What audio have you found in the garbage/dumpster dive

Bahamayellow

Bahamayellow

Super Member
My neighbor put a Sansui 7000 near the garbage 10 years ago that I received for free. It worked for 6 great months before it conked out. Found the radio in working condition in the garbage with a box of glasses around the corner. It’s a Crosley and a copy of the nicer tivoli radio. Oh well it will be great as a garage radio.

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Dynaco Mk III and PAM 1, in the box, unused. Great condition AR-4x pair (just needed the crossover caps replaced and the veneer refreshed), mint condition Dynaco A25 pair (same as the ARs), Realistic Nova 7B pair (same condition as the ARs and Dynacos), Bose 301 pair (Series II, I think), Infinity RS2000 pair (which I find unlistenable), some sort of Realistic shortwave, some sort of R2R/amp/speaker combo.

There may be more, but I can't think of any right now.
 
Bahamayellow said:
Crosley and a copy of the nicer tivoli radio.]
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You got me for a second there.

I found a Monkees greatest hits cassette in a Harmony House dumpster in the late 80's. and recently found some Kicker 10" Solo Barics, one of which I've repaired. A week later I found a 12" box that is perfect cubic feet for the fixed Kicker after I put an adapter plate on it.
 
My garage rig, 80s Kenwood separates with an amp good for a solid 100wpc. The speakers are crap but they are loud. Preamp needed some caps to make it go, and I bypassed the electronic volume control chip because I had no remote. This one is stupid, it has an analog volume pot upstream of a chip that further attenuates the volume. With the remote, the max volume you can get is whatever the knob is set to, the knob is limited by what the remote is set to, and it defaults to zero output volume when I turn it on. Two jumpers across the chip and now the analog knob runs the whole show.
 
I pulled an MCS 3233 receiver out of a dumpster. The cord was cut and it was missing the volume knob, but otherwise worked just fine. The controls didn’t have any scratchiness and case was in pretty good shape too.
 
I came home my dead end street one dark and rainy night. The house 2 doors up had an old console out front at the curb for trash the next day. I parked my car, went into the garage, pulled a cart out so I can drag it home, got to the end of my driveway and it was gone. Like freakin' magic.
 
Not quite a dumpster, but I found a working Marantz 140 power amp and an SAE Mark 1M preamp with a cut cord and a single bad trace in the rectifier. They were on the curb with a little TV/VCR combo. Left the TV. Amp and preamp work beautifully now.
 
I was cruising down my street, a couple of blocks from my house and thought I spied a pair of Pioneer HPM-100s at the curb. I slammed on the brakes and had them gathered up before I took my next breath. They were completely trashed, cabs, drivers, cross-overs, connector panels, and all. I have been able to get sweet replacement parts for all, and they are now singing sweetly in my secondary rig, as a choice between Maggie MG-1s, EPI A500s, AR9s, and these HPM-100s. I still have less into them than what I could get if I sold them.

My main rig already powers a triple-stack of HPM-100s, so I would have to lay them all on their sides to fit this set in there. I don't have room for side-laying HPM-100s so in the secondary rig they shall stay for now. I will say that they comport themselves well, considering the speaker company they are keeping. To power the switchable speaker selections, I am using a Yamaha M-80, soon to be replaced with fully restored M-85.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
Back in the early 90's my father found an HK330B while he was installing the heating system for an apartment building that was undergoing a remodel. It was darn near perfect but I lent it to a friend who soon killed it and tossed it into a different dumpster. Maybe maybe someone else will post up in a little while how they found it in a dumpster and fixed it up.

Of all the small amount of receivers I've had that was the nicest sounding by far playing through a pair of KLH 23s.
 
I once found a Marantz 1200b and a Marantz 115b being thrown out at a local audio store. They were cosmetically a little rough. Got ‘em both working pretty easily. The 1200 was in a bit better shape. The 115B was rather rough looking (dents, non functioning lights, possibly smoker owned).
More recently scored a B&K Reference 125.2 from the store that I work at. It was going to be recycled because the client didn’t claim it and thought it was broken. Literally all that was wrong with it was the speaker fuses. Got it working like a charm. I was ready for a fun battle fixing that one, but it was just fuses .
 
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I admire all you recyclers and restorers, but I can't think of a single piece of mine that I acquired in that fashion.

But I paid some damn good money for stuff that SHOULD have been in the dump, on occasion...
 
Literally dumped in a dumpster? Nothing. But a friend found a Fisher 800 tube receiver and brought it to me, knowing I'm into this stuff. It worked right away, sounded glorious, and perfect conditon cosmetically, not a scratch, even the walnut cabinet.

Street find, ESS Heil AMT-1As with the Great Heil midtweets; all they needed was woofer refoams and a light sanding. They were on the sidewalk, in a No Stopping zone at rush hour on a main drag, and my car was too small. A minute later the Cops arrived to give me a $250 ticket, but I persuaded them to drive them home for me — and they didn't write the ticket — that was the best part of it. Nothing else worth note except some Advents and Jantzens with rotten or missing woofers, but working tweeters I took home. The Jantzen's tweets were electrostatic, so interesting at least. I've left more good stuff on the street than I've ever found.

Thrifts and Pawns are a much better story, some stupendous stuff.
 
Never found anything in a dumpster, but my job has me towing cars donated to charity. I check through them en-route to the recycler seeing if there's anything worth scavenging.

Electronics wise:

NAD 710 receiver - needed new lamps
NAD 502 CD player - also new lamps but n original box with packing, manual & remote
NAD 5000 CD player - had been dropped and plastic transport bits were broken. Epoxied the broken parts together and it worked perfectly.
NAD 7240PE receiver - had already been messed with to the point it was not worth fixing. It eventually continued the journey to the recycler.

Highly coincidental all the found gear was NAD. No two were in the same vehicle and the time frame was over several months. But it did all originate in the same part of town which is mostly apartments. Rents increasing astronomically overnight. Parking passes went from ~$75 per month to over $300. Many were moving and ditching their cars in the process.
 
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