Olympic combination stereo 8-track tape player, radio, and record player repair 

true sapphire needles also make 45's sound better

Eight Jewish Korean War Veterans (E J Korvettes)

My parents got a XAM console stereo in 1969. French Provincial. (My Mom worked at Korvette's part time in the evening in the dress department.) The cabinet was beautiful, the stereo was dreadful. When you were playing a record you could not put the lid down because of feedback. It had woofers of 12" but they were pitiful, to say the least. And even with the lid up, you could not play it very loud because of dreadful distortion. My Mom went French Provincial that year...!

E.J. Korvettes in Woodbridge, NJ, S.Kleins in Linden and Two Guys in Union. All we needed in the 60's and 70's.

i thought it was totally electrophoinic cause of the fact they dropped morse after a time

+Michael Beeny I always wondered why they made the spindle holes so large on 45s. Growing up in the 60s I didn't always have a record player with an integrated adapter or a plastic insert. I used to put the 45 on the turntable, turni it on and centeri it by placing my index finger on the edge of the spindle hole and tapping gently until the 45 was prefectly centered. I just wonder why they didn't use the smaller hole like they used for 33s and 78s in the first place..

+ldchappell1 In the UK the only 45s with the large hole were ex duke boxes. For these you could buy black plastic adapters to convert the large hole to the normal small hole.

+Bobby Brady Thanks Bobby, I knew there must be a good reason to do this.

***** Thanks for answering my question about the 45 rpm spindle hole. I never thought about 45s in regards to to juke boxes but that certainly makes sense.

+THOMMGB sadly, most people just don't care what they buy. People will buy cheap junk and when it breaks just toss it and get another. That's just the sad reality. I know no one who loves music who would play their records on a cheap crummy record ruining "record player" like that. Most people don't care if it ruins records though, they toss them when their tired of them like everything else.

That’s way more effort than I’d have put in anything that low end. I’d have just donated that to Goodwill and sent it on it’s way.

+Trex1268 You can get Sam's Photofax packets at some libraries (eg. Worcester, MA), and copy what you need. It would be a good idea to look up the model number on the Sam's web site, then bring both numbers to the library. Or you can order the whole thing from Sam's.

And you should be surprised if Collaro made a changer like this. They didn't. Why did you think it was a Collaro? Because it was used in some low end Magnavox stereos? Actually, this changer was made by Phillips. Magnavox used them in their low end sets. Collaros were expensive. Magnavox also used VM changers occasionally (in low end sets).

I've seen Magnavox stereos with BSRs changers in them, too, though they're not very common.

EF ANDMK: From 17:24. I don't remember being aware of Collaro making anything but their Micromatic/Conquest style machines, but I'm sure there is a lot I don't know about them. I've heard enough about these companies farming out their assembly to each other that nothing would surprise me.

+umajunkcollector It has one of the worst record changers of all time. BSR has better changers except the BSR 45 spindle adapter was a disgrace. GE also had a record changer which is common for both Automatic and Wildcat models. It had a tonearm with a GE logo on it. GE made decent record players in late 60's and early to mid 70's models.

This was one of the cheapest stereos you could find in its day - basically, the Crosley of the early 1970s (though, obviously, it's still superior to most Crosley stuff today). So, for something like this, it's almost certainly plastic knobs, possibly with that fake chrome plating they used to do.

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jonesing Basically it means "strongly desiring".

Click on the Urban Dictionary link, junior. It's all right there. It's old slang, but I'm an old guy.

You must lead a sad, lonely life, Sparky.

Thanks for the all the laughs, you pathetic little troll. Your sad existence amuses me.

+Rich Johnson Rich, BSR changers are often maligned by the purists, but if properly maintained, they are not really all that bad. Certainly better than a lot of the Crosley, etc. record players today. Are they high end? No, but for casual use they are dependable and functional, and you can usually find them for cheap. I recommend sticking with models from the 1960s or early 1970s. Starting in the mid-1970s, BSR began switching from metal parts in the changer mechanism to plastic parts, which obviously don't hold up as well. I own a pair of BSR players, both from the early 1970s. I have a 2-speed semi-auto turntable (not changer) in my basement stereo, and I have a four-speed changer I swapped into an old Emerson radio-phono whose original 78-only changer was completely trashed by a previous owner. I bought both from eBay auctions for less than $100 total. I did a basic clean/relube maintenance on them, replaced the idler in the changer, and of course new needles in both. Today both perform flawlessly. I'm also a big fan of the Magnavox Micro-Matic units of the 1960s and early 1970s, and many of the Voice Of Music models.

+3Cr15w311 I've always heard that with changers like this BIC, or any of the custom trim VMs that have ribbing in the wrong direction, it's insane to use it without some kind of mat. It's too bad the tinsel rings don't line up with the 10" and 7" positions, if they did they'd serve some purpose.

Google '8 track belt'. There are a number of places still providing them. In most cases, however, you'll need to measure your old belt, or if you don't have the old belt, use a piece of string to determine the length you need. I bought one from turntableneedles.com for my old Magnavox 8-Track; I had to measure with a string.

@@xaenon Yup. Just bought one for an old Panasonic stereo with the 8 track deck that pulls out and can be slid into an under dash holder for the car. Wish I had the matching car deck.

1980sGamer I'm just putting up a few older ones that were previously unreleased.

radiotvphononut Sweet.

You mean the GE record changer for the Automatic (Mono) and the Wildcat (Stereo) that has the VM style changer.

Yes! The GE changer for both the Automatic and Wildcat are Glasser Steers, and GE used it from 1967 through 1975. It had a Glasser Steers type record changer with a tonearm where it has the GE logo on top of the tonearm. I don't know why this changer was GE in-housed or not by Glasser Steers.

+Musicradio77 Television Network I've always heard that the GE "Tonal 1" series changers were what they created from the GS takeover, though looking at the guts, it looks like a lot of VM and in-house features went into them (the only changer I've ever seen that could only switch off by cycling). But I'm not sure about the later ones, with a big plastic lever and rotary controls for speed and size (in players that usually had Irish-made amps), that was probably an in-house GE design.