BACK TO STEREO

Es nepretendēju uz visu likumu zināšanu, bet ko tad VID gribēja pateikt ar šodienas skandalozo ziņu? Mārtiņdienā norādīt, ka Astoņus Mārtiņus pirkt ir slikti? Tad cik ir atmazgāti – 140 miljoni? Vai vairākos gados ir apgrozīti 8 miljoni? Nodokļus caur ofšoru optimizēt, cik zinu, nav aizliegts, ja tikai grāmatvedība ir kārtībā. Vienvārdsakot, lasu ziņu un brīnos – vienu brīdi liekas, ka uzņēmējs A ir visas Eiropas narkonaudu atmazgājis, citā – ka tikai nav pareizi VIDam atskaites iesniedzis. Cerams, ka ziņai būs turpinājums, jo pašlaik ir tikai neizpratne.

The after hours (I needed to attend a parent’s meeting at my daughter’s school and I had a couple of hours not worth to commute out of town and back in a half an hour) were spent stripping down a nice supplement to my ever-growing SONY ES series collection. SONY TA-F606ES is not so mighty TOTL as 808 or 707, but it delivers real (!) 80w/ch into 8 ohms, has good though basic preamp, headphone out. Solid, understated, classy, and unlike first-gen MOSFET amps, it runs cool. Unfortunately this was stored in some damp wet place for at least a decade. The chassis was covered with … RUST ! Not the Mathias Rust who landed on Red Square back in the 1987 (anyone remember?), but good old iron oxide. Some time later an attempt to use it was made. obviously only to discover the need to apply a cleaning fluid to all switches and attenuators. Now the amp was covered in rust AND oil inside …
I stripped it down and I have a very special kind of treatment in mind for it. More will follow tomorrow. I hope I’ll succeed… ;-)

She’s a good looking and demanding! Love her and feed her with the best music you can find! :-)

Click on pic and find out!

Šodien pēc konferences braucu mājās un sapratu, ka tak` ziema klāt – tumšs un gājējus redzēt nevar vairs nekādi! Cilvēki, nēsājiet taču atstarotājus!

Es dzīvoju Latvijā, esmu latvietis un ķirbjus es Ē D U !

Un man ir liels suns, kuru es šovakar un rīt nebarošu! Nāciet vien, mani mazie “trick or treat” draudziņi!

This Technics SU-7700 was sold as dead. It arrived dead. It did not show any signs of life. It was impossible to get the power transformer to work. As it appeared – there was some modding done to this amp in previous life. First of all – i do not know how it is possible to get the amp running if the mains supply wire is soldered to the shielding winding of transformer. Or separating winding? This is the winding placed between primary and secondary coils, one end of which is loose and another usually is attached to the earth or ground of device. Anyway the mains supply was not connected to the primary winding at all. No wonder it was sold as broken.

Then there are two switches absent – the ones responsible of SOURCE<->TAPE and TAPE1<->TAPE2 switching. Well, that is not a great loss, these switches usually causing a lot of noise and trouble. The replacement is impossible to find now and tape decks are obsolete as well. Sadly there is some optical loss as well as the missing switches holes are covered with black plastic.

And then there was a number of mysterious wires attached to different parts of PCB. Other end of respective wires was attached to two suspicious looking female plugs in the back panel of amp. After close examination it appears to connect two pairs of speakers, mains supply, neutral wire, and the switching voltage for protection circuit. Quick movements with soldering iron and away the are!

Next to perform is to clean the inside. Oh boy! This one is really dirty when compared to previous one I was complaining about a couple of weeks ago.

The final part is recapping. Let’s start with the power supply filter capacitors. As always – size and pin placement is a headache. In 35 years from the moment this amp was built these parameters have changed. Significantly changed. I managed to get closest approximation of pin placement and diameter of original capacitors, however another dimension is significantly different ;-)

Three lunch breaks in a row I was cursing the otherwise highly sophisticated German engineering. All the trouble was with automatic turntable by DUAL. It was completely wasted. No automatic operation, no operation at all. I was desperate, ’cause I disassembled and assembled the mechanics three times, standing, sitting, singing and … no, no dancing. Then I decided to call Jānis, who is dealing with vintage stuff a lot more time than me. He said just four words. “ASK GOOGLE PIMPEL DUAL“. Fifteen minutes and one 4mm sized plastic piece later the problem was solved. However, the question remains: Why the hell DUAL was making turntables for years with the same plastic piece, if the problem was persistent and common for nearly all models of automatic and semi-automatic turntables from early seventies to middle eighties.. ?

Surprisingly the one component I was afraid more than others of — appeared to be the easiest to work on. The condition of this 2 head cassette recorder is almost mint – replacement of pinch roller, thorough cleaning of heads and capstan, replacing all the three lamps (cassette compartment illumination and record volume indicators) — and voila – the player is like new.

All my vintage HiFi items for sale can be found at Picasa.

Goodbye, My Friend, goodbye!

So it’s time to say bye to this ‘ole’ wonderful vintage CD player – SONY CDP-597. HiFi from SONY at it’s best. Rare silver edition of usually black classic SONY CDP series. Easy replaceable, everywhere available nonexpensive KSS-240A laser pickup (however, player shows no signs of aging, all CD’s and properly recorded CD-R’s are playing without any trouble) , reliable tray mechanics, pure analog out, two pairs – fixed and variable. No remote. Case in excellent condition, front panel with some minor dents and scratches here and there, barely noticeable. This is a piece of an era, when HiFi was Stereo and Analog, and this player is made to please all the lovers of both analog and digital.
PS. MFSL CD is NOT included.
PPS. S.O.L.D.

Lunch break was spent assembling Technics SU-7300 amp. Now it is “as new”. Well, it is as much new as it can be – it was born in 1978 and thus is almost my age (it was really a compliment to me – I am older, as a matter of fact and not so good looking). This one is for sale, by the way – the amp is for sale, not me, I mean! :)