For weeks and weeks, I have been complaining that my stereo system wasn't sounding great. Every once in a while, I'd play a record and for a track or for a whole side it would sound fuzzy. Sometimes it was fine, sometimes not. My friends weren't bothered by it - it's a vintage system playing vintage disks, so imperfection is part of the charm - but I was! It was driving me to distraction...

Since I don't know much about stereos, I knwew I couldn't fix the problem whatever it was, but I was determined to figure out where the problem lay and get it fixed. I tried to troubleshoot empirically, scientific method, trial and error, to isolate the problem. I checked my cartride - ok. Needle - ok. Receiver - ok. Then I checked the connections. Wires into receiver - ok. Wires into speakers - ok left and oh, no the red post on the right hand speaker was really, REALLY loose. Tried to tighten it and - wow, it got even looser!

That must be the problem!

Last night I called Steve at Stereo Recyclers. He advertises in the back of the 'The Co-operator' - the monthly newsletter of the East End Food Co-op in Pittsburgh. I bought some equipment from him last year, so I know and trust him and what I bought from him works great. Steve specializes in speaker repair. He told me to bring my speaker in and he would check it out. He said he was pretty sure he could fix it quickly, too.

So, after installing some wall mounted cabinets this morning - they're done, Petra, one small issue - I loaded the speaker into the back of my silver Mazda Protege 5 - 2003, low mileage, thinking of selling! - and drove the 3.39 miles to Stereo Recyclers.

Stereo Recyclers is on the third floor of Steve's house, above wife and teenaged kids. He advertises that you shouldn't let "unused stereo components sitting in storage end up in landfills," and you can see that his message is getting around, since the third floor is stacked with components! Towers of receivers, turntables, and speakers fill almost every square inch of space at the top of the stairs. A narrow path is cleared and my speaker is deposited for diagnosis and repair.

A little history: After setting up my stereo upstairs, we missed having music downstairs, so another system was cadged together. Our old NAD 7020e is driving a manual Technics SL-B1 turntable and Boston Acoustics A100 speakers. The speakers were a gift from Alexander, no extra charge for the candle wax down the front of one grille! When they were working well, they sounded really, really fine.

A very nice gift indeed, these speakers are described online as a "classic...lots and lots of detail in the top and mid (a bit less so)." Oak Tree is selling a pair for $450, plus shipping. So, investing something in fixing them doesn't seem out of line.

The problem is that one of the posts is clearly broken. "Give me a couple of days," says Steve, "and I'll replace the posts and it will be as good as new." A few days without my speakers won't be too bad.

In the meantime, I have hooked up another pair of speakers - that's all I have just the three pairs! These temporary replacements are a pair of Bose 501 floor speakers. The 501s were only made from 1980-1984, a little late for me, but not too. They have two-tone, 1980s style brown grilles - not beautiful, to say the least. But, I needed music! So, I carried them up (from the basement), powered them up and, voila, they work...don't sound bad, either...

Bose speakers are very controversial because Bose refuses to allow their speakers to be tested. After receiving a few poor reviews over the years, they decided that typical testing criteria was invalid, and that their speakers, which use a unique 'direct/reflecting' technology, actually sounded better than the competition, not worse. Bose' 'Direct/Reflecting' speakers use the walls and ceilings around the speakers to distribute sound, so how you set them up and where seems to matter alot. Many poeple online disparage these speakers as sounding muddy - no highs, no lows - they're Bose! - but some folks give them decent marks. Lot's of Bose-bashers and a few supporters.



"A speaker model that has existed for over thirty years must be doing something right," writes Sam-Pro (Peter Sammon II) - http://www.epinions.com/content_4143423620 "That's what I thought!" he continues, "The original Bose 501 arrived on the scene in 1971 as Bose needed to expand its speaker line to two models...the 901 at $476 a pair including active equalizer and The 501 at $125 Ea. So for $250 a pair one could then enjoy most of the famed Bose 901 sound at roughly half the price!

The 501 was designed with a 9" acoustic suspension woofer in a fatboy sealed enclosure 2' high and 15" wide x 13" deep and two 3" tweeters angled in different directions to achieve direct/reflecting sound. The grills were [an attractive] brown.

The bass though not quite as deep as the "Larger Advents", was as Bose called it "wall shaking"! The mids and highs had plenty of impact and a decent amount of clarity though definitely not the equal to the top 901 model.

This speaker went on to enjoy an immense popularity and many "Advent" and "AR3a" owners simply traded their highly acclaimed models in for the Bose 501's!!

Series II was similar but with increased bass clarity. The speaker seemed to do a disappearing act and vanished for awhile then reappeared in the early 80's almost mystically as the Series III with a ported and somewhat slimmer enclosure and two-tone brown grille. It retained pretty much the same qualities as the original but was priced too closely to the outstanding 601 Series II model.

Then the Bose 501 vanished into the night only to resurface once again in the late 90's as the Series IV in a sleek floorstanding model that in no way resembles its predecessors cosmetically and unfortunately...sonically!!"

Ok, my Bose 501s will do until my A100s return.

Amazingly, that will be...soon!

You see, this evening, a few hours after I dropped them off, Steve called. "Fixed," he told me, "You can pick it up whenever you want." 

Good 'Stereo Karma' - the stereo goods are watching over me...

Till tomorrow, then, after work. I can't wait. I'll let you know how it sounds!