Crown 702
 

this one is a early model crown 702 halftrack deck, mono in nature, in shabby shot out terrible condition *fit* this is probubly one of the oldest decks in my stash. the transport works fine but its in dire need of a restoration and is just screaming at me to do so.

the story..

i scooped this one at a barn sale out in the country many years ago on one of my stereo gear hunt expeditions when i was a kid, i used to gas up my 1955 pontiac and drive all over the state, riding from town to town trolling for gear. i would leave friday, right after school, drive overnight to the farthest proposed destenation, grab something at mcdonalds, smoke a joint, and crash in the back seat till first light, and begin the intracite drive back home, hitting every thrift shop, junk shop, garage/rummage sale, estate sale etc trash pile etc that i could find. id go to one of those "out of the way" off the beaten track places full of in-breds, scary rednecks, big belly sherriffs, voodoo queens, talking parrots, and guys that ware white sheets on the weekends kind of places. (i used to do this usually solo as it was my first taste of real freedom being 16 and just getting my drivers licence and it would scare the shit out of my parents) i had many epic adventures, met many intresting people, got a true perspective of the good ole boy deep south and white trash in general! i even had a few one night stands with country farm girls and got into a few fights at country hick bars, and all along the way, made some of the greatest gear scores of my life! it was always an exiting adventure and i loved every damn minute of it! those "tube stereo expeditions" were some of the greatest times of my life, and ill never forget them.

i used to keep a journal about these trips and write about them as i went along.

stereorob stereo expedition # 3,


udiophiles log (so far) jensen field coil speakers and a rusty newcomb tube pa amp found in a trash pile on the way up last night

stereodate.. september 15th,2000.

time. 6:45am, place, keystone hights, florida (small hick town north of ocala)

