slowpat

Personally, on my short list would be the Mc C220, C2200 or C2300. They still have great phono sections, and you won't have to worry about refurbishing them or have them eat up the tubes. The C220 can be found from $2500-$3000 IIRC.

Depends on if you're willing to ship or local sale only. Listings on eBay has gotten a higher price than local sale. I sold my pair for $325 in black, and another pair popped up on local Craigslist for $375 in cherry (according to the seller.) And that was about 5 months ago, and the economy hasn't improved much since then.

Well...how did it turn out? for the stained spot, I have used a cloth over it with iron on top to get the moisture out first, and to get the cloth to absorb that moisture before going the next step. Also, I find that an orbital sander with 220 grit works better than sanding by hand, but the veneer is thin, so careful there.

Thanks for your advice. Need to be smarter about using my time. I'll check out the links you mentioned, and see what I can learn before diving into this.

Hi all - newbie here. I just bought a pair of '84 Heresys (HBRs), and they were stained with ugly blotches of brownish "stuff", sort of stain and laquer. I just finished sanding them down to bare plywood (and almost sanded through the birch veneer on one side toward the bottom.) Anyway, I would like your advice on what to stain them, or to just put a clear coat on. Since the previous stain was brown, some of the more porous part of the grain still has some dark spots, so I don't think I can totally get rid of them. I was thinking of staining with MinWax's Cherry, but to use a pre-stain conditioner first, and then top off with the satin hand rub polyurethane. I will be using these with my Yamaha CA-600, but also wanted to know if that stained HBRs has a higher resale value than un-stained HBRs. I do understand that the HBRs were the cheaper model since it did not need to have either the Oak or Walnut veneer. Thanks all.