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Binson Buyer’s Guide

Buyer beware! Never a truer word has been spoken in the time-ravaged, decaying and crumbling landscape of antiquated, hand-me-down, echo machines. Purchasing a Binson ‘Echorec’ is a veritable minefield littered with booby traps and all kinds of hidden pitfalls that can cost the unsuspecting buyer an arm and a leg if they’re not careful. Even die hard Echorec veterans, vintage gear repair men, good men who’ve been in the field for many years get caught out, taking a bad hit that halts their Echorec repair work dead in its tracks. Hits such as an open circuit playback head, or the recording wire unravelling from the magnetic drum, or even tackling a faulty machine that some rookie has previously hacked in an effort to repair or improve its performance. This kind of fallout is beyond the capabilities of even the most experienced guitar amp servicing specialist or repair tech and the unsuspecting buyer doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of dealing with it.

The best means of defence is education—forewarned is forearmed—so saddle up, we’re going in to map out the perils and problems an echo enthusiast is likely run into when entering the unknown territory of purchasing a vintage Echorec.

The basics

In their heyday Echorecs were an expensive piece of real estate, being a top-of-the-line, studio echo effect. They’re still pricey today—pricey to get hold of and pricey to restore. When purchasing a machine from a private seller, or a vintage musical equipment dealer, it’s worth asking a few pointed questions. Questions such as:

How long have you owned the machine?
Has the machine been well maintained and serviced?
Can you tell me a little about the history of the machine?
Has any restoration or modification work ever been undertaken?

That kind of thing. The fourth point is particularly important as modifications, such as stripping out the original electronic components, such as capacitors, resistors or motors, ruin the machine’s authenticity and destroy its historical value. Not only that, these hacks drastically reduce the long term resale value of the machine.

These general questions can give you at least some idea what you’re getting into, and, more often than not, reveal some hidden problem lurking within the machine. However, more targeted questions can be even more telling: Questions such as the following.

What state is the wiring in?

Machines manufactured from the early 1960s (when Binson relocated to their new, larger factory premises) onwards until at least the late 1970s possess a serious problem with the insulation of the internal screened and single core wiring, which degrades and breaks down. In the process of entropy it exudes corrosive ooze and releases gases. These corrosive chemical discharges attack the steel chassis leaving ugly looking stains and dissolve the copper wire, ultimately creating open circuit connections where the Echorec fails to pass any signal. The rotten old wiring needs to be replaced with new and there’s no way to skimp on this job—ALL the the rotten wire must be replaced. This is labour-intensive work as the machine needs to be partially stripped-down, panels removed, etc to gain access to the wiring and do a good job. Fortunately the wire insulation of the mains transformer is not made of the same type of plastic so doesn’t exhibit this problem.

Are the motor bushings intact?

The shaded-pole motor bushings are self-lubricating. And this is true, over a period of quite a few years, however over many decades they do ultimately dry out and the motor requires disassembly, cleaning and the bushing pads lubricating. In mild cases the frictional loss leads to motor speed instability (‘flutter’). In severe cases the thrust bearing housing disintegrates, as shown in the photograph on the left, and requires replacement. If this motor is run the rotor shaft, which spins at 3000RPM will eventually wear it’s way through what’s left of the plastic bearing surround, the rotor will drop and its cooling fins will smash against the diecast zinc bearing housing. They may get bent or even ripped off by the force of the collision.

Are the tubes healthy?

Vacuum tubes can fail for many reasons. For instance air might find its way into the glass envelope through a tiny fracture as shown in the photo. Or, the cathode may be noisy, or the tube may be microphonic (pick up external vibration), or it might simply be getting old and losing its mojo. Over the years the cathode coating inside a signal tube loses it’s emissivity, that is its ability to emit electrons. Also, the phosphor (the bit that glows green) on the target of the ‘magic eye’ indicator tube ages, loses ability to fluoresce and becomes dim. The only solution is to replace the magic eye with an old one as EM81 magic eye tubes are no longer manufactured. But beware they are becoming scarce and that scarcity is driving up prices. The ECC82 and ECC83 tubes utilised in the Echorec are readily available as new from manufacturers such as JJ. It’s still also possible to get hold of NOS Philips ‘Miniwatt’ ECC82 and ECC83 tubes that were originally fitted in these machines.

Are the heads in good shape?

Literally, the heads need to be in good shape. A tape head has to be exactly the right shape to make good contact with the recording medium. Critical if the medium happens to be iron oxide coated plastic tape, super-critical if the medium is a metal drum as in the Echorec. To realise the machine’s original hi-fidelity performance the heads must have the correct profile and be aligned properly. If the machine hasn’t been maintained then the heads will have worn adversely and they will require relapping (profiling) to enable setup. This is inevitable. To do the job properly an oscilloscope and signal generator must be used, not by ear. Note: if purchasing a machine from a dealer do ask them if they’ve adjusted the heads to ensure that their output levels are within ±0.5dB of each other and that the upper frequency response of each head is good to 8KHz.

