realistic expectations rant for cost of recap.

Gavijo70

Member
no techs in my area with the skill to recap my SX-1080 so I called a few well known out of state shops. The first wants $1200 and I pay shipping both ways. What I took away from that-- pay to send me your stereo so I can steal it and sell it back to you at retail. The second wants me to pack up my receiver, send it up along with $40 bucks for an estimate, even though I asked for a guestimate on a very specific service (nothing more), What I took away from that, pay to send me your stereo, along with $40, so I can give an unrealistic estimate for the service and hope you don't want to pay return shipping, so I can steal your stereo and your $40.00. The third is booked up for 4 years. What I took from that--Im good at what I do and I charge a fair price, but you will get it back when your middle schooler graduates high school. My 1080 works fine, other than FM only works in mono. no other issues. its all original and in need of a recap at this age. was willing to pay a fair price to have it done as I dont have the skill or time to attempt myself. However, now I think I will just continue using it until it gives up the ghost, (or I do first). What you can take away from that-- In some unknown years my kids will probably sell you a SX-1080 at an estate sale for $50. Mark your calenders.
 
Your unit is 40 years old now.

Labor costs are high.

Take your car to a shop for repair work.

Way of life unfortunately.

There are some decent tech's here on AK.
 
Take your time and find the right person to work through this with you. You don't have your location listed and that may help. A re-cap is a simple process. On the other hand, the tech could easily end up with a box of tangled barbed wire and yarn. Then they will need to see you about the terrible state of other components and how you want to proceed.
 
Repair shops are going to be more expensive, generally, as they have rent and other overhead costs. Also, most of the ones I've known over the years don't really focus on restoration work....they prefer repair work (steadier, more volume, better margins).

There are quite a few good techs here on AK who can give you a good restoration, and for a good bit less than $1200. Good techs always have a wait list, but often in months, not years.

In my view, if you can't do the work yourself, then you need to be pretty committed to the unit you're going to have restored, and planning to keep it over the long run...in most cases., it's kind of like fixing up your house to sell it....you usually don't get your $ back.

There is certainly nothing wrong with waiting until/if you have a problem to make the decision on repair vs restoration.
 
I did buy it with FM out. Lots of other stuff out as well when I bought it, but the magic juice Brought it back to life. The recap was just my next step in its complete restoration. I’m still glad I bought it and even with fm out in stereo I’m satisfied with just mono. It pushes 2 Klipsch RF7iis and even in mono sounds worlds better than my Denon 4311 can ever muster on the same speakers in stereo. I enjoy this receiver more than any other system I have ever had. I have had many including separates and for my ears this ones the holy grail. The recap is just my slight insurance policy of uninterrupted use going forward. I know my way around the basics of deoxit like any monkey learns first when they get in to vintage. I’m just a realist and I know that I don’t have the steady hand or patience to go about taking on such a task DIY around parts I would have to sacrifice my 4th born to the stereo Gods to relocate.I live in cullman Al and anybody around here just wants to fix a single issue like a responder above confirmed. I’m willing to invest if a good well recommended trustworthy tech is available. Thanks all for the response.
 
One option if you want to wait a while on a full blown restoration would be to just recap the power amp, power supply and protection boards. This won't have any effect on sound quality, but would go a long way towards reducing the risks of catastrophic failures (which aren't that great anyway, but go up every year the amp stays in its original condition.

There's only about 20 caps involved, so the parts cost would be very low, and the project would not be nearly so daunting if you wanted to take it on yourself. Or maybe a local shop could do it for you....maybe 3-4 hours of work for them, including ordering parts, disassembly/reassembly, and doing basic adjustments (center voltage, idle, meters). Should be less than $200, and would be a good first step towards your goal of a full restoration.
 
One option if you want to wait a while on a full blown restoration would be to just recap the power amp, power supply and protection boards. This won't have any effect on sound quality, but would go a long way towards reducing the risks of catastrophic failures (which aren't that great anyway, but go up every year the amp stays in its original condition.

There's only about 20 caps involved, so the parts cost would be very low, and the project would not be nearly so daunting if you wanted to take it on yourself. Or maybe a local shop could do it for you....maybe 3-4 hours of work for them, including ordering parts, disassembly/reassembly, and doing basic adjustments (center voltage, idle, meters). Should be less than $200, and would be a good first step towards your goal of a full restoration.
I will probably do that Spark1 thanks. Years ago I would have taken it on as a paint by numbers challenge. I have Parkinson’s disease now and would probably end up soldering the tuner fins to the wall behind me. So it’s not an option. Will try again Monday to find a local tech to do what you suggest.
 
You can find recap lists here on AK, to make sure the tech uses high quality parts. Parts cost is not a big part of the equation, so no reason not to use good ones.
 