the sun had just began to rise, when i woke up to the misty foggy humid north florida morning. i lit my first doob of the day, took a piss, popped the trunk to inspect last nights trash finds, started up the green monster (my 1955 pontiac starchief, it was jade and seafoam green, i had chosen its color soley because it was the same color as weed *grin* and the name, starchief, my friends used to call it star-chiefin') and started down old route 44 into town (i had spent the night sleeping in the car, witch i parked behind a old barn out in the woods. it was very foggy that morning as i went rumbling down the sleepy country road, suddenly, i see a old man wearing suspenders putting a home-maid wood sign out by the road saying "barn junk sale" -of course, i ran right up to him, and explained what i was looking for. this place was pretty amazing. big old run down victorian house, with huge live oak trees full of spanish moss, with a large barn in the back totally covered in kudza vines and a few old rusty cars on bricks here and there, i asked him if he had any old radios stereo gear etc, -he stood there looking at me like i was from another planet. me, being a 16 year old punk, standing infront of my 1955 pontiac with 20" dayton spoke rims (they didnt have 22s yet)talking a mile a minute wearing shorts hanging down past my ass, rufled boxer shorts, a wife beater tee with a fubu jerzy, big silver chain with a pot leaf and my dark blue spiked hair with frosted white tips. he just looked puzzled. wile he chewed his tabbaco and spit every now and again. he looked at me, and said. "err give ya a grand for the car", i told him it wasnt for sale and continued talking to him, when i finally shut up, he told me to go into the barn, past the stuff sitting outside for sale. he told me there might be something sitting on the back wall. so, into the barn i went, rummaging around for whatever this something might be. -there under a rust coverd chicken coop full of tractor parts i found a dusty large cob-webbed box with three rusted claspsand a rotton handle on the top, o cracked the lid and saw what at first was a old film projector untill i saw the single UV meter, i pulled the box out of the barn to look at it in the misty early morning light, CROWN it said, it was a old reel to reel deck that looked like it was from the 1950s, and (judging by the crusted layers of spider webs and dirt) looked like that it had probubly been there SINCE the 1950s! i asked the old skinny man in the suspenders spitting tabacco what he wanted for it. "ill take 15" he said. i offered him $5 for it, he grunted and said "gimme 10 for it" being the cocky little snot i was back then i told him $7. he said "FINE DAD GUMMIT GIMME 7& AND GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!!" so i put it in the trunk and went about my day, hitting town after town, shop after shop, scooping up some other cool stuff along the way, and stopped in eustis that evening and went down to the lake they have there, set up like a little beach, with sand and all. parked the car, kicked off my shoes, lit up another joint and went for a swim, waded out into the lake, and smoked the doob and watched the sunset. i guess the smell of the reefer had drifted to shore and i saw some other kids hanging out on the beach, and they waved me to shore, asked if i had any more grass -witch i did, and they invited me back to there place a few blocks away. being the social butterfly that i am always intrested in meeting new people especailly locals, i followed them back to there house (there was 5 of them, 3 girls and 2 boys, in a beat up ford f-150) wile introducing myself i noticed the thick dark haired girl kept smiling at me, when i went to get into my car, she said, very loudly, "HI BOBBY IM MYSTI !! WHAT A COOL CAR CAN I RIDE WITH YOU?" -in a somewhat trashy country accent being who i was at the time *devil* i said "hi mysti you fine too yeah you can ride with me, u wanna blaze some krippie with me?" "HELL YEAH" she said. so we followed the other kids back to there place, the two guys were brothers, donny and joey , the other girl, sara was joeys GF and mysti was just a friend of saras, donnys GF was at home. we went back to donny and joeys house, *there parents were gone for the weekend* and got piss drunk on his dads booze and got stoned as hell on my grass. i met a few new people that would end up being good friends of mine later in life, and met a really cute virgin -yes virgin country girl atleast untill that night *devil* that i still keep in touch with to this day, that night, me and mysti did our thing and ended up spending most of the next day together and that sunday evening i rode back to home to orlando. -it was a great weekend, i scored some neat old tube gear,*Hi5* got sky high, met some new friends, and got laid. *grin* mysti was a really sweet girl and we had alot in common but sadley long distance relationships never work out. i spent a few more weekends up in eustis with her but eventually had to let her go. she was country, i was city, she was innocent and pure, and i was a pot dealing little asshole. oh well. now, she is all grown up, is married, has 2 kids, and still lives in eustis, a town of locals with generations of the same people, that really hasnt changed that much at all in the last 100 years. i lost touch with her for a about 7 years and she ended up finding me on facebook lol. -sadley the years were not kind to her -at all. she gained about 150 pounds and is downright shit ugly now. still a very sweet kind harted girl, but not the hottie she used to be. -its sad sometimes to see GFs of the old grow up to be fat and horrible. *bigthumbdown*


anyways, enough of my teenage ramblings of yesteryear, down to business..

*reelspin**reelspin**reelspin**reelspin**reelspin* *reelspin*

the crown 702, its mono halftrack, i cant find much info about it on the web. it seems fairly obscure. the transport works fine, and back when i got it, the whole thing worked i guess, but i have never been able to score the right size reels for it or tape, -i think it takes 1/2inch? i plugged it in and got some hiss and static in the pots, tried to load a normal 7" plastic reel on it, but the tape was too small and the deck spins WAY too fast, so it sat in my rig in my garage for awile, and faided back into obscurity abandoned and forgotton in the darkest bowels of my hell for stereo stuff, untill 2010 when i went up north to see my folks and dragged this one, along with 50 or so other receivers and components back down to west palm with me. sadley, the transport still works but one of the tubes got snowcapped somehow so i cant plug it in untill i get a replacement. i was wondering, dose anyone have a old crummy pair of reels i could get from you guys for this thing? ive had this deck for over a decade and have never been able to hear it! *fit* the bad tubes are a 6sn7 and a 12at7, i know i have a spare 12at7 laying around but not the 6sn7 but i can probubbly find one around someware. i really wanna restore this one cause its really nice looking and would probubly sound damn good! also, if its possible, can i run this just as a transport without the preamp? and how hard would that be to do?

thanks for reading the story, and about the deck

i hope you liked it!

