Blue Califone 1430K record player
 

Here's a Califone 1430K school record player from '77 that I just received as a result of an ebay purchase. Despite a lousy packing job, it arrived undamaged (at least cosmetically). From my brief testing; it's going to need a full overhaul that will involve the drive mechanism, replacing the damaged 89T powerpoint cartridge holder (flip lever broken off), and replacing the light in the tonearm. I'm trying to decide if I want to go with another 89T cartridge or use something like a Pfanstiehl P228.

One good thing is that the case is in nice shape and not scribbled all over, like so many of these school record players are.

I remember this exact model from elementary school, along with the older Rheem-Califone (some tubed) units.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps285950e1.jpg

Nice catch.

I remember Califones from school too. I even owned one. My dad a was a school custodian and a couple were being thrown out. He took two home for me.

Mine was grey and had a red Califone name on the front. The C was into the speaker on the front. I loved it. Sure wish I still had it.

When I had my retail shop, I repaired many of those things at a religious school, a steady customer. They had many models, plus sound systems, projectors, and other stuff. At the time, maybe 1974, parts were still easy enough to get.

Today, Califone offers no parts support for any of these discontinued models. It seems that the parts are now discontinued when a product is discontinued. Fortunately, most of what fails on these units consist of generic parts that can be obtained from other sources.

Damn I just donated one of those to Goodwill really recently. I always hate getting rid of stuff but have decided to empty the house out a bit... it's amazing how much accumulates over years of hobby acquisitions. It's a good solid player but nothing sexy, and the performance is OK but nothing outstanding. The agricultural grade tonearm is what did it in for me, I just refuse to let my records be abused like that.

As far as sound quality, Audiotronics and Newcomb units seem to be the best.

I remember there being two great sounding califone models from that era... one looked similar to the one you bought, but the lid contained a 12" speaker. The other was the stereo model, with a sloped control panel and two 6x9 speakers that buckled together to form the lid.

I had a flat control panel stereo version that was a real nice sounding unit.

The flat control panel stereo version was in the music room of my middle school and it sounded nice. One day, our music teacher allowed us to bring in records and tapes to play in class. My choice was a 78 rpm record from the '40's. I'll bet that was the only time that this record player had been played at 78 rpm.

I remember bringing 45s to school to play, but never a 78... at the time they also had a lot of EIKI and Bell & Howell cassette players - great big ones with a decent amplifier in them. And I also caught the tail end of 16mm films as an instructional tool... being in Canada a lot of them were national film board produced documentaries, and the occasional movie. Seeing a 16mm film projected on a large screen was so superior to the crappy VCRs and TVs that replaced them, it was probably a component of my early education that newer doesn't always equal better.

The public school, I first attended, still used wind-up Victrolas, in the lower grades.
I also remember, the records only had one side. They were all Sousa marching songs.
This was in the late 40's, early 50's.

The only 16mm film I remember was "Ruldolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" that they would show every year, just before we let out for Christmas break. Everything else was on 23" tube-type RCA color TV's and U-matic tape machines on roll-around carts. When I was in the 4th or 5th grade, the school finally obtained a VHS machine. Oh, the library had one of those new 25" solid state Zenith's with the green LED channel readout and pull-on/volume knob.

During 7th grade, all the schools got the wall mounted 19" Magnavox "channel one" TV's and an elaborate CCTV system in the library that pretty much did away with most of the big roll around TV's.

We did have filmstrips and I remember a Wollensak reel-to-reel player being used a time or two during highschool.

I graduated high school in 96... I think the public school board did away with the central film library in about 93 or 94, but
They had an enormous collection of 16mm movies they would loan out to individual schools who requested them. I never saw umatic, but lots of late 70s VHS machines, some so old to have rotary tuners,
And horribly cheap 20-27 inch RCA tvs... The linear sound track through a cheap oval speaker filling a whole classroom with hissy distorted sound was memorable
For how awful it was

Of the school phonos, VM is my favorite of them. Those tracked at lighter weights, sounded good, and were gentle on records. Only their cheapest was less than decent. I like Newcomb phonos and better Audiotronics and Califones.

I remember Newcomb and V-M players from elementary and middle school, mostly because they sounded better than my 1973 GE plastic clamshell. Not a close'n'play

It was a hard thing to admit, that my school had some better equipment than I did.

Those classroom portable school platters seemed to sound good, especially when the platter in the cafetorium/stage or gym system played through narrow-band horn speakers intended for speech:boring:, making anything sound awful!