# Thrift Store Find! Wollensak 1580 Stereo Twin-Amp Magnetic Tape Recorder.



## iKokomo (Jun 3, 2016)

I just got back from my first thrift store run of 2021! I found a neat Wollensak 1580 Stereo Twin-Amp Magnetic Tape Recorder. It does use tubes. I got it for about $10. I had some questions about this unit. 

I was wondering if anyone knew some of the histories behind this?
Also, where do I get a power cable for the Wollensak 1580? I really want to see if it works!


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## Da Wiz (May 8, 2019)

That's not anything someone into music would use. Those were sold primarily for use in schools and institutional/business, not for high quality music recording. This was the first Wollensak stereo recorder, first released in 1964. It's worth $10. Not more than that. The record/play heads of tape recorders wear from contact with the tape, If the heads have a groove the width of the tape, they are shot and will need replacing or any recorded tape you put in there can be damaged. It's hard to say where to get a power cord when you didn't include a photo of where the power cord connects to the device. As for plugging-it-in to see if it works... that is a VERY VERY VERY bad idea with old electronics. Devices fail during years of storage. You plug it in and give it 120 volts and if some device failed in the right place, you will burn up the whole thing beyond repair. The only way to prevent that is to use a Variac with a series ammeter. Start at zero volts and slowly increase voltage in 10 volt steps while listening for sizzling noises, watching for smoke, and smelling for that melting plastic and circuit board smell. If you get all the way to 120 volts and there's no smoke or pops or other unseemly noises or smells, the device is safe to connect directly to a wall outlet. Anybody into old electronic devices (radios, record players, TVs, jukeboxes, etc.) knows about this. NEVER power-up old electronics without a Variac/ammeter combination. The ammeter should stay low, like 1/2 to 1 1/2 amps or so. If you see the ammeter suddenly jump to a higher value, that means some electronic device just failed and you should not apply a higher voltage or plut it into 120 volts or you could do major unrecoverable damage that burns up the circuit board(s) or power supply.

A variac is a transformer-like device that outputs power through a "wiper" that you reposition with a big knob. That knob runs the output power from ZERO to 120 and some of them will even output more than 120 volts to check for the device being able to survive a surge. The ammeter monitors the current the device is taking from the variac... when you have control of the voltage and you know what the current is doing with the ammeter, you can head-off failures causing unrepairable damage--or even stop the house fire that starts when the device you are messing with catches fire and makes you run away from it while it sets the house on fire.


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