Yamaha B-3 V-fet restoration

Glad you completed your restoration, Looks Great! I hope they give you many more years of enjoyment.

Also, from your pictures, it looks like you replaced those double diodes. Which ones did you use?
 
Lookin' really good VJ. Is never too long if it ends up with success. Congrats! Looking forward for your listning experiences...It will be a while until I get my B-3 Duo ready for prime. Too busy battling Sony deamons at this time.

out of curiosity re:


I found my B-1, B-2 whisper quiet...as in I could hear a mouse farth faster than hear any noise from any of the amps. I have yet to hook up a scope and further thinker with the PSUs in these units. Not that they need to but moe out of curiosity.

Have you hooked up a scope and you find more "noise" comng out of the B-1, B-2 PSUs than from the B-3??
Just a simple "ear to the tweeter" test. more hiss on the B-1 and B-2. My speakers are 92dB sensitivity.
Saying that from listening position cannot hear any hiss on all 3 Yamaha's.

Will be running them for a little while before trying to compare with the B-1
 
Just a simple "ear to the tweeter" test. more hiss on the B-1 and B-2. My speakers are 92dB sensitivity.
Saying that from listening position cannot hear any hiss on all 3 Yamaha's.

Will be running them for a little while before trying to compare with the B-1
Then I am officially deaf :)
 
@rottalpha "which Sony?" My 8650 has a issue with the preamp part. Those green unobtainable Sony IC's...
I was saying MY Sony demons in the shape of a TAN-8550 and it's bride.
They have bench priority over my B-3 twins...

....So I am looking forward to your B-3 listing impressions in the meantime.
 
I was saying MY Sony demons in the shape of a TAN-8550 and it's bride.
They have bench priority over my B-3 twins...

....So I am looking forward to your B-3 listing impressions in the meantime.
This will be next...hope to get them both sorted. IMG_8012.JPG
 
Well it has only been a couple of days but since only replaced the film caps the B-3's didn't need a lot of running in.


After restoration they play even more open and highs are more detailed with long lasting decays. I listen to a lot of ECM music which the B-3's portray beautifully.
"Natural Sound" it is the rightfully logo of the Yammies, all the Vfets B-1, B-2, and B-3 are the list coloured amplifiers I posses.

Comparing with the B-1 the B-3's on BTL mode sound not as warm, guess is personal preference but I prefer them. The bass goes deep and with more punch, driving my S-955III pioneers and the NS-2000 effortlessly. The bass would be my favourite aspect on the B-3's. They never seem to run out of steam and drum kicks punch you hard in the chest. The B-3's are fast, very fast, with fantastic dynamics. They sound more like a Sony TA-N7 but more authoritative. Depending on which speaker you match them I think on BTL mode they come on top of all the Vfet Yammies. They run not hot and I can use them everyday (unlike the B-1 which in summertime struggles here in Australia) Here they are with Luxman C-5000A and NS-2000.
IMG_9452.JPG
 
Work is progressing slowly here, much of my time has gone in researching for suitable parts.
So far here is what I have done in the power supply board :

Replaced the C1439/A858 with C4027T/A1552T tried to match those. I View attachment 1220229View attachment 1220230View attachment 1220231
I used MJE15030 that I had in hand to replace the C1624
2 more transistors C1775A/A872 were replaced with C2240/A970
4 1S1885 diodes with 1N4007
Still waiting for the Zeener diodes to arrive, 2 X 3.3uf/100v film caps and some resistors.

Thinking to put mica caps in place of the 4 X 47pf ceramic caps

Then ideally the trimers for adjusting the +/- 85 v which are tricky because need to be accessed while the board is in place.
there is only about 6mm space on top of the board so not sure anything can fit on top. If someone have knowledge of any trimmer pots like the original that are accessible on both sides please let me know.

Not finished yet but here is some pics of the board.

