This little Yamaha receiver followed me home

So, I was walking around Goodwill earlier this evening (almost always a dangerous proposition), and the pickings were pretty slim to say the least. No vacuum cleaners worth even a first look, let alone a second, but one item practically jumped off the shelf at me, screaming "take me home!". It was a Yamaha R-500 stereo receiver, made in 1981 and priced at only $15. One look told me it was from the tail end of the classic 'silver face' era, just before everything went digital; in fact, the input selector doesn't have a 'CD' position, just 'Aux'. It's got a clean, classic appearance with an analog tuning dial, controlled by a dampened knob. The knobs are smooth, not knurled or ribbed, and and the buttons are square. A little online research shows it's in the lower-mid range of Yamaha's lineup from that era, having retailed new for around $330. At 40 watts per channel, it won't exactly blow the windows out, but it'll be enough for my modest listening needs--not full-blown audiophile, but not exactly junk, either. What really amazed me is just how clean the thing is, inside and out. Looking down into the vents on the top of the case, the interior is immaculate, not a speck of dust anywhere. The faux wood veneer is nearly perfect, no scrapes, gouges or chips, and the satin silver face shows no scratches or smudges. I'm not exaggerating to say it almost appears as if it had just been unboxed. The only two defects I've found so far are that the AM loop antenna is missing (no big deal) and the tuner dial doesn't light up. I've got a bulb on my eBay watch list, but with shipping, the damned thing would cost more than I paid for the receiver! I'll need to decide what I want to do about that before I hook it up in a more permanent installation. Interestingly, the bulb looks like a headlight bulb for a G-series Kirby, but I imagine it would be much smaller. While I haven't had a chance to fully test the receiver, I did plug it in, power it up and listen through headphones. I was able to tune in an FM radio station without an external antenna attached. Amazingly, there was no scratchiness in any of the knobs (tuning, volume, treble, bass, balance, loudness) when I turned them. That was pretty surprising for an almost 45-year-old receiver. I've got an extra pair of speakers I can hook up, but I'll need to get some speaker wire, then plug in a CD player to give the thing a proper listen. I'll also need to decide which of my receivers, presently in active use, it'll replace. It's just too good to stack in a closet.

Very nice. Goodfind.

That is cool. Yamaha used to be pretty high quality. Not sure today.

So, I decided to take the top cover off of the Yamaha R-500 to verify I had the correct bulb on my watch list, and it's a really strange setup. The bulb is indeed a smaller version of the ones that go in a G-series Kirby, but it's rated at 28v/100ma. It's interesting how it all goes together. The bottom half is in a rubber grommet/carrier that slides into a metal holder behind the front panel. The top half of the bulb is covered with a green sheath, kind of like a mini condom, that gives the panel light its color. If you could find sheaths of other colors, you could five the unit a custom panel color. Cool idea, but I doubt I'll expend much energy looking for that. The weirdest part is the wiring, which uses two of the tiniest crimp connectors I've ever seen to connect the bulb. The best part of all this is when I put everything back together and turned the receiver on (yes, I unplugged it before taking the cover off), the panel light worked! Now, there's no need to replace the bulb. Another interesting characteristic, for lack of a better word, is the power plug and the two female power receptacles on the back of the unit are not polarized. I guess 1981 was just at the very beginning of that trend, but it will make it difficult to plug other, newer components into the receiver. Not the end of the world, just a minor complication.

human said:

So, I decided to take the top cover off of the Yamaha R-500 to verify I had the correct bulb on my watch list, and it's a really strange setup. The bulb is indeed a smaller version of the ones that go in a G-series Kirby, but it's rated at 28v/100ma. It's interesting how it all goes together. The bottom half is in a rubber grommet/carrier that slides into a metal holder behind the front panel. The top half of the bulb is covered with a green sheath, kind of like a mini condom, that gives the panel light its color. If you could find sheaths of other colors, you could five the unit a custom panel color. Cool idea, but I doubt I'll expend much energy looking for that. The weirdest part is the wiring, which uses two of the tiniest crimp connectors I've ever seen to connect the bulb. The best part of all this is when I put everything back together and turned the receiver on (yes, I unplugged it before taking the cover off), the panel light worked! Now, there's no need to replace the bulb. Another interesting characteristic, for lack of a better word, is the power plug and the two female power receptacles on the back of the unit are not polarized. I guess 1981 was just at the very beginning of that trend, but it will make it difficult to plug other, newer components into the receiver. Not the end of the world, just a minor complication.

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Good job !

All of my 1980s and a lot of my 1990s vintage Kenmore vacuums lack polarized plugs.

I think the first polarized plug I encountered was on a Hanimex portable TV set we got when I was in high school in the early '80s. We couldn't plug it in because the outlets in the house, built a decade earlier, weren't polarized. I ended up having to file the fat contact down to make it work.

cheesewonton said:

Good job !

All of my 1980s and a lot of my 1990s vintage Kenmore vacuums lack polarized plugs.

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