restorer-john
Addicted Member
Yamaha CR-xxx receivers, CT-xxx tuners and CA-xxx amplifiers have some of the poorest illumination of any gear I know of, especially as they get old and tired.
Simply replacing the incandescents merely highlights the diffuser deterioration and discolouration and it ultimately can look worse. LEDs can look excellent, but most, if not all examples I have seen look dreadful.
Yamaha went for subtlety and restraint and attempted to clean up the light (with filters) to give a nice look. I will show a few examples of how I do it with LEDs. You are welcome to comment or add suggestions.
I’ll use a recent CR-820 and CA-810 as examples with pictures I took at the time.
Here’s the meter assembly of the CR-820- it was very dim and had a nasty dirty green/brown tinge. The tape has turned brown up against the meters and makes the light dull.
Under the darkened tape, this is what you see. Only three bulbs, and light blue filters to clean up the light. The housings are heavily yellowed and this makes the light worse.
Each bulb reflector is heavily yellowed
Simply replacing the incandescents merely highlights the diffuser deterioration and discolouration and it ultimately can look worse. LEDs can look excellent, but most, if not all examples I have seen look dreadful.
Yamaha went for subtlety and restraint and attempted to clean up the light (with filters) to give a nice look. I will show a few examples of how I do it with LEDs. You are welcome to comment or add suggestions.
I’ll use a recent CR-820 and CA-810 as examples with pictures I took at the time.
Here’s the meter assembly of the CR-820- it was very dim and had a nasty dirty green/brown tinge. The tape has turned brown up against the meters and makes the light dull.
Under the darkened tape, this is what you see. Only three bulbs, and light blue filters to clean up the light. The housings are heavily yellowed and this makes the light worse.
Each bulb reflector is heavily yellowed
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