I tested it in place for a few hours today without issues

Hi -- I have a pair of Yamaha B-3 amps, running in BTL mode, and connected to Yamaha FX-3 speakers (the big brother of the NS-1000 -- with the beryllium tweeter / midrange units and the 15-inch woofers.) Your posts last year on fixing up your Yamaha B-3 amp were enormously helpful to me!

I've already replaced the large 27,000uF caps with the ones you recommended, with fantastic results. Next, I need to change the electrolytic caps on the power supply boards ...

Could you possibly give me the ordering information for the power supply replacement caps you used? (I see from the photos that you used blue Nichicon and black/gold Muse caps, but I can't find them anywhere on the Mouser or Digi-Key websites.) I'm a bit of a newbie, so I'd really appreciate your help in finding the correct replacement caps.

Many thanks for any help you can give me!
 
Hi -- I have a pair of Yamaha B-3 amps, running in BTL mode, and connected to Yamaha FX-3 speakers (the big brother of the NS-1000 -- with the beryllium tweeter / midrange units and the 15-inch woofers.) Your posts last year on fixing up your Yamaha B-3 amp were enormously helpful to me!

I've already replaced the large 27,000uF caps with the ones you recommended, with fantastic results. Next, I need to change the electrolytic caps on the power supply boards ...

Could you possibly give me the ordering information for the power supply replacement caps you used? (I see from the photos that you used blue Nichicon and black/gold Muse caps, but I can't find them anywhere on the Mouser or Digi-Key websites.) I'm a bit of a newbie, so I'd really appreciate your help in finding the correct replacement caps.

Many thanks for any help you can give me!
Hi there, wow, the FX-3 are really nice! Glad that could be of help.
All the caps I ordered from Mouser. They are in "for audio section" and series are KZ, KG, or FG for polars and ES muse for non polars
The blue nichicons are new and rated at 105 degrees. They are also for audio and from memory the UKT or UKA series

If you do a search for Nichicon capacitors then under product column select "audio grade option" all will come up.

Good luck!
 
Hi there, wow, the FX-3 are really nice! Glad that could be of help.
All the caps I ordered from Mouser. They are in "for audio section" and series are KZ, KG, or FG for polars and ES muse for non polars
The blue nichicons are new and rated at 105 degrees. They are also for audio and from memory the UKT or UKA series

If you do a search for Nichicon capacitors then under product column select "audio grade option" all will come up.

Good luck!

Hi again -- and thanks so much for your advice above! Unfortunately, I've tried numerous times to track down those power supply capacitors on the Mouser site, using your guidelines, but I just can't find them. (Could they have changed to other stock for those caps since you bought yours?)

Anyway, I've listed below the ones I was able to find on Mouser -- if you could kindly check through the list quickly and let me know if they're acceptable substitutes, I'd be most grateful. (BTW, I live in Taiwan -- hence the mouser.tw address. But I think Mouser lists the same stock on all its various national sites.)

10uF, 80 Volts : https://www.mouser.tw/ProductDetail/647-UFG1K100MEM
10uF 25 Volts : https://www.mouser.tw/ProductDetail/647-UKT1E100MDD1TD
100uF 100 Volts (85 degrees) : https://www.mouser.tw/ProductDetail/647-UKZ2A101MHM

100uF 160 Volts (85 degrees) : https://www.mouser.tw/ProductDetail/647-UVR2C101MHD

For the 100uF 160 volt caps, you recommended the blue Nichicons ("new and rated at 105 degrees"). But I also couldn't find those anywhere on the site. The one I found with that spec is only 85 degrees, so if you by any chance have a link for the blue Nichicons, that would be great.

Finally, you recommended I get the ES Muse for non-polars. Does that refer to the red and green droplet-shaped caps on the power supply board? (I see you changed yours to dark red ones.) And again, if you can send me a link to the ones I should buy, it would be a big help.

As you can see, I'm not proficient in electronics -- but I'm handy enough with a soldering iron. All I need is to be able to find those pesky capacitors!

The FX-3 speakers are indeed lovely sounding. Here's a quick photo of how they look with the Yamaha B-3s next to them ...

Cheers!