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...2/CROWN023.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...2/CROWN024.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...2/CROWN022.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...2/CROWN021.jpg

Hey rob, Serious lookin' reel to reel, 6SN7s you can get easily at ebay. Funny story, man. The blue spiked hair with white tips must've thrown that old farmer, he probably thought he got some bad shine the night before and was still hallucinating. Florida sure isn't just Daytona, Disney and Miami.

Try contacting Crown directly they might have the schematic and manual. It's probably more like early '60s professional gear from a recording studio.

I nominate Rob for the creation of the Worlds Longest Paragraph.

Nice deck, have fun with it, Rob.

Dave

Gotta admit he paints a picture, tho. It looks like an old 2 track studio rig. Nice brushed aluminum faceplates. I thought the stereodate was :cool: In a two tone Starchief! I know exactly the color he's talking about if it was the original paint. Seafoam metalflake with matching vinyl seats with a lot of chrome.

NO SHIT MAN i cant believe you know about the starchief! mine was jade green on the botton with seafoam on the top. 4 door mine was, fender skirts, dual exaust shit was a bad ass whip man! wish i still had it!:( mine had the viynl seats, big steering wheel with the chrome ring for the horn, light up hood orniment indianface/supersonic jet! it was pretty damn fast too for what it was. had a 287 small block v8 all original called the strato-streak! hydromatic tranny, rwd, did many a doughnut and burnout in that car. probubly not a good car for a stupid kid that just got his licence at 16 though. i ended up rolling it going 120 mph racing a guy in a 1996 impala ss. -yes that was the asshat move of my life. -EPIC fail. i still kick myself in the ass when i think about it, 11 years later.. and the worst part is that mine was a cherry low mile original survivor car. it only had 35,000 original miles on it when i got it in 1999. it had 99,950 when i wrecked it :(

cool man ill contact crown about it. i really wanna get this one up and running. and yeah, back in the day, when i was in high school i had some funky fashion going on haha other than that, i was more or less a total jackass and walking obscenity/audiophile. if you guys thought i was a ass at ak you shoulda known me then! :D but, i did, and always have, good game with the chicks, and the starchief was pussy on wheels. just something about that car made girls wanna take there cloths off, hell even girls wanting to screw other girls! i must have banged atleast 50 girls in that car.. hehe

All I had was a '55 Chieftain 2 door hardtop.

Chas

"...i was more or less a total jackass and walking obscenity...."

Was?:confused:

Dave

You spin a good yarn Rob. Thanks for sharing.

ur welcome!

Floridians are honest to a fault and enjoy poking a stick at any and everything.

I'll bet the old farmer that rob got that deck off of wasn't put off by the spiked blue hair at all, I'll bet that if rob sold him the car, he would've done the same.
Tooling around the backroads of Ocala with a spliff in one hand and a beer in the other- pickin' up some local skanks- blue hair and overalls. Heh

There's a Sunday mornin' mental picture for ya!

EY, dont pick on us floridians :D

and yes i was tooling around the backroads of ocala with a spliff in my hand, but no beer. remember i was 16 and couldnt buy boose yet, i had blue hair, but i wasnt wearing overalls, that was the old man. i got the boose from the local kids i met, and i didnt meet the local skanks untill i hit eustis, fl, witch is in lake county about 35 miles south of ocala, -it was on the way home. i always used to stop at the little public beach on lake eusits and hang out there for the evening whenever i travled threw that part of the state. alot of good memories. it was a public beach, along with the municipal public swimming pool and volly ball court. it was pretty much the only place to go or anything to do in that sleepy little town on the weekends. it was far away enough from the bullshit of metro orlando, but still close in enough to get to in a hours drive. it was very peaceful there, ive even thought about moving out there a few times.

heres some old pics of how things were back in those days, first my garage hangout/ stereo palace. everyone that ever came over, it was mandatory for them to write something on the wall..

i took these pics back in 2010 when i went home for the weekend to spend some time with my folks, this was my old garage at my dads house, he still owns the property but donset live there anymore, and just rents it out, and its kinda sad cause he dosent really keep the place up anymore. he has 15 propertys around orlando and this one is just kinda on the back burner, its the last house that is left over from the original beaumont family before my parents split in 1998. the only reason he keeps it is because of that reason, and it will be passed down to me one day.

