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  1. restorer-john

    Measuring amplifier distortion with QA403 input makes a big difference, help with understanding.

    The issue with connecting at the amp terminals is the power reading is not correct- it is inflated. Basically you have to measure the load PLUS the speaker cable resistance and add them together. Enter that in the analyzer as the reference impedance to obtain the correct power output...
  2. restorer-john

    Test Equipment Sub-Forum

    Been hunting for a Fluke 183 (the Tektronix TX1 from 2000) or a Fluke 185 for a while and found a nice 183 example recently. It cleaned up and looks a million dollars. Much prefer its big display and more responsive buttons to the Fluke 87 III. It's a solid piece of gear, AC response out to...
  3. restorer-john

    Sony CDP-200 Early CD Player

    That's awesome. I've done a few with latex in the past, but that was decades ago. Life's too short to be making loading spur gears... (That said, I have a few CDP-101s with cracked drive load gears...) Basically, once the nylon starts to crack on one gear, the rest are following closely...
  4. restorer-john

    Which cassette deck would you choose from these 2 choices.

    The HK is a 3 head single direction deck and the Akai is a 2 head auto-reverse deck. Akai's glass crystal heads are brilliant and virtually last forever, however the head rotating mechanism is full of nylon which is now almost 45 years old. If it's mainly for playback, and the Akai works well...
  5. restorer-john

    California Proposes to Force Manufacturers to Restrict Vehicle Top Speed to 10 MPH Over Limit.

    I thought it must have been an April fools thing. A guy named Weiner (wiener) too. LOL.
  6. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    In Australia, we call that a "dummy spit" or "throwing a wobbly". Like an American "mic drop" without the faux triumph.
  7. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    Pioneer used a bunch of standard and also a lot of very interesting semi components. Especially the semis made by Fujitsu (RETs) and some special Sankens (LAPTs) along with some ultra rare NEC diffused emitter type epitaxials.
  8. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    I did the same and left AK for several years. And I am member #373 from 2002. I was there on dial-up, 33k modems and Win98. The complete lack of objective testing, verification and re-testing after 'rebuilds' and 'restorations' using dubious, poorly matched and inappropriate components has...
  9. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    And that's the problem. Parts substitutions without baseline testing is where the problem is, and has been for 20 years or more. It's so much worse in 2024 than it was it 2002 when we were trying to help AK members make the right decisions. Now there's two decades of internet BS and group-think.
  10. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    Honestly, unless you guys actually test your gear and confirm what it's doing and what it is not- what business do you have messing around inside it? Seriously. Throw a bag of components at your amp/receiver and delude yourselves into thinking it's better? Hilarious if it wasn't so utterly stupid.
  11. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    Because simply you saying "small signal transistors" means you had no idea what you were doing. Nosy ones too...
  12. restorer-john

    Sony CDP-200 Early CD Player

    Forget lithium grease- it's nasty stuff and doesn't last on nylon and plastics, especially against steel. It goes sticky faster than the original stuff. LOL. Get some of this: https://electrolube.com.au/product/spgspecial-plastic-grease/
  13. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    No, no, no. This is why there is so much butchered and wrecked vintage audio out there. It's exactly why you should put down the soldering iron and leave stuff alone.
  14. restorer-john

    Cost to sell on eBay

    You pick up an RTR at a garage sale for $10, say 20 years ago, broken and dirty, restore it and put it into your collection for all that time and decide to sell it because you're moving and it's gathering dust. It's now "collectible" and worth $2000. So what, surely your IRS over there has no...
  15. restorer-john

    Yamaha YP-211 Tracking Issue

    Awesome! Nothing better than a simple fix.
  16. restorer-john

    Crime of the Mid Century

    How does it test after all this effort?
  17. restorer-john

    Yamaha YP-211 Tracking Issue

    The arm has to move enough laterally to push the connecting actuator arm and then the toothed pivoting part circled. That requires everything to move really easily or the arm will bind. My guess is either the actuator arm (underneath- they usually run on several greased, captive ball bearings in...
  18. restorer-john

    What is the consensus on replacing working transistors?

    As with most things vintage, there is no consensus. It always 'depends'... Wholesale replacement for no reason other than 'it's old' is not a good idea and has ruined many pieces of otherwise excellent vintage gear. Some of the disasters I have seen are truly dreadful. Unless you have the...
  19. restorer-john

    Which soldering station would you buy?

    I love my old Hakko 926 but the 888 is a disaster of ergonomics. Fisher price looks by some Italian designer who has never used a soldering iron. My FX-888 was bought, used for exactly two days and put back in the box as an 'emergency iron'. Funny, I'd use 10 other 'emergency' irons before that...
  20. restorer-john

    Technics RS-1500/1506 tape head removal from inner/outer casing

    Why not just cut down the inner shell to below the head surface profile and forget it? You can re-lap the head and attach the outer shell afterwards. It's just a magnetic shield anyway- not tape guidance on the inner shell.
  21. restorer-john

    Kenwood R-42L amp not powering up?

    Honestly, it's just a cheap, seriously sh#tbag BPC shelf system. Hardly worth saving, except for maybe the CD player which is separate. The amp has a discrete power stage and a motorised volume control, which is a plus if you were going to strip/gut it for a project, but otherwise, leave it at...
  22. restorer-john

    Power Guard vs No Power Guard

    Let me explain this. In normal music there is little energy (actual power) at high frequencies. As a result, tweeters are small, light, and have voice coils made of the thinnest wire possible so they can reproduce high frequencies (i.e. move small distances, really fast). Playing music, you...
  23. restorer-john

    Power Guard vs No Power Guard

    Let me explain this. In normal music there is little energy (actual power) at high frequencies. As a result, tweeters are small, light, and have voice coils made of the thinnest wire possible so they can reproduce high frequencies (i.e. move small distances, really fast). Playing music, you...
  24. restorer-john

    Audio Analyzers - HP 8903B vs. QuantAsylum QA403

    It has a scope like amplification of the THD residual, and unlike a scope there is no noise component in the residual view. At really low THD levels the 'scope' out on analogue analyzers is mostly noise. Also, there is a harmonics breakdown view in bargraphs, like my old Panasonic VP. And of...
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