Spectro Acoustics

[onanparts]

Those 5 year warranty things really are a habit you guys have. Back then and today too!

[onanparts]

One of my favorite non tube glow in the dark Spectro amps. Model 202.

[onanparts]

Warning! Nudes ahead.......A look inside the 202 amp. Some of the magic smoke escaped from one of the caps so a previous owner whipped out some Zip ties and glue to mount newer, but much smaller physical size caps piggy backed on the originals. May not be pretty but they work fine so I'm leaving them alone...for now. 

[onanparts]

Next up a 217R & 217 Preamp. "Zorro" had a hand in some of the components on this model.

[onanparts]

Overhead shots of the 217R.

[onanparts]

220R FM Tuner Twins.

[onanparts]

220R nudes. One of these FM tuners is an early version. The weight on the tuning shaft is a handful of thick washers. The later version has a nice BIG heavy aluminum barrel to smooth out the tuning of the earlier model. It does make a difference. Shielding added to the digital display board also.

[onanparts]

Panama Red left his mark on one of the twins.....

[Robin]

I remember the original preamplifier planter box well. I was about 24 years old back then. Ken Cox and I were down at a tavern close to Spectro one day. We somehow ended up with a broken off part of a philodendren plant from the tavern. I took it back to our shop, but I did not have a cup to put water in so it would have a chance to grow roots. I  did have some preamp parts laying around since they weren't selling anyway. Thus, the original planter was created. A year later the company had moved 200 miles away to Pasco WA. I wanted to make a new planter box, but I really didn't like the silver face plates of the P202 amp and P101B preamp. I sent one of each out to have them black anodized thinking that this would make a better looking planter. Boy, was I ever right. When all the guys saw the planter boxes, we immediately changed the entire Spectro line over to black. Sansui was the only other black piece of stereo gear at that time. 1974 or so.
Here is a picture of Spectro Acoustics in Richland WA 1978. Bob and I have been hanging around for a long time now.

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[onanparts]

I remember the original preamplifier planter box well. I was about 24 years old back then. Ken Cox and I were down at a tavern close to Spectro one day. We somehow ended up with a broken off part of a philodendren plant from the tavern. I took it back to our shop, but I did not have a cup to put water in so it would have a chance to grow roots. I  did have some preamp parts laying around since they weren't selling anyway. Thus, the original planter was created. A year later the company had moved 200 miles away to Pasco WA. I wanted to make a new planter box, but I really didn't like the silver face plates of the P202 amp and P101B preamp. I sent one of each out to have them black anodized thinking that this would make a better looking planter. Boy, was I ever right. When all the guys saw the planter boxes, we immediately changed the entire Spectro line over to black. Sansui was the only other black piece of stereo gear at that time. 1974 or so.
Here is a picture of Spectro Acoustics in Richland WA 1978. Bob and I have been hanging around for a long time now.

Hey Robin, Thanks for the "story" behind the planter box! I assume you knew you needed a way to stand out from the big guns crowd and black face certainly did it!

My Spectro gear has some good  company. 5-6 Sansui 9090's, hey I'm greedy! A Marantz separates rack that looks great opposite the Spectro gear.

Not a big fan of the early white lettering. What's the story behind the Spectro Gold? When you went to the gold lettering it elevated the gear to a much higher level, softer and much classier look, at least in my opinion. The white was too harsh a contrast on the black. Now of course all the BPC "Black Plastic Crap" gear that followed has gold lettering.

[Robin]

It was 1977 I think. We were in the middle of a major cosmetic redesign. I broke my wrist so it was difficult to do the drafting. Remember this was before computers. Spectro was a pretty young company and were all pretty close knot. We would go out behind the shop at every break and play volleyball. One Sunday we all met at a park in Richland to play volleyball. Back then I was young enough that I could still drink, smoke and chase women. I remember diving for the ball after it had already bounced out of bounds. My wrist suffered, so boB drove me to the hospital to get it all betterized. The next three weeks were a @&%@ trying to do the drawings for this major redesign. I had boB's girlfriend do most of the actual drawing since I couldn't draw left handed. Part of this cosmetic redesign was to change the silkscreen color. We tried silver and gold. The gold was pure class. I vividly remember changing the white stripe on our EQ slider knobs to gold. This was a real pain. I think we used a thread dipped in Testers airplane paint. Spectro was the worlds largest manufacturer of graphic equalizers at that time and we had 50,000 white knobs to paint. Boy, those were the good old days.
I have a picture here that Bob kept. He is a wealth of old trivia stuff. This picture is of me at my wiring bench at Phase Linear in 1971. Bob Carver was my boss. Steve Johnston (founder of Trace Engineering) was my other boss. The photo doesn't show the bottle of Boones Farm wine that usually accompanied my wiring procedure. Two years ago I brought in one of my old Spectro Acoustics P217 preamps. It had a volume/on-off pot broken. These were made custom for us by CTS. I was hoping we would be able to cobble something together to allow it to function. 30 seconds later, boB reached into a box just outside of his office and pulled out one of the custom pots that we had used in the P-217 preamp 25 years before. Now why would he have the exact obsolete pot within reach that had absolutely no use to him whatsoever? He said, well you never know when something like this might come in handy. I no longer chastise him for keeping all that old junk around.


