The tech list on our website has grown substantially as of March 2025. We added well over 100 additional techs which came from a list posted on one of the large vintage audio groups on Facebook. We also expanded the list outside of vintage consumer electronic equipment to include guitar amp techs, and even a vintage organ repair facility.
As a result, we have not spoken to the majority of the companies/technicians listed to verify their ability to repair your precious equipment. Obviously, this is somewhat concerning, as we don’t want to recommend a hack tech, simply because we found their information online.
Way back in the 1960s to the 1990s, most qualified repair places had a retail shop location, and advertised in the Yellow Pages. As the work became more specialized and techs retired, more and more remaining techs started working from home, or on a part time basis. Studios had their own full-time tech(s), but even that has changed, as studios now generally bring a tech in to repair equipment. Therefore, the overall tech landscape has changed significantly over the last few decades.
I have a few suggestions for anybody who knows very little about electronics that can help verify that the shop or tech that they are taking their equipment to has the ability to properly maintain your valuable equipment.
Word of Mouth
The best form of advertising is word of mouth. Have a friend that is a big vintage audio nut? Chances are, he knows of a good tech, and has used them for years. (If they are not on the list, let us know!) Check online reviews as well. However, as with any other online review, the people that have had a bad experience will be more likely to post a negative review than the 100 or so people that the same tech has done great work for.
Minimum charge
At this point, almost all good techs will have a minimum estimate charge, to properly assess your equipment. They should also provide a written estimate for the fault(s) your unit has, and a cost to repair it. Diagnosing a fault in a 40-60 year old piece of electronics takes time. Be prepared to pay a diagnostic fee of $50-150 at most places.
Turnaround Time
Many good shops are very busy, and have a turnaround time of many weeks or even months. Most shops are very selective as to what equipment they take in, whether it’s a synthesizer or a receiver. Many brands and models are not worth servicing, as we outline elsewhere here on our website for reel to reel decks, and any number of current stereo equipment (especially since the 1990s) simply aren’t designed to be serviced. So expect a good shop to be busy! However, if they are taking in repairs and advising that it will be over a year before they get to it, perhaps look for another shop.
At RTRTech here, we make decks that come in for service a priority, so our turnaround is usually 2-3 weeks. We also put in 80 hour workweeks, whereas most shops only do a more typical 40 hour week.
Specializing in equipment and brands
At this point, many repair shops are specializing in certain products or certain brands. Repairs today are different than they were in the 1980s. Vintage equipment now has many parts that are nearing end of life, and parts are failing now in 2025 that were completely reliable 40 years ago. Specialty shops that work only on receivers or speakers are far more likely to know certain brands or models and their weaknesses, as compared to a 1 man show that works on everything from receivers to tape decks.
Tech Speak
A big part of being a successful tech is being able to communicate with a non-technical end user as to the problems with their component, and what it will take to repair it. No technician is going to exactly outline the specific part(s) that need to be replaced, i.e. ‘Resistor 102 is open and Capacitor 205 shorted out’, however the tech should be able to tell the client in broad terms what the problem(s) is.
Our policy, whether repairing or selling a deck is to include all defective parts back with the repaired unit, so that the customer can see what was replaced. This stems from a pet peeve of ours which involves taking our car into a repair shop, being charged $1200 for parts, but never actually seeing the part(s) that the shop replaced. A good shop will show you what was replaced, even if you have no clue as to what those parts do. There will be some exceptions. In our case it would be pinch rollers which get rebuilt, so the client doesn’t get back the defective one.
Test Equipment
A good shop has the right test equipment to verify a failure point of your item. Consequently, using this test equipment will not just speed up the troubleshooting process, but will also verify the proper operation of the repaired unit. For example, the power output in the case of a receiver, and a speed test tape in the case of a tape deck so as to check the running speed of the tape transport.
Test equipment doesn’t need to be brand new to provide quality results. While a lot of the older, larger pieces of test gear can be duplicated by a software program, many techs prefer working with older equipment from as early as the 1950s.
To be more specific:
Amplifier/Preamps/Receivers
Outside of the basic tone generator, meters and oscilloscopes to troubleshoot any piece of audio gear, a good amp/receiver repair shop will have the following:
- power meter to measure the actual power output of your amp/receiver.
- a load resistor set which runs an amp to full power continuously without blasting everyone out of the shop.
- the ability to measure the frequency response of your amp (tone generator/’scope, or dedicated frequency sweep device).
- Capable of measuring the distortion of the amp (distortion analyzer).
- AM and FM alignment generator. This allows a tech to properly align the radio reception stages. Adjusting any of the critical settings in a tuner section ‘by ear’ isn’t the way to do it.
Tape Decks
We have a ‘bit’ of experience in this department, so here goes:
- a full set of calibration tapes for whatever tape format is required. The most popular reel to reel test tape brand is MRL (still operating today), however back in the RTR heyday, Teac, Ampex, Nortronics, Sony and a few others also produced their own tapes. Absolutely mandatory for head alignment and eq adjustments.
- for cassettes, 8 tracks, etc, a number of calibration tapes were made, including Sony, Abex, Teac, Nakamichi and others. Again, mandatory for head alignment. Doing it by ear doesn’t work!
- set of gauges and scales to set tape motor torque and takeup and supply tensions.
- tentelometer to set tape tension.
- frequency response equipment to plot the final frequency response of your deck.
- wow and flutter meter
- speed tape to set the proper speed of the capstan motor
Speakers and mics
Having owned a large audio repair shop here in Vancouver in the early 1990s with an amazing speaker technician who could identify and give you a 20 minute dissertation of a no name brand 6 X 9 speaker out of a 1969 Chevy Nova, I’m here to tell you that repairing mics and speakers is an art form that has as much to do with science as it does with technique and creative innovation when the original parts are not available.
While refoaming a speaker is usually straightforward – and I’ve done a few, I’ve also butchered a couple of sets of refoams due to an unsteady hand and inexperience. Word of mouth to find a good speaker repair facility is the best way to find one, and there’s a good chance you’ll need to ship your speakers to a shop if you can’t find someone local to do it. Ask the speaker repair shop for instructions on how to pack a speaker. There are many wrong ways to do it, and only a few right ways.
Microphones that are worth repairing (i.e. studio mics) are even more of an artform, and there’s very few people that can do it worldwide. There is at least one well known microphone repair tech on our tech list.
Wireless mics – anyone that works on the circuits of a wireless transmitter or receiver absolutely has to have a spectrum analyzer to work on the RF section of these devices. Other than changing a mic capsule or corroded battery clips, no repair shop should be working on a wireless mic without one.
Hopefully that helps you find a qualified technician or shop to work on your treasured vintage audio equipment.!