FarMedia Technolgies

Audio: Vintage and modern

These page will cover the Audio, and P.A. parts of my audio hobby.

Soo… I like music and audio equipment. I have rather a large amount of it, there’s at least one sound system in every room. And outside too. Much of it is vintage, although the home theater (more) is a mix of a modern Atmos preamp driving a bunch of Crown D-75 power amps.

Current hot topics for 2023:

Bose 901 Series – Daev’s Notebook

Getting SACD sound to your speakers isn’t obvious…

Refurbing the Dynaco Stereo 70 tube amp with VTA ST-70 CCS driver board


Here’s my retro and obsolete audio media players and decoders rack.

Retro and obsolete media players

From top to bottom:

  • On top, the classic Technics 1210 MK5 turntable. Modified to play 78’s as well as microgroove moderns
  • Furman Power conditioner – the newest thing here
  • Pioneer 707 7″ reel to reel deck
  • Tascam Patch bay
  • dbx type 1 and 2 decoders. The lower one also handles dbx encoded discs
  • NIKKO BETA 30 preamp
  • Panasonic SV-3700 pro studio DAT deck
  • TEAC R400x cassette deck – one of the few decks that has Dolby B, C *and* dbx NR
  • Pioneer DV-563A multiregion DVD player, plays SACD discs
  • SAE 5000A pop and tick remover & flat phono preamp
  • dbx 3BX dynamic range expander
  • dbx 120 subharmonic synthesizer

And other miscellaneous:

My Turntables: https://farmedia.com/my-turntables/

The first affordable CD player, also portable! https://farmedia.com/sony-d5-cd-player/

That little tiny amp…  Facmogu F900 Amp

The tube line buffer investigation: Tube Audio Buffers

Quick links:
A good reference to MCM space age audio designs:
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/space-age-record-players-stereos/

[ST-70]
Quick project: Why did the fuse blow in my vintage Dynaco ST-70?
(If you’re not familiar with Dynaco, you should be:  Dynaco wikipedia article)

Here’s what one of my rebuilt Dynaco ST-70’s looks like:

Dynaco ST-70, top side
Dynaco ST-70, under chassis

Tube amps have, well, tubes. And they wear out, eventually. This amps rectifier tube died and caused an over-current condition, presto fuse blows. Checked the other tubes and the bias current, all looks good now.

And now, on to the next thing!


Last Updated on 2023-11-21 by Daev Roehr