Newbie Questions Regarding Choice Of Juke

Yeah I'm aware of the speed change, seems most in the uk are already modded to not switch speed.

The pub is actually a private one I'm building at home, so I will make sure nobody goes around spilling drinks

I have nowhere near the experience some of the great gentlemen have that have posted on this thread, but I've tinkered with several different models over the years, and I'll just tell you my novice opinion is the Rock-ola's from the 70's and 80's were very well designed and reliable little boxes in my opinion. I'm not much of an audiophile so I can't speak to how they sound per se compared to Seeburg and the others (they all sound good enough to me!) but I've had several 70's and 80's rock-olas, they're easy to work on, easy to bring back to life, and make a lot of logical sense in the way they're designed. In my opinon that would be a good box to start with. I did have a Rockola 490 like mentioned above, and although that's a late 80's model that thing sounded incredible. It was even called the "SuperSound" by RockOla. I had that particular model in a large 4000sq foot building and it made it sound like you were listening to a live band when you had a really good record going on it.

The Rowe boxes from the 80's, my experience has been that they're pretty solid. The few I've had were still working, and didn't give me any problems. So they seem to be very reliable but that would be outside of your style timeline.

Guy's,
Seeburg made the same basic mechanism from 1949, thru the last 45 rpm, in 1984-- A couple of years ago, I needed a part that someone had damaged on an '82 model mech--I removed it from a 1950 model--worked perfectly--
Ron Rich

Hello Adam,

Welcome to the forum.
Of course I will tell you to get a Rowe Ami jukebox. Because I specialise in those and have done so since 1980.

The problem is that in the UK we have too little jukebox engineers and of course it does not get any better with time. Woldwide we are loosing engineers at an alarming rate, we are all getting older, slowing down or sadly passing away.

Norman Craven who was a Seeburg jukebox engineer died about 6 or 7 weeks ago aged 90, I worked with him in the mid 70's and was the only true engineer on Seeburgs that I knew about in the UK.

There are very few Rock Ola engineers in the UK but I do know of a few good roving engineers.

Best of luck with what ever jukebox you get.

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK

Ron Rich wrote:Guy's,
Seeburg made the same basic mechanism from 1949, thru the last 45 rpm, in 1984-- A couple of years ago, I needed a part that someone had damaged on an '82 model mech--I removed it from a 1950 model--worked perfectly--
Ron Rich

Seeburg definately wins that battle. I was amazed the first time I saw that, very impressive.

To the OP, if you've never seen what he's talking about, inside all the 'newer' Seeburgs is the same really cool 'visible mech' that was in the early famous Seeburg's. They just made the track longer depending on how many records it holds... when you select the record, it moves it's carriage down to the record, pulls the record out, plays it vertically with a different needle on each side. Really a work of art, and they used it all the way up until they stopped making 45 boxes like Mr. Rich mentioned.... and kept all that mechanical brilliance covered up in most of the later boxes!

While many of the parts are interchangeable, the parts changed somewhat in quality, and not always for the better. For example, the 1957 KS/D200 has a nice chrome turntable that is easily viewed, whereas the 1961/2 DS models have a plain old grey turntable that is covered up by a gold cover that hides the plain jane TT from being viewed. When you get a juebox, most likely you will see it for many years, so it is nice to have one that is pleasant to look at.

Hi there,

First time juke-owner here myself as well.

1. Think about the practical things like how many records you want it to hold, rpm's
2. Is there an era you really like the music from? I love to have matching machine and music
3. Looks, you have to live with it! and love it, looks do matter
4. Spare parts, look around in webshops etc to see if lots of spares are available. Seeburg having used the same mech makes loads of parts available as well.

I have always wanted a jukebox, and in my head I had this picture of a 1015. But it's just waaayyy too expensive. Later I realized that it also holds so little records. Then I started looking at this website http://www.jukeboxguide.com. The see burg Disco stood out for me, I love the looks, it has a mech you can see )open mech) a nice show of the issusion of a "floating mech" above the dance floor and even a disco ball effect with the mirrors on the turntable. Price is really good with these machines and parts available as well. Many books that tell you how everything works in detail make this as first juke a very interesting machine.

Good luck, and I hope you find the one that works for you.

William

I agree Leon Reader at www.jukeboxparts.co.uk is very good.

I send people to him for parts I do not have or jukeboxes I do not repair. He in turn sends his customers to me especially anyone that needs electronic repairs to amplifiers or circuit boards.

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK