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I've been trying hard not to buy stuff but last week I picked up a Sony 500A reel-to-reel because it was tube based and only $9.99. I figured I could cannibiliize it for the power transformer and maybe some tubes to use for projects. Well, I got it home, checked the tubes which all measured stong, noticed the heads had almost no wear, and figured what the heck. I brought it up on a variac and damn it if the thing doesn't work almost like new (at least to my ears). The pots are a little scratchy but there is no hum. I've been playing CD's through the line inputs and feeding the line out to some Bogen 7868 amps I've been working on. It sounds really good. The mic inputs work as well. The kicker is I cleaned the capstan and the idlers, reglued a loose pressure pad, put on a tape and that sounds pretty good as well, although the Bias/EQ is not right for that tape.
It uses some pretty interesting tubes, 12AD7's in the pre-amp, which I had to look up and turns out they are a very low noise, low microphonic 12AX7. It also has SE 6AQ5 outputs which sound just OK into the units attached full range speakers but I haven't tried them into better speakers yet. The output transformers look pretty large for SE. I guess at the very least I have a very large tube pre-amp! Maybe I'll try to convert the Mic inputs to phono by add RIAA equalization but I'll probably just leave well enough alone. At any rate it's been fun for a day, certainly worth the $10 admission.
Gary
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