Japanese Pye In The Sky? Most Certainly Not!

[Nickeccles]

So people I'm back with a somewhat unusual machine this time.........

I have seen what I believe are similar versions or AKA's of this type of machine over the years but never one sporting the Pye or Philips badge until now

The princely sum of £17 was accepted by the seller & just a day & a half later, this little guy arrived much to my delight - Reassuringly heavy affirmed my initial thoughts that this is a really solidly built stereo & very nicely finished too!!

I would date this baby around 1976, it uses the same cassette mechanism used in the Bush/Arena/Rank Organisation cassette decks of the same era - strong pressed steel chassis with very long lasting components needing belt changes throughout it's life to keep it running reliably!! The mains operated decks in the UK used a synchronous motor locked to the 50Hz mains frequency to maintain accurate speed control - This guise of the same deck uses a much nicer arrangement, a DC motor with a servo & electronic speed adjuster in the motor underside & definitely a better arrangement all round!

Now there is nowhere on the stereo proclaiming where it was made but I think we can safely assume Japan or Korea as that was where the Bush/Arena decks originated from & badged for the UK

So what else do we find inside the machine?? Well some unusual but perfectly functional connectors to the main & tuner boards & the first portable stereo I have seen with a fuse protected output stage

Yep, 2 fuses one for each channel right on the output board feeding the next surprising find..........

Two full range speakers for left & right plus two side firing eliptical speakers - Like those mid 70's Sony units that bear some resemblance to this stereo........CF-580 I think they were!

Anyway, the electronics were of good quality, all switches were filthy & unresponsive & to my horror there was only weak audio seeping from the right channel

This turned out to be a red kipper, I thought blown output stage etc despite the protection fuses being intact - To my relief, jammed rec/play switch on the tape deck pre-amp & recording board was the culprit.....unusually it affected radio playback too

Never had that before!!

Tape deck removed very easily & it's single square section belt replaced - This deck was very fussy about having the right size & tension beltwise! Rewind refused to work properly until I tried a third belt just a tiny bit tighter than the previous two I tried

So now we have good torque in all modes it is time to clean the many switches that adorn this little guy & it took quite a while to completely free up all the switches & get them working again..............

So far seems to be going well so plug in headphones & test cassette deck! We now have both channels working but terrible sound due to the azimuth adjust screw had worked it's way loose over the years - A adjustment of almost three full turns restored nice stereo sound so screw locked with a dab of locking paint & speed adjusted to the correct setting as it was slow as fook

I was surprised to find bass & treble controls on a portable of this vintage & even more unusual is the choice of manual or auto level recording

This little stero has it though & this added to my liking of this little machine & I could almost see the even keels in front of me by now!

All that remained was to clean clean clean the casing, control panel & knobs - The slatted design of the speakers means this takes some time to get a good result, around two & a half hours in fact

but worth it of course!!

Reassembly time & this was easy enough being careful not to snap any of the slightly brittle posts that screw the case together, I just pinch up the screws not too much but enough & it was successfully back in one piece......

The little Pye sounds far better than it has right to! This little stero produces a sound that belies it's size & spec! Lovely sound & gorgeous backlit VU meters on the top work flawlessly too!

We had by now completely caught up with the even keels & it was time to load a nice chrome cassette recorded on the Technics RS-BX727 3 header & just enjoy the music - The simple design using just a square belt is very good indeed mainly thanks to a nice biggish flywheel & I didn't expect sound quality like this like a humble pie!!

So that's my story of this little Pye/Philips
Japanese built stereo radio cassette, I hope you enjoyed reading about it........

