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Attention B&K Components owners!

Dumb question, are you guys talking about subwoofer plate amps?

I've got a (probably lower in the line) B&K 8" sub I got from another AKer and it promptly went belly up - just makes thumps or motorboating. I took one look at the board and it had so many parts (nothing obviously fried) I just buttoned it back up. Is this the same trouble you guys are talking about? Even if it is, this new shop might charge way more than this little sub is worth to fix it.
 
No I'm talking about the EPROM on the preamp/processor and the receivers that B&K used to make,. Can you unhook the plate amp? That would make shipping a lot cheaper. But an amp can usually be repaired by anyone. If you look at the capacitors it can sometimes be very obvious which ones are blown because they are literally "blown up" or swollen on top. Even as a total noob, I saw this phenomenon on the power supply board of a cheap Samsung DVD player and was easily able to replace the blown caps.
 
I know this thread is a little dated, however I have some info which will be helpful to some. I have a B&K AVP2000. Great sounding Pre used in 2 channel for 12plus years. For the last few years or so when the incoming AC power to the house was interrupted, the unit would reset back to surround on, default, then recently the display started missing letters, scrambling words, wonky. I would unplug it, and it would "fix" itself. Pretty soon this didn't work and wonky prevailed. I assumed the EPROM was corrupted. After a little thought, I wondered if perhaps it might have a coin cell battery inside. With nothing to lose I opened it up and there it was, a Panasonic BR2325, hard wired to the PC board. I used a small flat blade to separate the metal prongs from the battery, leaving the prongs attached to the PC. I took a new battery, soldered some short wires to the battery, then the wires to the prongs in the PC. After a few power on/off resets the EPROM came back to life and now works just fine again, $3 fix. I am not sure if other B&K Pre's use a coin cell but it is worth a look inside to see. There was NO MENTION of this problem online that I ever found. Hope this is helpful to some, satwilson
 
Nice find! I have never opened up the Ref 30 or 50 but I will take a look at the 30 when I have a chance. I keep forgetting these were probably just fancy Linux boxes.
 
We sold B&K in the 90's and 2000's. They weren't the best thing out there but they did perform remarkably well. There big 200 series amps sounded great even if they had to be cooled. I liked their stereo components and their HT processors offered some really meet features, though they could be temperamental and not as smooth in operation as I would hope. They did sound nice especially when used with M&K speakers.
 
twiiii said:
We sold B&K in the 90's and 2000's. They weren't the best thing out there but they did perform remarkably well. There big 200 series amps sounded great even if they had to be cooled. I liked their stereo components and their HT processors offered some really meet features, though they could be temperamental and not as smooth in operation as I would hope. They did sound nice especially when used with M&K speakers.
Click to expand...

I like them better than Parasound, NAD and anything that was coming out of Japan at the time. B&K had much a better high end (IMO, of course) than the others in the same price category, which a the time, was nothing to sneeze at. The Ref 30 was somewhere around $2800 if I recall correctly. Before the B&K/Outlaw combo I had a Pioneer Elite A/V which was powerful, but made me grit my teeth when any high end effects or particularly "tinny" music played. I was (and still am) a big fan of the early (90's) DefTech bi-polar arrays.
 
Love my pair of B&K amps ... ST202+ for front mains, and AVR5000 (serII) for the rest of the speakers
(got a dedicated HK Citation 22 bridged mono for the sub)
 
MannyE said:
Nice find! I have never opened up the Ref 30 or 50 but I will take a look at the 30 when I have a chance. I keep forgetting these were probably just fancy Linux boxes.
Click to expand...
Hi. You ever consider opening up that Ref 50 and check what was actually "fixed". Might be helpful to other owners that end up wanting to try repairs on their own. Especially pictures of the power section with views of the component for comparing to the originals.
FYI, I have a Ref 50 S2 that kinda works, but does get preset memory errors and occasionally turns off on it's own. Didn't really think it was worth paying to get fixed, but might be worth working on myself if I had something to go by as a reference.
 
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Danzilla said:
Hi. You ever consider opening up that Ref 50 and check what was actually "fixed". Might be helpful to other owners that end up wanting to try repairs on their own. Specially pictures of the power section with views of the component for comparing to the originals.
FYI, I have a Ref 50 S2 that kinda works, but does get preset memory errors and occasional turns off on it's own. Didn't really think it was worth paying to get fixed, but might be worth working on myself if I had something to go by as a reference.
Click to expand...

I will do that eventually and with any luck, the tech marked the changed caps. Those were pretty much the same errors I was getting, so it may be worth it to get a look inside.
 
Sooooo I never looked inside.

But now the Reference 30 refuses to turn on from standby and that sounds like a bad cap. This time I will take pictures.

EDIT: Looked inside and all I see is a lot of dust and 4 power caps that look perfectly OK. No bulging, leaking or anything else that might lead my to believe that there is something wrong with the power supply. Ditto the smaller electrolytic caps on the side.

I'll just send it into Stargate.
 
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satwilson48 said:
I know this thread is a little dated, however I have some info which will be helpful to some. I have a B&K AVP2000. Great sounding Pre used in 2 channel for 12plus years. For the last few years or so when the incoming AC power to the house was interrupted, the unit would reset back to surround on, default, then recently the display started missing letters, scrambling words, wonky. I would unplug it, and it would "fix" itself. Pretty soon this didn't work and wonky prevailed. I assumed the EPROM was corrupted. After a little thought, I wondered if perhaps it might have a coin cell battery inside. With nothing to lose I opened it up and there it was, a Panasonic BR2325, hard wired to the PC board. I used a small flat blade to separate the metal prongs from the battery, leaving the prongs attached to the PC. I took a new battery, soldered some short wires to the battery, then the wires to the prongs in the PC. After a few power on/off resets the EPROM came back to life and now works just fine again, $3 fix. I am not sure if other B&K Pre's use a coin cell but it is worth a look inside to see. There was NO MENTION of this problem online that I ever found. Hope this is helpful to some, satwilson
Click to expand...

I recently found a dirt cheap dead AVP2000 at a hamfest last year. It boots and displays/switches sources but no audio on pre outs. Initially I suspected either an analog switching IC or possibly one of the socketed 74HC574s coming from the MPU that control the switching. The project fell off the radar when I dug up my Line Drive but the lure of a VFD preamp is still there. I'll measure the coin cell output and see if its good or not.

Props to satwilson for the tip.
 
satwilson48 said:
I know this thread is a little dated, however I have some info which will be helpful to some. I have a B&K AVP2000. Great sounding Pre used in 2 channel for 12plus years. For the last few years or so when the incoming AC power to the house was interrupted, the unit would reset back to surround on, default, then recently the display started missing letters, scrambling words, wonky. I would unplug it, and it would "fix" itself. Pretty soon this didn't work and wonky prevailed. I assumed the EPROM was corrupted. After a little thought, I wondered if perhaps it might have a coin cell battery inside. With nothing to lose I opened it up and there it was, a Panasonic BR2325, hard wired to the PC board. I used a small flat blade to separate the metal prongs from the battery, leaving the prongs attached to the PC. I took a new battery, soldered some short wires to the battery, then the wires to the prongs in the PC. After a few power on/off resets the EPROM came back to life and now works just fine again, $3 fix. I am not sure if other B&K Pre's use a coin cell but it is worth a look inside to see. There was NO MENTION of this problem online that I ever found. Hope this is helpful to some, satwilson
Click to expand...

I had not noticed this post before! I will check.
 
I have a B&K AVR 507 and the screen reads "please wait" and hit doesn't get past this. Anyone had this issue or know what what the issue is? Thanks.
 
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