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...ROOTS/FGHF.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...OTS/FHJFYJ.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...OTS/FGHFJH.jpg

this is what it looked like back in the day.

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...CERTGRANDE.jpg

hen i moved out of my parents house in 02 i left my teenage hangout garage as it was and sealed it up untouched, moved to west palm in 06 and hadnt cracked the door since untill i went up in 2010 to get some old stuff to take back down south with me.

heres what everything looked like when i first looked inside, here is some gear, that had been sitting dorment in the exact same place for almost 10 years, this pic with the crown 702 front and center

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...ROOTS/NITH.jpg

here is a mountian of forgotton gear that i had as a kid, alot of it still sitting there to this day

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/.../ROOTS/YRY.jpg

my old workbench is back there someware

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/.../ROOTS/G31.jpg

the garage as it looks today. kinda sad.

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...ROOTS/GARA.jpg

more writing of wisdom on the garage wall and door

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...b/ROOTS/G2.jpg

i did pull some stuff out of there..

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...ROOTS/JKYU.jpg

now for some really old ones..

in my garage in 1999


http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...TS%202/d14.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...TS%202/d12.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...TS%202/d11.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...TS%202/d17.jpg

some of my old friends, the kid in the blue cutoff shirt, is donny, one of the kids i met in eustis way back on that day.

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...OTS%202/d3.jpg

here i am at my old workbench in my garage, around 2001

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...OTS%202/d2.jpg

im in the blue shirt, with the spliff hanging out of my mouth in this one, about 2002. :D

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...OOTS%202/d.jpg

AND FINALLY, me, in my 1955 pontiac starchief, before i put the dayton 20s on it.

http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/.../starchief.jpg

Nice pics Rob.

Your hang out days were just yesterday though. If you want to talk about hanging out back in the day,.. I bet the other Rob on this forum could post some black & white photo's. :D

I'm teasing you man,.. time sneaks past us fast enough.

That's the Pic I was waiting for, that is styling old school- circa 2000. Havana style, man.

ill try to find a bigger one of it, cause i know the pic is small and you can hardley see this asshat with the big grin on his face behind the wheel :D

the pic was taken, in 2000 actually! infront of the long defunct and now demolished wills pub and game room on mills ave in orlando,fl. god i miss those days!

heh, shit man ur telling me! i cant believe how long ago this shit was. im only 27, and 12 years is a lifetime ago for me. :D my life has changed so much since then, and everything about it. those were simple, easy, stress free times for me that i truley miss. my biggest worrys back then was gas money for the starchief, where i was gunna get my next bag of grass from, witch stereo at what thrift store was i gunna buy, and witch girl i was gunna bang that night. :D ahhh, the good old days...:(

ok, so tonight, i popped the new tubes in, threw the switch, and rolled the variac. to my delight it fired right up with a slight bit of static but the preamp is alive and well. i loaded a 7" reel on it and hit play. -nothing. the motor is not frozen, the belt is snug and not goo, and everything fits right. the main drive motor seems to be retarted and acting like it dosent know witch way to spin, cause its vibrating and if i take the belt off and flick it with my thumbs it spins but slowly. any idea what would cause this? every other function, (exept the most important one seems to be a-ok, the record feature works, and the meter lights up red, and RWD and FFwd is the fastest ive ever seen, -almost scary frightiningly fast! ive never seen a deck that can rip threw tapes as fast as this thing can! maybe 15 seconds for a 7"reel @1800 ft!!!!!! im sooo close to hearing this thing i can taste it! what am i doing wrong? what can i do??