First thing I did was check my 'scope against the new tools. At 15.00 MHz and zero-beating WWV, my 'scope set at 0.1 microsec/div, expecting 15.0 sine waves to be displayed from left grid to right, I got 16-1/2 instead. At 25 MHz I had 27-1/2. So ok the scope is out of calibration and the previous IF alignment was a waste of time. It's a Tektronix 465B that I paid pretty good money for & works perfectly otherwise. I'll probably get the motivation to recalibrate it sometime. Now that I have a good reference.
I repeated the Admiral's IF alignment procedure at the accurate frequencies. Got the crystal-clear picture back. Audio is dead silence again. Right back to post-recap square-one.
I snagged an apparently-working replacement Sencore PS148 so I can get my sweep setup going.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=250136626040
Hopefully the sound isn't making it out of the tuner, somehow. Next week maybe...