Pye 6000 Music Centre nicotine nightmare!

[Colourstar]

I wasn't looking for a music centre, but when I spotted this at a house clearance outlet I could see that beneath the golden grime was a beauty waiting to emerge...

As the song says, smoke gets in your eyes... well clearly it gets a whole lot of other places too. I know these units often had a 'smoked perspex' lid, but this was taking things too far. The music centre in question is a Pye Hi-Fi Sound Project TAPC 6000, a top-of-the-range model in it's day and one which would have set the original owner back the thick end of £300 when new. A date code under the turntable reads 10 78, so I would assume this was on the market in 1979. It's quite well equipped, with a Dolby cassette deck, semi-auto turntable, 3-band tuner (+ 5 FM presets), two headphone outlets and facilities for two sets of speakers. In fact as a bonus, this example came with a pair of Wharfedale XP2 Lintons and a pair of Wharfedale Dentons.

Initial power up resulted in the illumination of a lone VU meter. The audio stages appeared okay. The turntable didn't turn and the cassette was sluggish. Time for a strip down....

The record deck is of Philips origin (as the entire unit I should think) and is equipped with a Philips 400 magnetic cartridge. The drive belt had turned to gloop and the remains were stuck around the motor pulley and turntable sub-assembly. This was cleaned off with a bit of white spirit and I found a suitable belt in my spares drawer.

Dis-assembly of the music centre was easy and the layout is well designed for servicing. Releasing four screws allows the record deck and top cover to come off as one assembly. The mains power to the deck is a snap-connector and audio is via phono plugs to pcb-mounted sockets on the main chassis.

The cassette unit has a separate cover which was unscrewed and lifted away. The main deck of the cassette mechanism itself also is easy to lift out, to allow access to the belts. The main one of which was changed as it had become a bit soggy. This restored cassette operation. Whilst I had maximum access, I took the opportunity of demagnetizing the heads and giving them probably their first clean since 1979! The transport now worked as it should with a test tape. Three of the transport buttons were standing up further than they should due to the snapping of their plastic retaining stops. Luckily I found these in the bottom of the case and superglued them back to restore the proper alignment.

The whole music centre was absolutely filthy and just encrusted with nicotine. Anything removable was stripped off, including the entire brushed aluminium front panel, which went from gold to sparkling silver after a gentle going over with a soft toothbrush in warm soapy water. The control legends are robust and nothing was inadvertently rubbed off in this process! The knobs themselves also had the toothbrush treatment and came up like new.

The perspex lid went from dark dirty brown to a sort of deep mauve shade which is quite attractive.

The case is covered in all sorts of grooves and slots, so the soapy clean -up was fiddly and time consuming, but the grime came off easily enough.

The scale illumination is provided by a couple of 12v bayonet bulbs, both of which had long since died. These were replaced with equivalents from Maplin. The signal strength meter and cassette level meters are lit by festoon bulbs, of which three of the four had also bit the dust. Maplin had no modern equivalent, so I hit on the idea of buying small 12v wire-ended pea bulbs and soldering these to the dead originals until I can find some proper replacements. The level of illumination provided is virtually the same.

With everything back together, the Pye really does look pretty good, if I do say so myself. It sounds great too, with plenty of power. All the rotary controls have that nice damped operation that can't be hurried. The built in stylus pressure guage is a nice touch too.

Whether I'll be keeping this music centre or not I don't know, but at least it looks pretty much as new now and isn't making my front room pong of stale tobacco.

The pics below show the as-found condition... ugh

Cheers
Steve J

[Colourstar]

Bath time...!

[Colourstar]

A view of the extensive innards... and my home made bulb!

[Colourstar]

And the end result

Just before the photos were taken, the last original festoon bulb behind the meter on the left gave out!

[repairman 1234]

Hi Steve,
May I be the first person to congratulate you on an outstanding restoration job!

This unit looks like new, I like the fix for the bulbs too

Well done, another bit of retro kit saved.

Now you can relax with a and listen to some nice music.

[Aerodyne]

Just think what the rest of the house must have been like, encrusted with nicotine - not to mention the lungs of the smokers involved.
Very nicely restored, Steve. Well worth while. This well-made type of 70's kit will become more sought-after in the future, I believe.
-Tony

[newlite4]

What a lovely item, it looks so solid and gutsy, tempted to look out for one of these at the booties this year. Nice Job.
Neil

Bet it was in a pub, nice clean up.