I did buy it with FM out. Lots of other stuff out as well when I bought it, but the magic juice Brought it back to life.
So you already got lucky and most likely bought the non working unit for next to nothing. You also might need more than one treatment of Deoxit and maybe some lube. I'll link you to a thread that walks you though proper cleaning, lubing and drying out.
This might help
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/the-idiots-guide-to-using-deoxit-revisited.207005/
The recap was just my next step in its complete restoration.
Restoration work takes time so does repair work, and even depending on where one lives can cost $125 or more an hour. spark1 said you can get 3-4 hours of work done for $200, I don't think that's reality for an actual business with a shop.

Might be best to skip this for now.

If that is true, you should name names.
Browse though feedback, names will do no good and generally the members disappear.

My point is, I would not just ship out my equipment to members that I can't go knock on their door, that don't have a business and do work for a living. I have seen cases here where members get comfortable with one and another and then shit happens and there is no recourse.
 
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This Pioneer model IIRC uses unique output devices that are now pretty near unattainable and if found are very costly. So any tech attempting to work on would need to be very experienced, diligent and competent. You may just need the power supply done for now.

Try looking further out for a local shop willing to take this on. Know driving a few hundred miles or more would be OK with me.


Barney
 
spark1 said you can get 3-4 hours of work done for $200, I don't think that's reality for an actual business with a shop.

Might be best to skip this for now.
.

Then again, it might be a good idea not to skip it. Would you have any problems with the OP at least just looking into it? Even if the price is $250-275, it would still make sense.

$125 an hour? So at least $2000 for a full restoration, plus parts. Wow. Even with conservative assumptions, that's $200K in annual revenues per tech. Of course, at that hourly rate, they probably only get three or four jobs a year.

I know the owner of a local shop here...in business for 40 years, 2 employees plus him. Effective hourly rate in his shop is approximately $46 (I know because I helped him do a business valuation last year).

EDIT - just looked up the numbers from that project...effective rate was actually $52.
 
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and even depending on where one lives can cost $125 or more an hour.

Effective hourly rate in his shop is approximately $46
Your looking at prices that might be in your area and even maybe a while ago. I think we can agree there is a cost of living difference across this country. I don't know of any service business around here that actually has a shop and licensing that can work at $46. They wouldn't even be covering shop rent here at that price. Like I said a general starting point around here is $75 for an estimate, $125 an hour shop time. What one has work done on needs to be worth the service.
 
As I said, the analysis was done last year. So space for 3 techs, an office and work in progress would be more than $20K per month where you are? Wow again.
 
FWIW, I live in a small town and the hourly rate for unskilled and semi-skilled mfg. labor is $18- $20/hour. So, the fully burdened labor rate will be well above that, plus overhead, etc., etc. Seems like there wouldn't be much meat on the bone with 3 techs at shop rate of $46/hr.
 
As I said, the analysis was done last year. So space for 3 techs, an office and work in progress would be more than $20K per month where you are? Wow again.
Now start subtracting, rent, insurance, utilities, salaries, workman's comp, medical, tools.

You can't get a illegal mexican gardener to come once a month and do a blow and go in a hour for under $50 here.

A house might cost $90,000 in your area, and the same will be $999,000 here.
A one bedroom apartment might be $700 a month for your area, here it's $2800.

So those three workers need to make a living in the area they live, here $50,000 a year puts you close to poverty levels, you don't live that well.
 
Speedy Gonzales might be able to disassemble, clean, re-cap, find and replace all known bad transistors/diodes/etc., clean/lube/Gold all of the controls, individually test all of the outputs, apply new heatsink grease on every device with a heatsink, replace all the lamps, find and repair all of the cracked solder joints, align the tuner, set all of the other adjustments, make sure all of the inputs are proper, mind it while burns in, reassemble, double check it a few more times in 3-4 hours, but I sure as hell can't.

With something like a Pioneer SX-1010 or Marantz 2325, I probably have close to 20 hours into a full on restoration in order to do a decent job. My bench rate is $50, but there is no way I'll ever get $2K plus parts to rebuild a receiver.
 
Tech rates do have a range from reasonable to unbelievable, depending on location. On the coasts that rate is in the 85-125 range I would say and closer to 50 in the least expensive areas of the country.

Then you have to figure the time involved with this recap. It is a long process.
1) repair the unit
2) inventory the caps in the unit
3) determine other items that need to be replaced
4) order the parts, verify in-stock,
5) spend the hours needed to remove the boards swap the parts and reinstall the boards
5a) clean all controls as they become accessible during the disassembly process unless done in the repair phase.
6) bring the unit up to verify work done
7) burn in the work done
8) performance test the unit
9) try to add up all those hours and hours needed to do this recap
10) prepare for the discussion with the owner as to why his recap of more than 100 caps and a few other components costs more than he could buy a unit for off the bay.

A full recap is not cheap. If it is, there is something wrong. This is why we do them ourselves while we plead for cap lists and BOMs and why techs don't want to do them.
 
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