Et Voila:

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https://youtu.be/rbTTiam_zPI

https://youtu.be/uTXtk7n7uBc

Hi-Res Images Here:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=BEA218B70F2B18D1!31514&cid=BEA218B70F2B18D1

 

[Transistorized]

That is a very neat looking machine indeed

 

[PostEnder]

Good going with the restoration of this Seventies-era stereo, Nick Eccles. Tell me, do you mean (in paragraph four) that one has to open up this classically weighty gadget, say, every two years to re-belt the similarly substantial cassette-deck mechanism to avoid the slipping and snapping of the earlier rubber belts? On the one hand: a regular boombox-upkeep refresher. On the other hand: not again! Oh, the intimidating intricacy to behold! Oh, the slippery DexOxit LOL!

Uh, is there a glass fuse somewhere in the electromechanical elaborateness? Or did that fail-safe feature arrive later on? In, say, the Sharp GF-8989 and in GF-9X9X models and in most Eighties iterations of portability?

I wonder how many stations you would have to forego listening to due to this older machine not tuning far past 104 MHz. (When the radio industry didn't have those four extra MHz on the FM dial, of course.)

You are correct: this substantial take-along stereo does sound good. Even when playing an almost fraught George Michael (may God rest his soul). In the next, shorter clip, the VU metres look good while showing how well this Pye SX-8784 makes the late star sound.

 

[Nickeccles]

There is a thermal fuse in the transformer but the 2 fuses you see are to protect the output transistors! I would say that this was still on it's original belt as it was just hanging on!!

 

[MyOhMy]

"Good on yer, Sir - yer didit again!" You just gotta love the stories on Nick's resto's, they're nothing less than pure entertainment. Anyway, as for the BB, it's certainly an eye catcher now it's all cleaned up & ready to go and must have cost a pretty penny in it's day. The expensive looking (in it's day) 70's 'future proof' styling nailed it then and still looks good to this day with a nod back to the 70's. Nice one!

 

[Nickeccles]

I knew you would approve christine!! 😊

 

[PostEnder]

There is a thermal fuse in the transformer but the 2 fuses you see are to protect the output transistors! I would say that this was still on it's original belt as it was just hanging on!!

Thanks for the reply, Mr Eccles. And: aha! I do now see twin glass fuses. They're located on a slice of the green integrated circuit (IC) board, abutting the battery bay and not far from the "figure 8" AC jack of the stereo. A yellow wire and a black one are partly obscuring one of the tubes. It took me seeing the (apparently) same photographs -- though much bigger-looking -- on the Stereo2Go website, posted under the same topic title, to first see them. The same image (photo' 16) is rotated 90 degrees clockwise in the Stereo2Go posting relative to this BoomBoxery posting. (Was this topic posted first on BoomBoxery.com? 'Cause I read and replied to it here first, I shrug to say.)

Uh, Nick Eccles, when you speak of "a thermal fuse in the transformer" in addition to the twin glass fuses, do you mean that there is triplicate protection from excess voltage/current?

 

[Nickeccles]

Thermal fuse is for protection of the primary windings of the mains transformer! Usually non replaceable however I have in the past gently peeled away the insulation layer on the transformer & replaced the open circuit protector with a fusible resistor or cp to restore power! If the windings are damaged though forget it!! A fiddly job & thankfully a rare occurance!! Most boomboxes have these thermal fuses as well a secondary fuse on the output of the mains transformer!! I need more sleep!! Late night I am knackered!!

 

[MyOhMy]

I knew you would approve christine!!

"Ah thang you, Sir!" Your images are always nice to see and the display & presentations are a pleasure to the eye. Have you considered an (online) gallery and shop your BB images? You could call it something like...........let me see.............mmmmm................ ..........Eccles Exceptional Eclectic Electrical Emporium!

 

[Nickeccles]

There are indeed permanent images & original 4K videos of just about all my machines! I use the very cheap & reliable Microsoft Onedrive service which has never let me down yet!!

Images Here:
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=BEA218B70F2B18D1%216576&cid=BEA218B70F2B18D1

4K Original Resolution Video Clips Here:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=BEA218B70F2B18D1%2123602&cid=BEA218B70F2B18D1