yrly
Breaking records is good?
Well I got back from the thrift store a while back with my odd find of the day. I found what appears to be a mid 1980s Magnavox CD player, however here is the odd part, the plate telling the model and date of manufacture is missing from the back. The unit itself is rather small, stands roughly a foot wide, looks dwarfed compared to the Fisher RS-1060 which I have hooked it up to for temporary testing purposes. Unit has provisions for a remote which is missing, front of unit states Magnavox above the power button on the upper left corner. Says Digital Audio Compact Disc Player below the loading tray, Motor Powered Front Loading Programmable Memory below that. The drawer itself has a felt padded platter with a curved laser cutout (like the type of pickup that swings rather than drives straight across), the front window is clear reads Optical Laser Beam on it. This flips down when you press the button to load it, out pops the tray which reads single beam laser pickup. Has a greenish yellow LED inside there on the top which can be seen through the clear front. LEDs dsiplay track number/time. Has otherwise standard CD controls. Rear panel has a DIN type output, digital output to use as a transport, standard RCA outs, and a heatsink of some sort. Its awfully heavy for a unit standing only one foot wide. Black in color, plastic facade in the front as well as bottom (again its surprisingly heavy considering the plastic). I fired it up for the first time and happened to pop in a badly scratched CD, my Akai CD-A7 has a heck of a time attempting to read this, right now the unknown Mangavox has tracked through 5 tracks without even a digital glitch. The only noticable problem is the LED display does not always work properly, sometimes it drops a bar of the digit it is displaying. Sound is nothing short of amazing, stereo seperation top notch. I will hook it up with a tube preamp for further testing with the other RS-1060 tomorrow. I am still surprised how well the transport is handling this terribly scratched CD. As I said the Akai can hardly read it, aside from track skipping problems (can't locate the starts of tracks properly, but its only apparent on this CD which would give most players a problem) it plays the tracks perfectly. I wish I knew what the heck the model was. Next to the vintage MCS Series A 6801 this is the finest sounding/performing vintage CD player I have used. Certainly a nice find for $5. As it stands my lineup of 1986 and prior CD players is as follows. MCS 6801 circa 1984, Akai CD-A7 circa 1985, Soundesign 5050blk circa 1986 (my guess from taking it apart is this unit was built by Toshiba), Sony D-5 portable (unknown vintage), the mystery Magnavox (looks like it may have been 1985 or so based on cosmetic comparisons). I am quickly becoming a fan of these vintage units. The older ones and their unique sounds tracking a CD, music to my ears, especially the MCS. Well if this unit sounds familiar to anyone let me know.