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_269c.jpg
 
Nice system Kamchatka. How are your woofer speaker surrounds on the FX 3. I am trying to source replacement surrounds for a pair but not sure which way to go since Orange County speakers closed down. Located in South Africa so would need a company that can do postage. Any lead would be useful as this is such a great sounding speaker and we are keen to get it back to normal functioning
 
Nice system Kamchatka. How are your woofer speaker surrounds on the FX 3. I am trying to source replacement surrounds for a pair but not sure which way to go since Orange County speakers closed down. Located in South Africa so would need a company that can do postage. Any lead would be useful as this is such a great sounding speaker and we are keen to get it back to normal functioning

Hi Jazzmuso -- A few years ago, my FX-3 foam surrounds suddenly disintegrated because of the very high humidity here in Taiwan. It was quite a shock, but luckily I found a speaker repair specialist in Taipei city that did an excellent job repairing them for me. He offered two options: at his advice, I chose the slightly stiffer, more expensive type of surrounds. I believe he sourced them from someone else in Taipei, but I'm not sure. If you like, I can contact him to find out. (He doesn't speak English, only Chinese.)

It sounds like you would plan to install the speaker surrounds yourself, rather than needing to ship the actual speakers out to be repaired. In which case, I could ask the repair shop here to mail them out to you in South Africa. (Payment might be a slight problem, as small companies here almost never accept credit cards -- only cash. But maybe he has a Paypal account or similar.)

Your FX-3s are so worth repairing. Yamaha made a very limited number of pairs, and apparently most of them went to recording studios in Japan, with relatively few making it out of the country. My only other disaster with my pair, aside from the disintegrated surrounds, was when I ran test tones through the speakers and blew one of the tweeters because I'd turned the volume up too high at the point where the high frequencies (for me, 12 Khz and above) had made them inaudible. Big mistake! So do be careful with both your high- and mid-range units: they're slightly larger than the ones for the Yamaha NS-1000, and so are virtually irreplaceable. I had to wait for three years before, magically, a pair suddenly appeared for sale on eBay.
 
Try the
Nice system Kamchatka. How are your woofer speaker surrounds on the FX 3. I am trying to source replacement surrounds for a pair but not sure which way to go since Orange County speakers closed down. Located in South Africa so would need a company that can do postage. Any lead would be useful as this is such a great sounding speaker and we are keen to get it back to normal functioning
Try these guys https://www.simplyspeakers.com/cloth-speaker-repair-edge-kits.html

I did my Yamaha NS-2000, size was not standard had to cut them. They going strong after few years now
 
Hi Jazzmuso -- A few years ago, my FX-3 foam surrounds suddenly disintegrated because of the very high humidity here in Taiwan. It was quite a shock, but luckily I found a speaker repair specialist in Taipei city that did an excellent job repairing them for me. He offered two options: at his advice, I chose the slightly stiffer, more expensive type of surrounds. I believe he sourced them from someone else in Taipei, but I'm not sure. If you like, I can contact him to find out. (He doesn't speak English, only Chinese.)

It sounds like you would plan to install the speaker surrounds yourself, rather than needing to ship the actual speakers out to be repaired. In which case, I could ask the repair shop here to mail them out to you in South Africa. (Payment might be a slight problem, as small companies here almost never accept credit cards -- only cash. But maybe he has a Paypal account or similar.)

Your FX-3s are so worth repairing. Yamaha made a very limited number of pairs, and apparently most of them went to recording studios in Japan, with relatively few making it out of the country. My only other disaster with my pair, aside from the disintegrated surrounds, was when I ran test tones through the speakers and blew one of the tweeters because I'd turned the volume up too high at the point where the high frequencies (for me, 12 Khz and above) had made them inaudible. Big mistake! So do be careful with both your high- and mid-range units: they're slightly larger than the ones for the Yamaha NS-1000, and so are virtually irreplaceable. I had to wait for three years before, magically, a pair suddenly appeared for sale on eBay.

Would you be so kind and ask at your shop if they have the correct size for Yamaha NS-2000? Thank you
 
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