About Classic Audio Repair

Classic Audio Repair, Inc. has been servicing San Diego 1994 . We are the premier servicer of classic and vintage audio from the 1950s to the 1980s. 

We also service a variety of modern home audio products. See the "What we service" section of our website for more information.

Early Beginnings to present day...

Fred Longworth, the owner of Classic Audio Repair, started servicing audio in San Diego as early as 1973. Fred originally founded Audio Workshop at the corner of Cable and Voltaire in Ocean Beach. Neil Edquist joined Audio Workshop in 1977, creating one of the highest skilled service centers for audio in Southern California. At the time Audio Workshop was an authorized servicer for Pioneer, Technics, Sony, Kenwood, Harman/Kardon, JVC, Akai, EPI, ESS, Dual, Garrard, BSR, and Thorens!

From 1978 to 1979, Fred attended a special program at the University of California - "University Without Walls" - studying Audio Engineering.

From 1981 to 1982, Fred was Chairman of the Council of Delegates of the California State Electronics Association.

Audio Workshop changed into Audio/Video Workshop under the direction of Neil Edquist after Fred and Neil split in 1985. Neil continued to operate the business until 2002, when Lucy's Bar took over the building. Neil unfortunately died from cancer in December, 2006.

Also in 1985, Fred went to work for Matsushita (we know them as Panasonic) and managed the Panasonic Factory Service center in Kearney Mesa until 1991 when he left the company to pursue other matters. During the time at Panasonic, he obtained an MBA in 1990 from National University, graduating at the top of his class. In 1992, Fred obtained a professional Certificate of Hazardous Materials Management from the University of California.

In 1994, Fred opened Stereotech, at the present location of 3401 Adams Ave. In 2002 the name of the business changed to Classic Audio Repair, after it became clear that the Chinese production of cheap electronics that were largely unsupported by their non-Chinese manufacturers meant that fixing the "new stuff" was a quick way to go out of business. Fred redirected the business to the repair and restoration of vintage gear. It remains so to this day.

The Next Generation

In 2005, Fred began seeing an individual posting on AudioKarma about repairing and restoring vintage audio. There were also frequent Craigslist postings depicting beautiful restorations of equipment. This fellow went by "JPDylon" 

In February of 2007,This individual walked into Classic Audio Repair on a Saturday after the acquisition of an amplifier through Craigslist. Traipsing through the crowd, the individual introduced himself as "that JPDylon guy." After proving through some customer repair work on the spot his skills in audio repair, Fred hired JP to work for Classic Audio Repair.

In June of 2020, we moved to a new location at 8872 La Mesa Blvd. This was largely because of the sale of the building we had been previously occupying, but it was also an excuse to make a new repair center exactly the way we intended!

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Who is this JPDylon guy? 

Jordan Pier, known online as JPDylon,  has been servicing audio since a young age. His early years with electro-mechanical things started out with an obsession with antique fans. Even at the age of 5, he would take them apart, clean, lubricate and repair them, and use them.

His father, having a background in Electronics and standby power systems, educated Jordan on how NOT to kill himself and how to stay safe when working with electronics.  At the age of 8, Jordan would now buy antique radios at yard sales and thrift stores, and through education reading technical repair manuals, learned how to repair them and resell them. As a "kid", he also had a growing fascination with cars, as his father was the family mechanic. His father tought him how to work on cars, which helped increase his understanding of mechanical things.

At age 10, he began learning how to repair vintage television sets, which he still does as a hobby to this day. A neighbor - a retired naval radar technician, saw Jordan's interests in servicing electronics and gave him radios, test equipment, and literature for furthering his education in electronics service.

At age 12, he was given his first tube tester as a Christmas present from his parents. No more taking tubes down to the antique radio store (at the time in downtown La Mesa) to test tubes!

At age 13, a friend of the family's neighbor passed - Frank W Garrison. Frank had been servicing televisions in San Diego for some time, and left all his equipment behind for his wife Millie to deal with after his death. After she and Jordan met and came to an agreeable amount, Jordan hauled off all he could from the Garrison estate. Tubes, equipment, literature, spare TVs, and many more items. Even a Sansui 1000a tube receiver - which he serviced and continues to use to this day. This was the beginning of his audio service career.

After reading various manuals on tube and transistor theories, he decided to take a stab at audio. Unlike TV repair - which gives you visual feedback. Audio is far more difficult to troubleshoot without a generator and scope. Much like before with fans, radios, and TVs, Jordan would buy whatever he could get his hands on - dead or alive. This allowed him a hands on experience with audio, to experience failures, symptoms, and understand how to repair them. He would then resell his restorations and pocket the profit.

At the age of 16, he had saved enough money from these endavors to buy his first  car - a 1974 Dodge Dart Swinger, with a slant six and a torqueflite. Now the car hobby would take off. He still drives a 74 dart to work and back every day. Repairing old cars, and turntables gave him great pleasure to be able to utilize his mecahnical skills.

In high school, he would sell kids restored vintage audio, and got a huge positive response from fellow students. 

During college years, he had formal training in computer hardware, troubleshooting, networking, and electronics theory at Cuyamaca College. Though he had jobs repairing and maintaining computers and networks - he always came back to audio as a hobby. For a short time he even worked for Time Warner Communications as a network troubleshooter, but never found as much pleasure as repairing audio gear.

In 2005, Jordan joined AudioKarma to discuss the repair and restoration of vintage audio with other techs and fanatics, where he met Fred Longworth. He provided many technical articles and an Advent Speaker database. He left active membership around 2011 after the site became too large and biased toward "audiobabble".

In 2007, Jordan Joined forces with Fred Longworth and have now re-created the audio service giant Audio Workshop once was - and more! Together there isn't much they can't repair (within economic reason, of course.)

  Jordan is now the driving force behind the repair machine that is Classic Audio Repair Inc.