Barn find #2 – Feb 2023 to April 2023
So it seems that the Texas barn find somehow triggered an avalanche of reel to reel and vintage audio caches, two in the Washington state area, and one down in Georgia. Because 250 decks in stock wasn’t enough, we had to buy them all. In sequential order..
We saw a post on Facebook about an estate sale of sorts, where the owner had passed on last year, and his daughters were selling off his shop. The owner ran a pro and consumer audio repair shop in Tacoma, Wa, and was warranty depot for many many pro audio brands, including the Harman group (JBL, etc), QSC, Crown, etc. Apparently in the heyday, he had 5 technicians running full time, although in the last couple of years, I believe he was down to himself and another tech. According to the post he had a bunch of reel to reel decks in stock, amongst a TON of other equipment. We drove down twice, and filled a van each time with various pieces of equipment and components. The interesting thing was his shop though. Relatively nondescript from the outside, the shop was in a deep building, with a full basement, and the basement carried over to the shop next door.
It was filled with all sorts of consumer and pro audio equipment, a ton of dead/defective parts stock, and 100s of speakers, complete and baskets, power amps, test equipment, etc. We picked up about 8 reel to reels, all in rough shape, but most cleaned up nicely, including a Pioneer 707, a Tascam 22-4, and sundry other decks. We also grabbed a couple of Phase Linear 400 power amps (both blown), about 8 other assorted power amps (Crown, QSC, etc), a couple of which were in pieces, and a number of other pieces.
With the second trip, I grabbed a bunch of test leads (can never have too many of those!), a Carver preamp that he had on his workbench, and a few QSC modules, designed to fit into powered speakers. There was TONS of stuff I had to leave behind. A lot of equipment simply wasn’t worth repairing, or had too many components removed already, and scrap chassis is the last thing I need in my limited shop size! From memory, I picked up:
- 2 Phase Linear 400 power amps
- 1 Dynaco monoblock tube power amp
- 1 Crown K2 power amp
- 1 Carver PM 1.5 power amp
- 1 Carver C2 preamplifier
- Carver single rack space power amp
- Tascam 22-4 reel to reel
- Otari 5050 MKII reel to reel
- Crown 11 band per channel equalizer
- 4 Nakamichi M1 and M2 rack mount cassette decks
- Teac 2340 reel to reel
- Otari 5050 MkI and MkII in rough shape
About ½ of this equipment has already been run through and sold, or parts ordered for it. The Phase Linear amps are on the back burner, as they need some serious rebuilding. The Teac and Otari reel to reels have been sold, as have the Nakamichi cassette decks.
Barn find #3 – Estate Sale, Washington State
OK, here’s the details on barn find #3. At the end of March 2023, there were a few postings on Facebook regarding an estate sale in Washington state, which more or less ended up being a hoarder’s house. According to the estate sale company, you couldn’t walk through the house, let alone see the floor. The owner was apparently wheelchair bound, and ended up going into a care home, at which point the estate sale company was brought in.
This estate sale company did things a bit differently than others. They told us that they would price out everything in the house (a VERY daunting task in this case, due to the sheer volume of equipment and household goods), and then would let buyers in, 2-3 at a time, to spend 20 minutes in the house, grabbing what they want. With the interest in the contents of this property, including a TON of vintage audio equipment and some test equipment), this meant that 100s of people could potentially show up, and that meant a lot of waiting time possibly, before I’d get into the house. In addition, on the first day, the pricing was 100% of the tag on each item, on the second day, 75%, third day, 50%, and on the 4th day, everything was 25% of the asking price.
Even though the sale was taking place around 90 minutes from Vancouver, the thought of standing around for hours on one or more days didn’t interest me at all. Now, when it comes to large lots of vintage audio equipment, Gordon, the owner of www, .vintageaudio.ca and I have had a gentleman’s agreement for the last bunch of years that I would get all of the reel to reel equipment, and he’d get everything else. Sometimes there’s a bit of crossover, as in the case of the Texas find, but it always works out great for both of us.
So in this case, I alerted Gordon, who called the estate sale company. They sent him a spread sheet of all of the stereo equipment, and while almost all of it was great equipment, the pricing in most cases was beyond retail, which made it worth no one’s time. I did however jokingly say to Gordon, to ask if they’d be open to an offer on the entire lot, as that would save them a bunch of time trying to sell it. Normally estate sale companies don’t entertain a bulk sale, but in this case the sellers were interested. I let Gordon deal with the estate sale company, and we agreed that I’d get the two Teac X2000R reel to reel tape decks. Time was of the essence as well, as the estate sale started on April 12, and we were at the beginning of April by this point. The sellers wanted all audio equipment gone well before the sale started, as they’d have to pull all of the pictures from the sale website as well.
A day went by, and Gordon called me, saying that he made an offer, however the estate sale company wanted a bit more for it, but given that all of the equipment was very much as-is, and it didn’t look like any of it had been serviced in decades, he passed on the lot. I asked for his permission to make an offer, and Gordon was fine with that, as I’d probably bring some pieces over to his store to sell on consignment anyway.
I then called the estate sale company ,and made my offer, adding that I could hire a couple of friends out of Seattle to come up and pack it up, and I’d rent a 3 ton truck to bring it all through customs. The sellers and I came to an agreement, and here’s what the lot consisted of:
| Marantz Turntable Model 6300 | ||
| Sansui Model 9090DB | ||
| Teac Equalizer EOA-10 | ||
| Sansui G-2000 | ||
| Sansui QRX-9001 | ||
| Sansui Speakers SP-X-X8000 | ||
| Advent Speakers Pair | ||
| Klipsch Speakers Pair | ||
| Nakamichi 1000 | ||
| Advent speaker pair | ||
| Sansui Speakers SP-X9900 | ||
| Nexxtech Ultimate Speaker selector | ||
| Sansui 4900Z | ||
| Sansui 5000X | ||
| Klipsch Speakers KLF10 | ||
| Sansui 9090DB | ||
| Sansui 9090DB | ||
| Sansui 9090DB | ||
| Sansui 9090DB | ||
| Sansui 9090DB | ||
| Sansui 9090DB | ||
| Sansui DW9 Double Cassette | ||
| Sansui TU-S55X | Synthesizer | |
| Sansui SE-77 | Equalizer | |
| Sansui AMP AU-D55X | ||
| Sansui 5000A | missing 1 knob | |
| Sansui 5000 | ||
| Sansui G-7700 | ||
| Pioneer Speakers CD-F7001 Pair | ||
| Alpine CHM-5620 Shuttle | M-S620 | |
| Sansui RG-7 | ||
| Fisher CR-W34H Cassette Player | ||
| Sansui G-7500 | ||
| Sansui AT–20 | ||
| Sansui RA-990 | ||
| Sansui G-8700DB | ||
| Sansui SS-20 Headphones | ||
| Sansui SS-20 Headphones | ||
| Sansui SS-20 Headphones | ||
| Sansui SS-20 Headphones | ||
| Sony mdr-v100 Headphones | ||
| Sansui G-22000 | ||
| Sansui SP-Z7 Pair Speakers | ||
| DBX 200XG | ||
| DBX 224 | ||
| DBX 400X | ||
| DBX 400X | ||
| DBX-BX3 | ||
| DBX SNR-1 | ||
| DBX 224X-DB | DS | |
| DBX 3BX-DS | ||
| DBX C-X3 | ||
| DBX BX-2 | ||
| Sansui RA-700 | ||
| Sansui RA-500 | ||
| Sansui RA-500 | ||
| Sansui RA-500 | ||
| Sansui G-8700DB | ||
| Sansui 4000 | ||
| Sansui G-9700 | ||
| Sansui 2000-X | ||
| Sansui G-9000GB | 000DB | |
| Sansui 9900Z | ||
| DBX II 128 | ||
| DBX 3BX-DS | ||
| DBX 4BX | ||
| GE 11-2004A | ||
| Pioneer CT-F1000 | ||
| Pioneer CT-F1000 | ||
| Pioneer SC-9500 | ||
| Pioneer SC-9800 | ||
| Pioneer R-1000 Laser Vision Noise reduction unit | ||
| RCA VR622HF | ||
| Marantz 5010 | ||
| Sony TC-FX-420R | ||
| Sony VTX-1000R | ||
| Sansui G-8700DB | Parts only including cabinet | |
| Sansui 9090DB | Parts only | |
| Symphonic SA-1035 | ||
| I/O Magic Lightscribe external DVD | ||
| Klipsch Belle | Pair Speakers | |
| Sansui G-8000 | ||
| Pioneer CT-F1000 | ||
| RCA RP-8055B 5 disc Player | ||
| Marantz 6300 | ||
| Sansui P-L50 Turntable | ||
| Klipsch KLF-10 Pair Speakers | ||
| Teac X-2000-P Reel to Reel | ||
| Teac X-2000-P Reel to Reel | ||
Thanks to two good friends from Seattle, we loaded up the 3 ton truck within a couple of hours, and everything was brought back to Vancouver.
I’ve worked on a few pieces from this lot, and yes, every single one of them needs servicing, whether control cleaning, belts or a full teardown and service. Since I have over 350 reel to reels in stock now thanks to all of these new finds, never mind all the receivers, cassette decks an speakers, etc that are also here, I will be working through all of these finds over the next few months, and will be listing them on Reverb, Facebook and (if I really have to), ebay.
