Thrift diving

There is a Habitat for Humanity store near where I live called The Re-Store that on a regular basis have some great vintage speakers for dirt cheap!! So far this is what I've found.

Zenith Allegro 2000, 2 way with 8" woofers and a horn. $6

Argos 3 way 12"woofers with all Jensen components. $10

 

very lucky find!! reminds me of my own stupendous luck a couple months back with the pair of SANSUI SP-2000 4-ways i found at a rummage sale for the entirety of a whole $1.00.
both cabinets cleaned up quite well for 40-year old floorstanders, and serve dutifully and beautifully as my computer sound suite, driven by mid-80's YAMAHA amplification...

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/MacGyver Computer System/COMPUTERSYSTEMJOHNs56-5-141_zps3faa2b2e.jpg

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/MacGyver Computer System/COMPUTERSYSTEMJOHNs56-5-142_zps418bf40f.jpg

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/MacGyver Computer System/R-9JOHNs6-17-141_zps361c8a78.jpg

 

I have gone to many a thrift store. I have never found anything worth buying at any price.

 

Yes! The Habitat store is where I got the Polks for $25, the Bozaks for $20 and the Technics tuner for $5. Also got a nice widescreen monitor for $5 and an IBM model M keyboard for $4. It's a half-hour trip to get there, so I only go weekly, wish I could go every day! You just never know what will be there.

The Goodwill store, on the other hand, is nothing but coffee pots and VCR's. Not even worth walking in the door.

I built those Allegros, by the way. I worked for Zenith in the 80's. Onkyo woofers, Foster tweeters. 1st order filters with light bulb protection circuit. Another woofer vendor was Oxford, but QC rejected those regularly. Upgrade the caps and they'll sing.

 

>60% of my gear is from thrift shops. I'm poor.
...but the stuff sounds great!

My best deals were:
B&W DM302 speakers for $8
Audio-Technica LP120 Turntable brand new in-the-box for $20

 

I got lucky on Kijiji recently with a Harman Kardon SACD-capable DVD-47 with the protective plastic film still on face plate for 70$, a Harman Kardon AVR-144 for 50$ and a pair of mint JBL E-80s for a 100$. In my nick of the woods those are dirt cheap prices.

With some re-organizing of my gear, this got me a nice, inexpensive SACD kit for the bedroom. Playing Diana Krall's rendition of "S'wonderful" on SACD lying down in bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon prior to having a nap... What a sweet lullaby !

 

From my local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store Thrift Store, I obtained a pair of Advent Legacy II floorstanders for $21 each. It was purple tag day, so they were on sale. I did have to refoam them though, but that was only an extra $25.

A week later from a pawn shop I got a Yamaha Integrated Amp (AX-700u) for $19.99. On the same stop I found a Marantz 2215 receiver for $40. Both in great condition.

The day before I found a new-looking Technics 5-disc carousel player for $12, that was from the Goodwill store.

 

A few years ago I brought home a pair of rare ADS L9e's for $4.99. I also found a pair of AR4x's for $19.99 at a Goodwill, rehabbed them, and sold them for over $100 on eBay.

Of course, here in the Boston area, desirable vintage hifi is pretty common... after all, AR, Advent, KLH, Bose (ugh), ADS, Snell, etc. etc. were based around here.

 

Zenith had excellent engineers, all through their US manufacturing days. The Allegros are one example, the FM heads in many of their consoles are another. The best ones are up there with the HH Scott and Fisher or maybe better in terms of RF performance.

 

Bummer.For me a couple of local thrifts were an absolute gold mine for me from 2002-2112.It's all over now though.

 

Zenith had good engineers. What they also had was an inefficient manufacturing facility, a 1930's radio factory which was WAY bigger than it needed to be, and very poorly set up for making stereos. And they wasted SO much. One day I watched guy out back with a skid of 8 track players. He'd pick one up, hit it with a hammer, then toss it into the dumpster. That went on until all the "old" players were broken and tossed. They spent $4,000 to lay new macadam on a road beside the plant. Then they spent $5,000 to dig it up to put in a new pipe. Panels for stereo cabinets were cut in the basement. Then they went up to the fourth floor to be finished. Then they went to the third floor to be assembled. Then they went down to the second floor to have the electronics installed. Then they went to the warehouse across the street to be shipped.