Does the magnetic drum come up to scratch?

It’s worth closely examining the drum surface, with a magnifying glass in good light, for dents and corrosion. And check to see that the wire wrapped around it isn’t becoming loose, or has it been rewound and not milled flat properly as shown in the photograph. The wire is sloppily wound and hasn’t been milled flat. This pretty much guarantees that the frequency response and signal-to-noise ratio of the machine will be lousy, no matter how many long hours are spent tinkering with the heads. Additionally, take a look examine the concentricity of the drum to make sure it’s not been knocked or dropped at some point. Although you can’t see it from the photo, the circumference of drum pictured is slightly distorted and in use the causes excessive ‘wow’. Another thing to be aware of is that the drum housing and the hardened steel shaft of the drum itself should be cleaned and regreased every decade or so as old grease hardens and drys leading to increased friction and wear.

Is the idler wheel misshapen?

If the idler wheel has been parked against the steel motor spindle for a long period of time the spindle will eventually make an impression, a small dint in the rubber. This will cause the delay time of the echo repeats to jump or glitch. Also parking the idler wheel against the drum will distort it’s shape making it lopsided. This lack of concentricity will cause speed variation (‘wow’). The wheel can be re-profiled to restore the original hi-fidelity performance of the machine, but this takes time and money.

Has it been hacked?

Believe it or not there are still folks out there hacking vintage gear, even Echorecs. And this is despite the fact there are numerous delay pedals out there that do a passing impression of a tired, beat-up old Binson. Now, we’re all guilty of doing daft things from time to time. In my younger days I ‘hot-rodded’ one or two old guitar amps to add additional tubes in the preamp stage. This involved cutting holes in the chassis to mount a couple of additional tube sockets—not clever and not cool. I soon learned to leave this vintage stuff alone and build my own stuff instead.

Some of the worse Echorec hacks include gutting all the electronic components, such as mustard capacitors, and replacing them with new, stripping out the original wiring when it’s not necessary to do so, swapping out the original Binson motor for a low torque DC motor, overpainting the gorgeous hammered gold finish black or blue, even fitting green LEDs where there were once filament lamps. Each hack chips away at the historical integrity of the machine gradually eroding its authenticity and value, until ultimately there comes a point at which the machine is no longer a Binson any more. Hackers cause considerable damage, which is expensive and in many cases impossible to put right again.

Any work on vintage equipment should be done sympathetically: this restoration of an early Hammond ‘Novachord’ tube synthesiser is a fabulous example of sympathetic restoration.

Dodgy dealer?

Of course, if you’re purchasing a refurbished machine from a vintage gear dealer, a specialist in servicing and restoring musical instrument equipment, then all the things mentioned above will have been checked—the machine will be tip-top… right? Well, probably best not to let down your guard down just yet. Keep in mind you could be spending as much as an additional one or two thousand pounds on a refurbished machine; at those kind of prices you’re entitled to expect “Platinum” customer service. So, for example, it’s reasonable to ask if the lubrication/cleaning pads, the anti-vibration mounts on the motor and the electrolytic smoothing capacitors been replaced with new, and that the heads have been relapped (ask if the “gap” is opening on any of the heads or to see test results for measured inductance and frequency response graphs). Moreover, have electronic components such as resistors been checked for drift. You can even ask if they’ve polished the scratches out of the front panel. After all, if you were purchasing a second hand car you’d expect the oil and filters to have been changed, the car valeted and any scratches polished out of the trim wouldn’t you? And, most importantly of all, find out if the machine’s been hacked—you don’t want to pay top dollar for a machine that someone’s stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster.

In Conclusion

Quite a list, eh, but getting honest answers to these questions will put you on much surer footing when purchasing an Echorec and could save you a lot of money. So do interrogate the seller thoroughly—give ’em the third degree, as restoration work can range from hundreds to well over one, or even two thousand pounds. If you discover the machine owns any of the problems described—and it almost certainly will—you should subtract the cost of remedying them from the current accepted sale value of a fully, properly restored Echorec. In short, pay them their asking price minus the cost of putting the machine right.

Just one more thing. If you can lay your hands on an unsullied and unspoiled machine, then you are in possession of a rare and precious thing; something more valuable than gold: the Echorec’s inspirational sound is priceless. There’s nothing⁠—⁠no VST plugin, no digital emulation, none of the myriad of DSP based stompboxes—that even comes close to the rich, swirling, lush tones these magnificent machines generate. So be patient and keep watch—somewhere out there, on that vast wasteland of cheap, here-today-gone-tomorrow imitations and broken, beat up and botched machines, your dream Echorec is waiting to be found…

This is Phil, last surviving Echorec engineer of Binson, signing off.

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Binson Buyer’s Guide