yellowfox
Active Member
Just finished rebuilding these Kennies that I've put off working on for ages, just never had the time. But Covid-19 has afforded me a lot of that recently.
Replaced all the black flags with TDK NP0s (micas are budget prohibitive) Also replaced every electrolytic. One amp fired right up. The other needed a little more troubleshooting. I only had -21v on the -60v test pin. Turned out to be a dead Q1 on the regulator board- a 2sc1669 which I replaced with an MJE15034G. Also replaced the bias and offset potentiometers and got these dialed in perfectly.
I was worried that these wouldn't offer up enough juice to power the AL-IIIs, but they're doing a fine job of it. They heat up just a bit since the Carvers are so inefficient, but no where near egg-frying heat. Driving the amps with an Aragon Stage One processor as a preamp and an Advent 300 as a phono pre. Put together a little relay module to turn on the amps from the Stage One's 12v trigger and the L-07MII's remote inputs.
Hearing all kinds of new things in music I've listened to for decades. The bass and mid bass is so tight on these amps. They are stupidly bright tho. Lots of sibilance on inner groove tracks- but I can live with that!
Replaced all the black flags with TDK NP0s (micas are budget prohibitive) Also replaced every electrolytic. One amp fired right up. The other needed a little more troubleshooting. I only had -21v on the -60v test pin. Turned out to be a dead Q1 on the regulator board- a 2sc1669 which I replaced with an MJE15034G. Also replaced the bias and offset potentiometers and got these dialed in perfectly.
I was worried that these wouldn't offer up enough juice to power the AL-IIIs, but they're doing a fine job of it. They heat up just a bit since the Carvers are so inefficient, but no where near egg-frying heat. Driving the amps with an Aragon Stage One processor as a preamp and an Advent 300 as a phono pre. Put together a little relay module to turn on the amps from the Stage One's 12v trigger and the L-07MII's remote inputs.
Hearing all kinds of new things in music I've listened to for decades. The bass and mid bass is so tight on these amps. They are stupidly bright tho. Lots of sibilance on inner groove tracks- but I can live with that!
