. The Akai AP-206 is a nice direct drive, 2-speed semi-automatic turntable.  It's well built and had good weight.  It's freshly serviced and ready to go to a new loving home. Now, I've had to add a couple touches to this turntable to make it whole.  It was missing the headshell and cartridge: 1) is a very nice and light weight ADC headshell.  It is a great headshell as it has excellent rigidity, but light weight. 2) I've put a very nice Nagaoka MP-15 cartridge.  This is n...