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Variacs are nice for powering up unrestored equipment and if you aren't %100 percent confident a recap job has been done right.
You can get by with a dim bulb tester.
If you never power up an unrestored item and are meticulous or (over?)confident in your recap work you could do without both, but it is nice to have one.
If you work on any hot chassis sets an isolation transformer is usually a must....If you never power up the set disassembled (which prevents a LOT of troubleshooting methods) you usually can get away without one but some non-UL sets and older sets can be dangerous to opperate without a variac even fully assembled....For instance I've got a 40's Sonora radio phono combo where the tone arm, mode and motor switches which are all metal are electrically hot if the unit is plugged in the wrong way.
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