Pioneer 1960's Schematics

Somewhere mid-2003, Graham Dicker noted not only my interest in Pioneer valve "stuff", but widening interest all over. Aware also of the ongoing difficulty in sourcing schematics for a lot of the 1960's valve (tube) and early solid-state receivers, amplifiers and so on, he made a huge effort to do something about it. You can read something of Graham's enormous contribution to audio and electronics in my section on his ETI-480 amplifier, back on my main page, and at Graham's own webpage.

"Over the last 40 years or so I have collected schematics of these classic 1960's Pioneer valve receivers and amp's, and have now scanned and compiled a close to complete set on CD ROM. It includes well over a hundred different circuits."

They cover just about every Pioneer valve and early solid-sate amplifier, tuner and tape-player ever built during the 1960's or thereabouts. Many of these items were made in circuit-modular form, and the CD contains 241 files of schematics of the modules that made up the 116 amplifiers and receivers included. The numbering system of the schematics is interesting. If you have a Pioneer board or hand-wired amplifier, often all you need is the PWB number (printed on every board or chassis). This corresponds to the actual schematic - for example an SA-7000A receiver may have an AM0119 tuner so the schematic is named accordingly "AM0119.pcx" on the CD. Typically there'd be an overall diagram for the SA-7000A (say), in block-diagram form only, referencing that modules own schematic.

Models included are;

Says Graham "They were all scanned at 600dpi. The idea is that you will actually want to use them and read them one day, i.e. print them out for that amp you need to fix. Many are from my collection of schematics over the last 50 years, and many were provided by Tony Markowski one of Adelaide's best Pioneer repair experts." (Tony himself has since indicated that he is happy to receive emails from those seeking a repairer of early and vintage audio gear including the Pioneer range of products).

I myself have since had opportunity to view (and print out) one of these CD's and was much impressed by the resolution of the images; they're 2-bit (i.e. black and white) .pcx files, at 600 d.p.i. It must have taken ages to "do" this lot, and indeed it's not surprising therefore that Graham's charging a small fee to supply - A$14.95 or US$9.95, plus p&p. This seems pretty reasonable, given the effort involved, to me. He tells me that he "accepts all forms of payment except Amex and Diners!"

Don't be expecting a CD all tricked up with presentational bells and whistles, but be assured that the material content is absolutely first rate. Anyway you need to contact Graham Dicker directly to talk about all that - you're best to get him by email. He is a most approachable and friendly fellow, so no need to be shy!