Espace L 999

[samovar]

This thread marks a Copernican revolution for me, who never before attempted to restore a box, so please pay attention. Better: double your attention, because for this achievement I cannot thank enough Chris, aka Lasonic TRC-920, who last week took a long trip to help me save a box out of two fleamarket finds that looked beyond rescue (don't be fooled by appearances: these two specimens were both terminally ill)

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Given the circumstances, I decided that two things were in order, i.e.,

(1) to properly welcome the guy who was going to introduce me to the magic world of restoration...

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Lasonic TRC-920 by samovar's TRC Tower​

(2) to learn the basics, in order not to electrocute my mentor (unfortunately the more appropriate Electronics for Dummies was out of stock when I looked for a copy, so I had to improvise with what was in store):

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In retrospect, it was probably (1) that guaranteed the success of the operation. Chris did most of the technical job almost alone, starting from scratch

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I assisted at the best of my powers, which didn't prevent the risk that I might screw it up

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To limit the potential damage of my goodwill-yet-misdirected intervention, I took inspiration from Northerner and deech and went for a deep clean-up job

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At the same time, I decided to provide the necessary secret ingredient for the positive outcome of the venture

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The two units were badly injured. The one with the better case had serious internal damage caused by a loose transformer to (among other things) one of the speakers and the casing of the tape deck. We took one speaker from the second unit, but we had to rebuild the whole tape deck section in the first one. This was obtained by glueing together pieces of the broken plastic in order to secure the double deck. It was a labour of patience and painstaking precision -- and of absolute, total concentration

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The bad news is that these big black boxes look bold and in-your-face, but in fact are extremely fragile; their plastic is thin, breaks easily and ages quickly. The good news is that they are almost empty, and offer enough space -- case in point: espace! -- to work with a certain freedom. Here is a detail of a key rebuilt part

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We let the freshly glued sections harden for 24 hours, then we carefully put it all together and, with trembling hands, turned it on. It lived! It lived! The creature turned on and even sounded better than we both expected. We were in awe, and we took a few pictures, one of them I now proudly share. Enjoy

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Espace L 999​

 

[floyd]

awesome leave it to Chris he's got the eye of the tiger. these are cool box is very rare too.
Glad to see you guys got her working and up to par. I want to know who has those trc-931 lol I need one bad .

 

[Fatdog]

This is awesome!!

 

[caution]

What a great result, love the teamwork involved!
I'm actually a little surprised you never restored a box Samovar, you are so smart. You will learn so quickly. You have a master with you

Those head magnifiers are essential, I'd never get anything done without them.

Nice work guys

 

[Northerner]

Excellent team work!!

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Thanks for all the kind words Sal and everyone. We really worked hard as a team. As you all know, a full restoration, like the one above isn't done in a day, or even two days. But that's all the time we had. Two full days!



The two of us worked side by side like a well oiled machine, I pulled parts, Sal cleaned, detailed and polished and lined them up on the finished table. Look at how good the back case came out.



We diagnosed, problem solved and found solutions to issues like the aforementioned broken deck door hinge points (the metal spring broke the parts after 30 years of use, it happens).

With the exception of a few food and beer breaks, we literally worked for two days straight. If we hadn't we would have never got it finished. As with any of these projects, the anxiety level begins to rise at the end. The fear of the unknown. Did we just do all this work for nothing?

What Sal didn't mention is, that someone had been into both sets of decks from both radios. On one set the gears were all pried up and bent and on the other, the heads were unscrewed and loose, with springs and parts missing. I have never been a "Deck Master". I prefer to "Re-belt and pray" at best. But in this case, I had to go in deeper then I like too. Pulling the keys, removing springs, heads, leaf switches, swapping parts from one deck set to the other. Add in the fact that this radio has NO LINE IN put extra pressure on this project to be more than a big desk top radio. When I got it all back together with new belts, I was so exhausted. Sal stepped right in and did the final cleaning of the mechanism as it will filthy and full of dirt, dust and trash. When we were both done, it looked factory fresh!



This radio also had a horrible HUM from the transformer. In fact, both units did. I did a little tweaking when it was reinstalled and when we fired it up the first time, we were both very happy that the hum was virtually eliminated.

We were also both shocked to see that both decks were working 100% and without any adjustment, sounded pretty darn good. I think there could probably be an azimuth adjustment to the heads, but over all, I was very surprised.






Had a blast Sal, always a pleasure working with you and thank you for all your hospitality and generosity!

 

[T-STER]

Nice work guys, good to see you guys knocking it out of the park on this resto. I dare say you both pushed your skills to the limits those days and the results speak for themselves.

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Nice work guys, good to see you guys knocking it out of the park on this resto. I dare say you both pushed your skills to the limits those days and the results speak for themselves.

We certainly were using all the tricks of the trade. All the stuff I have learned here on Boomboxery over the years were used. This generation of radio's have their issues. Knowing them and how to get around their shortcomings will keep this one going for another 30 years!

 

[Northerner]

I love it when you do a resto and feel sure it’ll not work when you put it back together just find it does! Happens so much more often the other way lol

 

[Hisrudeness]

I was following the progress of this in real time via long distance WhatsApp.
Great work guys and what a good looking box.

 

[floyd]

What a beauty I think this one has the best Vu meter of any box.

 

[Reli]

Wow! What a worthy effort to save this very rare and hot looking box! You guys are lucky to live relatively "close"

Dibs! (fake tweeters and all)!