[AlanBeckett]

Splendid job.

However, I'm always a bit surprised when people comment on kit from 30 and more years go which came from a household or business where people smokes. Believe it or not it was normal. People smoked at home, on buses, in pubs and at work, in fact almost anywhere. So, it's actually more surprising if kit from 30 or more years ago doesn't show any signs of coming from a smoking establishment.

Nicotine is a known contaminant and is relatively easy to remove.

Alan

[Colourstar]

Thanks for the kind comments. I forgot to replace the bright ring on the turntable mat for the final photos. Doh!

The Pye certainly has a nice quality feel to it. It's reassuringly heavy, that's for sure. When you look at the internal photo, you can appreciate the high component count and complexity of construction- no wonder these were expensive.

It does seem that, with the exception of B&O, even the more upmarket ones are yet to be appreciated. There are plenty of examples seeking homes and doubtless many end up unloved at thel tip. Save one today, you know you want to!

[Sammyboy]

Great job, it's making me seriously consider having another go at kicking the fags!

If you were selling that music centre I'd be so tempted to express my interest... but it would end up being cited on the divorce papers by the missus if I did! :p

[Andrewausfa]

The colour of that water! A very nice restoration.

Andrew

[Meat Pye]

Nice work colourstar. Maybe the government should use it in an anti-smoking campaign! Those 'music centres' were very popular in the 70's and early 80's; sound quality could be quite good combined with excellent construction. I bet those front panel selector knobs move with a solid 'clunk'!

It may not be relevant to you now, but have you thought of substituting yellow leds (with suitable dropper resistor) for the small panel bulbs. They would be extremely reliable and would work at any voltage by adjusting the resistor value. Their yellow colour would be very similar to the light output of low current panel bulbs.

[BGmidsUK]

Nice job! I was fascinated by these things as a kid, good to see one being restored.

BTW I have used yellow LEDs to replace display lamps in a stereo I repaired. Worked pretty well.



Brian

[Tazman1966]

An excellent revival Steve and good to se something out of the ordinary but very ordinary in its day restored.

I agree with Alan B on the nicotine coating though. Not even 20 years ago would anyone think of stepping outside the house for a smoke, we certainly didn't (although we are both ex-smokers now - too blooming expensive!) and therefore everything would become somewhat yellowed! Most of the old tellies that I've brought back to life have been swathed in nicotine and after a good clean are none the worse for it.

BTW, have you tried Halfords for those type of festoon bulbs?

[Colourstar]

Good suggestion regarding the yellow LEDs. It did cross my mind at the time and is something I will probably adopt for any future projects of this vintage.

I'll check Halfords for the car-type festoon bulbs, Tas. In fact Maplin do actually stock these, but they are versions containing blue LEDs, presumably aimed at boy racers!

Steve

[ianj]

I did similar with my Panasonic 2030l music centre-good quality turntable, cassette deck, aux. inputs fior an ipod etc.. and a decent output as well--save one while they are still around!

The PYE music centre I want is the one I bought when I first started work; front loading soft touch controlled cassette deck, led L+R meters, belt drive deck, magnetic cartridge, silver in colour, and high specification-that would have been around 1983. Money waiting for one !!

[Radioboy Angus]

Excelent restoration Steve, well done! It's interesting that this kind of stuff is still out there! I know of 3 music centres in my parents house which are now in the great junk yard in the sky, 1 range topping Panasonic model from the early 70's which belonged to my uncle and which I took over for a while, 1 Hitachi lower range product from 1980 which saw many years of good service in to the mid 90's and one lower range panasonic from 1982 which was bought as a Christmas present for me but wasn't built very well so only lasted 6 years or so with a couple of major repairs. As you say, this stuff must be getting rare now, save one while you can. I want one but alass space doesn't permit at present.

[vinrads]

Back in the 60s/ 70's it was commonplace to spray the complete set with Ambersil this came out of the can white but soon turned a horrible brown colour it ran of the set and formed pools on the bench yuk.

I remember the pye first time round they worked very well , nice restoration job . Mick.

[Aerodyne]

Foam cleanser...didn't it work well. I used loads of the stuff during my time as a shop owner when refurbing sets for rental. Every set underwent the treatment, but I'll give you that it certainly was a dirty job. Good stuff for shifting nicotine, though.
-Tony