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Category: ‘Personīgais’

Famous last words…

2010/10/10 Posted by UL

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.

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Tags: CD player, CDP-597, SONY, SONY for sale, Vintage
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

Technics assembled

2010/10/08 Posted by UL

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! :)

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Tags: SU-7300, Technics
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

A much cleaner Technics

2010/10/07 Posted by UL

Some recapping and kontakt cleaning performed as well. Now everything works just fine. And looks almost like new. Short testing with dummy load and the day is almost over. Final assembly tomorrow.

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Tags: SU-7300, Tecnics
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

What’s QUEEN got to do with this?

2010/10/07 Posted by UL

Oooh… The machine of a dream, such a clean machine…
(QUEEN: I’m In Love With My Car from A Night at The Opera (1975))

Well, this Technics SU-7300 from 1978 definitely was not a clean machine. Lunch break was spent cleaning it up. Results will be published tomorrow. Some recapping done while cleaning as well.

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Tags: dirt, dust, soiled PCB, SU-7300, Technics
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

Superb Effective Analog JVC SEA-50

2010/10/02 Posted by UL

Sometimes I wonder – am I really that old? I am totally incapable to remember what SEA stands for. Was it Sound Effect Amplifier? Or Stereo Equalizer, Analog? JVC “innovated” this trademark in late 70′ies and since then I am always in trouble to remember what does it really mean.
This nice device, in the same style as my vintage tuner and soon-to-arrive pair of JA-S44 amps (one is very rare for JVC – black version), sure served last ten or twenty years in some workshop or garage. 30 minutes and I gave up – manual processing of front and back panels was interrupted and the task was passed to dishwasher. 90 minutes later, to my big surprise, the panel was shiny and 99% clean. Unfortunately the cover of the case was beyond restoration, so it was repainted in silver. Gone are nice schematics and frequency curves originally printed on the top of case. I’m sorry.

Prior to powering up I decided to do a thorough inspection of printed circuit boards. Quality components, as always. Hm? Surprise!
What is this brownish residue around the large filtering caps? No smell, a little bit sticky? No taste as well (joking)! Is it possible that 4 ELNA caps leaked all at the same time? Or maybe it is some secret Japanese high end know-how?
Recapping of power supply was scheduled anyway. To the parts store now.

And finally – take a note of power plug! Isn’t it beautiful? ;-)

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Tags: JVC SEA-50
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

WEGA JPS-350 (pt. V : Halfway)

2010/09/28 Posted by UL

Some time and a number of blog entries ago the HQ pics of WEGA were promised. I’d like to say – here they are, but, unfortunately (I have always known that, as a matter of fact), I am not as good as photographer. It may seem that the black components will be much easier to shoot than the silver ones. It is not so. I do not possess any of professional photographer equipment – the lighting gear, stand, and Canon iXus is not a Pro camera as well. So, there are a couple of my best shots of WEGA amp and tuner.
Still I’m waiting for the opportunity to have a good hour of high volume listening, but overall I find the sound of both tuner and amplifier warm and very seventies-like — not much headroom, and the bass is not “mighty”, however due to relatively low power output the sound is well balanced, warm and, I’d like to say, perfect for vinyl of some great 70ies rock – early Dire Straits, some Zeppelin or Purple. Even the Doors fit to this amp, if I may ;-)
And the tuner delivers both Radio NABA and SWH Rock quite nice.
Coming up next:
WEGA JPS-350T turntable with SANYO MG09 cartridge (it is basically the SONY direct drive turntable from 1978 with SONY tone arm. I decided not to top the turntable with some Grado or Denon cartridge, but rather to leave the original SONY CN 234 styli and cartridge in place. The replacement ersatznadel is already ordered. I am considering to mount Grado cartridge to one of my Technics – the SL-2000 or SL-D2 turntables.
And finally I am gonna to take a try with WEGA cassette tape recorder to complete the set.

TBC

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Tags: HiFi, JPS-350T, JPS-350V, SONY, WEGA JPS-350
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

Victor Victoria

2010/09/24 Posted by UL

Not the fine movie, but two restored JVC’s from my collection.
Promised HiRes pics under the cut.
(more…)

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Tags: JVC A-Z1, JVC JT-V22
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

Handspring Visor kolekcionāriem vai citiem interesentiem

2010/09/24 Posted by UL

Piedāvāju: tā ap 2000-o gadu taisīts Handspring Visor (Palm OS) pilnīgā darba kārtībā. Cenu nevaru iedomāties, ja būs interesenti, tad uzsāksim sarunas. Līdzi nāk maciņš, kābeļi, PC software gan jāmeklē tīkla resursos…

handspring visor with accessories

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Tags: Handspring Visor
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

Victor of Japan, pt. 2

2010/09/22 Posted by UL

This morning I started to reassemble the A-X1. Fortunately I had the service manual printed and present, so, to my big surprise, no spare parts left :)
As I predicted, the speaker switch was not functioning as it should. A little DIY with old soviet P2K switch and appropriate tools, and the problem was solved by producing new sliders (the actual conducting elements performing switching inside).

To my surprise (again) everything works, and the amp delivers mighty … erm, 25 wats per channel :-)

You can enjoy some real cool meters I used today… :-D

Tomorrow – the speaker terminal replacement and the shiny repainted cover installation.

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Tags: DIY, JVC A-X1
Categories: Personīgais, Techno

Victor of Japan, pt. 1

2010/09/21 Posted by UL

This is the entry level amplifier from 1980-1981 model year. I would prefer to get my hands on A-X9, of course, but you get what you got. This particular item was serving it’s better years either in noble gentleman’s cigar room or somewhere in the kitchen. Of course it was washed to some extent prior selling on eBay. However inside it was covered in some half mil layer of yellow grease, so one bottle of solvent later it looks like you see in pictures. The chassis was washed in the very best way I could think of – in the dishwasher! :-D

The contents

The Case (or what's left of it)

Next step is to repaint the cover the same way I did the tuner. Quick hop to the paint shop. The cover will be ready in a day or two.

The speaker switch

Remaining of the morning was spent disassembling the sliding switches. I believe the contacts were covered with thin film of silver – thirty years ago. As the chance of buying new ones is almost nil, I cleared all one by one carefully disassembling, cleaning and assembling again. I was surprised by the Japanese engineers – do they really believe these contacts can handle 30 watts of power? The ones in picture are switching loudspeakers.
It seems I will replace the speaker terminal assembly as well, it is broken and has lost all the red-and-black caps.