A transformer is manly two coils of wire wound closely together to step or step down the voltage. In this case, they take the 120 VAC and drop it down to something like 12V and then a rectifier probably converts the power from AC to DC. Capacitors are the main culprit, because of their lack of integrity over time. I didn't notice any discoloration on any of the caps in these boxes, but that doesn't indicate their poor condition. Something as simple as a diode could fry and that would stop everything in its tracks.
In general, tube equipment is pretty robust and tubes are easy to replace. I had an old Heathkit HW-101 tube transceiver that looked almost as crusty and dusty as these things. I cleaned it up as best as possible and the bugger still worked - got over 100 Watts output on some bands. There are enough tubes between the two amplifiers that we can get one of them working and the replacmeent tubes for the amps are very cheap.
I told Rick that the worst we can do is nothing at all and the second worst thing we can do is fire it up and fry something. Then, we resort to modern technology to pipe music, noise, voice, and alarms over the reproducers.
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