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[JonB-NC]

Hello all! This has been a great history lesson to stumble across! I am a big fan of vintage audio gear, and have a modest collection. Learning first hand about what was going on behind the scenes is as interesting to me as, say finding some studio outtakes from your favorite musician. My electronic repair skills are slowing evolving, from "running a mean can of DeOxit and AirDuster" to replacing caps and upgrading cables and wiring. When it comes to design or troubleshooting, I am unfortunately clueless.

I particularly love the minimal aesthetic design of Spectro Acoustics stuff, I have a 217R that I am hoping to restore to it's original awesomeness, and one of my friends has a 217R in a wood case with a matching P202. I have question that I was hoping you might be able to help me with, albeit a longshot. I am trying to find a service manual for the 217R, if such a thing ever existed. Or, if you could tell me what I would need to do to get my phono section working again. The 217R still works great on all other inputs, I just don't get a whole lot of sound when trying to play records. So, I'm guessing it may need to be recapped on the phono stage, or there looks like there may be an IC chip on the board, and perhaps that needs replacing. I would be eternally grateful for any help you might could provide on this.

Your components are still highly regarded in the online realm of vintage collectors. I would love to restore this to it's original level, or even further, if any improvements might be possible through the wide variety of higher quality (or at least more expensive) components that are available today. I had even toyed with the idea of an external power supply, as that seems to be a common denominator in certain high end pieces these days. I've even seen some, Sutherland, for instance, that run on a bunch of D-Cell batteries. Just a thought... I'm not an engineer by any stretch, and these latter suggestions may be complete over-kill and ridiculous. I am a cabinet maker by trade, and provided I can get this baby up and running, I intend to build a Danish inspired light wood box to compliment it's exterior. Please know that this isn't a project I am working on to make a buck, I have been holding on to this preamp for 4yrs already, waiting for the right time and occasionally searching for info, and if I can get it working and possibly upgraded, it will be an heirloom piece, in the "never sell" stack along with my Luxman PD441. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread, and learning the backstory behind how this equipment came to be, and I am glad to hear that you are still providing people with a much needed quality product.

One last question... Whatever became of the 800watt car audio amp that you and your cubicle mate were working on?

Thanks! Jon B

[Robin]

JonB, I may have a service manual back at MidNite. I am in Hawaii at the moment, so e-mail me after the 15th and I will see. If not, the IC you need is a quad 4136 (if my memory still works). Don't mess with the power supply. It worked just fine. Battery supplies are serious overkill for people that just want to fiddle with things.
The phono stage is very simple. We used the original RIAA stage that Bob Carver designed for the Phase Linear 2000. Bob is a funny guy. He likes to dink with things for forever! Bob's original RIAA stage sounded great. Ken Cox and I got tired of waiting for the Phase preamp to get finished, so we built 23 of our own design just so we would have a preamp to use until Bob Carver stopped messing with the 2000. The Phase 2000 had 13 circuit boards, so Bob had lots of parts to fiddle with. Six months after we had built our own preamp, Bob Carver asked us what his original RIAA stage was. He could not remember, but he wanted to try it again. I do not know what ended up in the Phase preamp. I still have one of those original 23 preamps.

[JonB-NC]

Ha! Bob liked to fiddle with things, I know how that goes. I am about 80% curiosity and 20% competency, I'm sure Bob's levels are a lot less disproportionate than mine. Thanks so much for the response and the insight on all of the things that were going on while this preamp was made. It's so rare to have any clue as to the back-story of any piece of audio gear, other than market conditions. I truly feel closer to this preamp already. Have a great time in Hawaii and safe travels back, and I'll email you after you get back.

[laszlo]

Wow, this is a great thread. Is there some story to why it was called Trace engineering? Was  it derived from trace, as on a circuit board, or some other context?