Woah!:thmbsp: 700M v not quite a newbie!
Hmmmm. "Not quite the newbie." Funny you should put it that way because I've been giving some thought as to what point does one graduate beyond newbiedome. My mind harkens back to the days I was in the military. When I first arrived at my duty station, I was referred to as a 'JEEP'. The military, being fond of their acronyms, this unofficial title meaning 'Just Enough Education to Pass'.
I will say that I did not just wake up one day and start ripping this amp apart. I did quite a lot of tutorial reading and studying of the schematic. I printed out every thread I could find on this model and read them over several times. I made a point of not being in a hurry.
In my initial stated goals, I should have made a point regarding safety. After all, we are working on live electrical devices here and this shit can kill you. I had to calmly remind my
very loquacious wife to please not disturb me when I was working on it.
I remember reading in another thread that EW remarked this wasn't a complicated amp. I guess as far as amps go, that's true. But when your new to this stuff, it's intimidating. Mechanically this amp is certainly easy to access. Electronically, I suppose it's pretty straight forward as well, since your not dealing with any preamp or anything.
I must say that when working on it, I'm struck with a sense of history and felt as much as if I'm preserving it as fixing it.
Having said all that, this newb's journey is still very much at the beginning. There is a colloquial phrase that describes one's competency level as not knowing 'shit from Shinola'. While I did manage to not turn this project into a turd, there is a can of Shinola that's not within my grasp yet. But I'll keep reachin'.