The Japanese didn't kill Zenith... they killed themselves.

 

What the Japanese did was make inefficiency uneconomic, and a lot of the old line companies never had to face serious competition before and either could or preferred not to adapt. (Which plant did you work at?)

I only worked for commercial or military electronic manufacturers, never consumer, but I saw a lot of crazy stuff. We got away with it because our only competitors were as bad or worse. I saw more than one company fold up operations after ten to fifty years because the owners had, in essence, made their money and had decided in a momentary downturn to cut their losses and run. Others were abandoned to corrupt or incompetent management and ran themselves aground.

Most people can't understand that it is not rare at all for a business to simply decide it no longer wants to fight the good fight, so to speak, and go out of business or sell off large parts of itself. It's also not uncommon for a business entity to buy a company it has no intention of continuing to run, for any of several reasons, abandoning entire product lines and facilities with their workforces. In some cases it's done for internal power maneuvering reasons, in some cases for tax purposes or to sell off the real estate, and there's always the old buy-up-and-shutter-the competition maneuver.

Motorola had long wanted to divest itself of the TV and stereo operations, for example, but was unable to do so as long as one of the old Bill Lear guys stayed on the board. When he died they sold it to Matsushita, who bought it and, as Motorola knew they would, shut it down. Motorola preferred the two way radio and military RF and semiconductor businesses as they were much more profitable for the plant space and upper management time required. There was also the fact that the Schaumburg operation felt it was politically hamstrung by its Western Illinois operations.

Heathkit, ironically, was killed by Zenith in this exact way.

 

Watsontown PA, which was once the Philco factory. The plant was huge, at least a city block, maybe more. I wasn't an electronic engineer or anything so glamorous, I worked in inventory. If the computer said we had 10,000 of a certain kind of screw, then I had to go and count screws to make sure we actually had 10,000 of them.

But competition from Japan was a big deal back then, and we got extra unemployment for it.

 

I too have a pair of those Sansui Sp-2000 with the 12"woofers both in pristine condition. I paid $40 to a friend for them so you've definitely got me beat at $1.00!!! Beautiful speakers.

 

Good finds, but do you think you paid the charity a fair price?

 

I paid their asking price. Given the fact there's no way of knowing if they even work when I buy them, it may be a small risk but a risk non the less. I have a clear conscience.

 

Our thrift stores are stacked with CD and DVD players. Mostly older 1990's models. No ES. I think you have to be there early to have a shot at an amplifier or receiver because I've never seen on in 5 trips.

Tons of old records, but too scratched up and not even worth the $1 they sell them for.

 

It wasn't until the Japanese came in electronic plants came up with counting scales, and making certain parts "free stock".

Before that they all spent more on counting certain items than the items were worth. And dumpstering tons of parts to dodge the taxes on them.

 

In the early days of home theater when you had to have a giant 3CRT projector in the ceiling and a LaserDisc setup to have good sound and picture Zenith's front projectors were absolutely without peer. They were also north of $10K IIRC.

 

He sure did. He paid what they asked.

 

Are Zenith Allegros really good...? I always assumed that Zenith after about 1962 was just an el cheapo brand, like what Fisher became.

 

Best deal from a thrift was a marantz 2270 receiver in perfect shape for $29. Got it for a friend.

 

Found a Sony C75ES 5-disc CD player at the Salvation Army Thrift Store for $15. No wood sides and a low end ES, but it's fine. Then a Nakamichi CR-1A cassette recorder, same price. Also two turntables, a Pioneer PL-51A and a Technics SL-Q2, $11 each. I think I bought about four decent double cassette recorders, cleaned and demagnetized them, gave two away. All at the same thrift.

That store always has a lot of cassette and CD players, but I'd love to run into a Marantz receiver! One's timing has to be perfect.