 

[samovar]

Wow! What a worthy effort to save this very rare and hot looking box! You guys are lucky to live relatively "close"

Dibs! (fake tweeters and all)! [my emphasis]

By now the astute reader will have noticed that I own three versions of this box. These alone would deserve a thread of their own, since the available information on this unit is limited and incomplete. In short (and possibly in order to contribute to the Boombox Wiki pages):

1) both the two espace L-999 and the Lanico L-818E are variations on the same theme but they are not exactly akas of each other.

2) This said, the version of the espace L-999 featured in the present thread seems to be an aka of the Lanico L-909 (which is not the Lanico I own).

3) There are at least two versions of the espace L-999 (and possibly of the Lanico L-909), the one we restored and the one featured in the last two pictures posted by Chris. I call them the silver and the golden.

The former has silver decorations around the woofers, its grills read "Super Woofer" and it is a cheapish -- though lovely -- unit: keys and buttons are in black plastic, the handle is weak, like the one you find in the Crown/Unisef SZ 5000. Also: on the tape door you read "1. Synchro Dubbing" and "2. Continuous Play". Like the golden version this box is endowed with the high-speed dubbing function.

The latter has golden decorations around the woofers and it is an upgrade or deluxe version of the above: keys and buttons are chromed, the handle is solid, like the one of the TRC 931, but with elegant textured chrome, like many boxes of the later 80s/early 90s (for instance, the Audiosonic TBS 8495), its grills read "Turbo Power". It is interesting to note that the tape doors read "1. High Speed Dubbing" and "2. Continuous Play". The mysterious Turbo Power of this version -- which made me and Chris laugh out loud: what on earth is a "turbo power" feature on a boombox, we reasoned -- is then just the high speed dubbing feature, here emphasized but already present in the cheaper version.

4) The Lanico L-818E, which is in my possession, looks identical to the Riviera PST-1010.The latter is featured in the mercurial homepage of Boomboxery:

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5) The Lanico L-818E (a "Super Woofer", not a "Turbo Power" boombox, btw) is undoubtedly the most advanced unit, and as I said not just an aka. It has line-in (Phono/CD), an additional slider for Mic Mixing, two options for the tapes (Normal and Chrome), two for the FM radio (Mono and Stereo), and exhibits sophisticated and uniquely textured tape deck keys.

6) More evidence of the above: the fake tweeters are only on the two espace models (the silver "Super Woofer" and the golden "Turbo Power"), but not on the Lanico, which has real tweeters. While restoring the espace, I and Chris thought of an upgrade and wanted to take advantage of a crap Lasonic L-30 of mine. But we couldn't, despite the fact that the housings of the tweeters are for real and look exactly the same as those of the Lanico. In fact, on the two espace the radio module is conceived in such a way as to prevent the insertion of tweeters -- at least not the standard tweeters for which the lodgement is conceived--, unless some sort of mod is performed on the case.

7) The fact that both the espace and the Lanico share the same shell but inside are significantly different suggests that they may have been produced by the same manufacturer. This impression is reinforced by the circumstance that both the espace L-999 and the Lanico L-909 seems to be exactly the same unit, although in fact they are two different models.

8) It occurred to me that these boxes may have been produced by the Lucky/Lasonic company, or by some associate. I know that the following offers very little evidence to my speculation, but apart from the superficial resemblance of these units to the big Lasonic boys, (notably, in size and for certain secondary details of the design, to the 975) maybe it is not just a coincidence that "Lanico" is almost an anagram of "La(s)onic".

9) To both reinforce my idea -- but at the same time to confuse matters just when we thought that the smoke had cleared: there exists a Lanico L-818E that is not at all the one I have been discussing here, which looks like an aka of the Lasonic L 30. I offer two pictures taken from the net -- but I'd rather end this post here and leave to others the task of unraveling the mystery of two different boxes with the same model number:

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[caution]

Very interesting. Makes you wonder how this all went down and where, back when they were made.
I notice the Lanico says auto reverse, does that only apply to deck A?

 

[jays]

this is a amazing great job....

 

[docs]

Top Italian Job for sure! Glad to see this one worked out well... Persistence and patience are definitely a virtue for this restoration!

 

[samovar]

[...]

I notice the Lanico says auto reverse, does that only apply to deck A?

I forgot to mention auto reverse. The deck is currently not working, but it looks like the function applies only to deck "A".

The Lanico has also three leds (Recording, High Speed, and FM stereo), as opposed to the two on both espaces (Stereo Double and Cassette Recorder)

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Wow! What a worthy effort to save this very rare and hot looking box! You guys are lucky to live relatively "close"

Dibs! (fake tweeters and all)!

These are rare in the States, I had never seen one in person. Maybe because Sal has them all

Relativity close, only 14 hours on my motorcycle LOL, close.

this is a amazing great job....

Thanks man

Top Italian Job for sure! Glad to see this one worked out well... Persistence and patience are definitely a virtue for this restoration!

Also tough in a time crunch. I could have stayed for weeks, but for some reason, Sal chose to go to his job

 

[Reli]

The latter has golden decorations around the woofers and it is an upgrade or deluxe version

Some of the best speaker grills ever! Me wants to touch the hiney!

 

[deech]

Great Restoration. Amazing Topic.
For sure it looks like a lot of fun had by both of you Sal and Chris.
I know how stressful it is to get a box opened and make it work again.
It takes a lot of work and skills and you guys are the perfect duo.
It really is something when you open a bbox.

It happens that i own a fully working Riviera PST 1010 and its a shamt that it
is missing the battery cover.
If you have a spare one Sal i could really use it !!