Classic Hifi Care

Of course General Electric low+wide consoles are popular, the style department at GE was legendary.
My first player was a 1973 swingmate with the almost those same (???) changers apparently. I had not yet worked on a GE like this one but it certainly elicited the same response as Steve Scarlet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbnWVqghew&t=83s when I removed the back cover.

A very well-known record shop owner-collector had been handing my number out to customers who asked about servicing changers in particular and electronics in general. After half-dozen referrals to me for his customers, he called me about his GE C817. Without going into detail, we made our way past a room-vault of vinyl to this low-wide beauty with a familiar control panel, mainly rocker switches. He was planning a "70s lounge" in his basement, so maybe a TV sale is in the future.

The first issue was a faulty power switch, fortunately a standard slide switch with a custom rocker on front side. I was able to find a US-made rated at 10 amps, a DPDT type, I paralleled the contacts to literally make it even more robust. I did NOT remove the chassis but rather lifted the preamp/control unit enough to remove the switch and solder a new one in. The controls and other switches get a deOxit D5 treatment. The preamp PCB had almost no electrolytic caps, the amp / power supply chassis had about 8, yet it sounded great and the owner was OK with leaving it alone. The +/- 35 volt power supply and (RCA type germanium) output transistors made 30 watts per channel maybe? The speakers have about 20 screws on each enclosed speaker box, horn and cone tweeters with 12" woofers

The R565 changer was in good condition, with neat features like the sliding weight seen at back end of tone arm likely in a favorable environment typical of family heirloom consoles. The GE C650 cart had a soft compliance and required only a stylus, the idler pulley was soft and not glazed or cracked, a new set of VM motor mount bushings was needed. The motor was a standard shaded two-pole Alliance. After some cleaning and application of "Super Lube", the platter was running at steady speed. Returning this changer and replacing a switch may be it, hope they don't need the speaker crossover caps changed, will need to be spun.

It's good to see you on the forum, Dave! Nice job as always and thanks for sharing!

Last post was long time coming - I do not see much GE beyond cheaper models so, seeing these consoles featured in many postings I couldn't wait to get inside one. Advertised watts were 270 peak . 135 watts EIA per the artwork, which sounded like 35 watts per channel. Zenith, RCA and Sylvania topped that advertised and purely imaginary figure at 320 and 500 watts WTH

GE stores first sold appliances, simpler radios and TVs, not much else. Some fine furniture stores handled Magnavox stereo and others Admiral, Sylvania, Philco and GE consoles, as a complement to furniture offerings. Not sure about Zenith RCA and Motorola because they were selling lots of TV in those years.

The owner had all but the original bill of sale, as it was a family piece, other manuals were found inside which I was able to obtain without even asking. The General Electric C-817 was marketed in late 1969 as the "cornell", a lower and even wider model in walnut with that cool two-piece lid.

Best part was how it sounded with those air suspension speakers, owner did not feel a need to change crossover caps. This is a truly quality console, but often overpriced if in the desirable furniture. The function switches are of good quality so those rockers are not a problem. Even that tuner seemed to be a decent design.

The power switch was likely stressed and failed, being rated at 3 amps. It was not easy to find on the schematic, there are so many plugs between the power and signal, including individual ground wires. Some time after I replaced the switch, nailed switches and pots with DeOxit, I was able to drop the long control panel back down and re-attach some plugs that pulled off the amp chassis. The separate amp chassis was labeled PA-135, which is the advertised power.

I hope someone on this forum gets one of these with the separate AMP chassis, even an older high-end GE would be great to thread.

I need to Google the model number to see what it looks like.

Bill

My stepdad had a TV repair shop. He sold GE electronics products. He thought they were hard to beat, either from a price point or for their quality. GE built some high-end electronics. He had a tube GE stereo receiver that he thought was the best you could get. The GE stuff I have is basically low-to mid-level stuff. GE got a lot of sound out of a minimum of components. They get a bad rap for their printed circuit boards, and, I'll have to admit, they aren't very good. But they can be repaired, hard wired if necessary. The tone boards are probably the most problematic in that the boards aren't very good, then the controls are mounted in such a manner that if you need to clean them, they should be de-soldered, cleaned, then re-mounted to the boards. Once you learn their quirks and personality, they are straightforward to troubleshoot and repair.

I declared always that

GE was a good brand to learn on

, despite requiring more repairs the parts numbering system AND availability was even better than RCA, who may have used several numbers for the same thing. GE even included schematics and parts lists in a little box on back of TV sets late 70s into 80s.

The economy of design was consumer-oriented and dependent on fewer (but better quality) capacitors, transistors etc.