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Finally Getting to Any Audio Projects During Covid-19?

Bought a Sony TA-4650 VFET amp to work on. Seller claims it's working, but I never trust anything from eBay -- if the VFETs are blown, I'll be doing the Polonaise MOSFET mod. In any case, I'll give it a recap, repaste the outputs, new trimmers, and replace suicide diodes as well as some low-power transistors. Also gonna offer to recap a friend's Bryston amp.
 
I've been working on a heavily audio biased redecorating of my living room. I needed to paint the room. So while it was all apart I decided to put it back in a new layout. My favorite chair is now in the sweet spot between my speakers. It was way off to the side before.
A new stand for the stereo gear is right next to my chair now. I can just reach over to adjust volume as required. Old setup had gear spread wide on a table. New rack stacks gear vertical. That gave me the space above it to wall mount my turntable. I live in an old house with floors with a good bit of bounce to them. Old setup would maker records skip as you walked around.
So yesterday I was out in the garage and built a new platform shelf for the turntable to attach to the wall. Today I'll take the shelf out of the wood clamps and finish sand and prime it. I've also got some new holes drilled through the floor into the basement to run the speaker wires to the other side of the room.
As part of this upheaval I'm also replacing the ancient cheapie Panasonic 5.1 surround system for my TV. I have some much better used 5.1 gear I had been collecting for when the time came. Well the time is here. So in it goes too. I've kept my stereo system hooked up and functional through the whole mess. Loaded up the CD changer and let it play away while I worked.
All this work has really helped take my mind off the virus situation. I am prone to chest/lung infections. This whole Covid-19 deal is no small concern for me.
 
I'm going through a lot of RTR tapes that I got along with a deck I bought years ago. I'm checking to see if there is anything worth keeping or if I should record over them. I also have been checking out some family RTR's recorded by my father and my grandfather(!) in the 1960s. I'm thinking about ordering the White Oak kit to start doing my PL400 overhaul. I'm retired so it's more about being cooped up than not having time.
 
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Trying to organize the bits and pieces laying around. Mostly cartridges/head shells. I have a Dual 1019, that needs the motor bearings cleaned and oiled. Also need to go through and put away LP's.
 
Got 100s if to-do.
Working from home nets me a couple more hours per day.
The amount of time wasted in bad traffic is stupid.

I’m hoping the people WFH stay productive so companies decide to support it more.

Unfortunately, it may expose how lame many people really are at what they do. I’m finding a huge delay in response from fellow employees to email and instant messaging.
 
Just finished recapping and adding BB OPA2134 Op Amp to a Sansui TU-D99X tuner based on mods just posted at the fmtuners group at fmtuners@groups.io. Very sensitive and sounds very good for a fairly affordable tuner.
 
Ordered a bunch of parts, including stuff to re-cap my Moscode preamp. Also put a Magnavox AMP-150 (the 5 tube bi-amp one) on the bench to figure out exactly what it's deal is. I've never seen frequency plots of the crossovers, so I'm making one. Also doing some fiddling to see what improvements I can wring out of it for minor effort. Only have one and don't own any speakers it will work with, but with numbers I can figure out what speakers will play nice with it.
 
I just extended the ground wire on my old Empire 598 table. I have had to repair it over the years and the wire just kept getting shorter and shorter. Now, all is better.

Going to do a bit more work on the my AR-XA later today.

Still have a plan to go thru the records in the other room. Some will go to Goodwill, others to friends and others might move to my vinyl room, which means some in the vinyl room might go to Goodwill or to the other room. I think of it more as "spring cleaning".
 
I inherited a bozak project from another member a few months back and havent had much time to do anything significant. Hoping that'll change now!! Time to install the second crossover, isolate the mid-range drivers and give the cabs a good feed

There's a massive thread on them in the speaker fourm, I'll resurrect it with progress.
 
Found out that hydrogen peroxide is a great coronavirus killer, so while listening to the FMHD radio this afternoon, I'm going to give the kitchen countertops a splash. Look for the dilution ratios online.
 
OMGCat! said:
but I did order a pile of stuff just in case.
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Hey that’s a good idea! Wonder if Mouser, etc are considered essential, or if they’ll get shut down in short order as well. Better figure out which projects and order parts soon...
 
BassKulcha said:
Hey that’s a good idea! Wonder if Mouser, etc are considered essential, or if they’ll get shut down in short order as well. Better figure out which projects and order parts soon...
Click to expand...

As far as I know they are taking orders for now. I’d get it in as quick as you can. Never know when they’ll go dark.
 
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