Marantz 2230 recap & LED conversion

[patfont]

Mouser usually charges me 4.99 shipping, Digikey will charge me the actual freight most of the time like 2.50-3.50. I think it cost me 3 bucks and some change to ship to you. So maybe check Digikey?

 

[pingu_turbo]

Mouser usually charges me 4.99 shipping, Digikey will charge me the actual freight most of the time like 2.50-3.50. I think it cost me 3 bucks and some change to ship to you. So maybe check Digikey?

I wished I lived over the pond sometimes. There just isn't the stores over here like you have. And when there is they are hellish expensive and I am better off shipping from overseas. I will have a look tomorrow now, its nearly midnight here and I have work early.

Leestereo, jstang & BK. I am liking these points of view. They make an interesting read. The question is where to draw the line between inbuilt distortion and clean pure sound. I guess it is down to the individual to find out. I just need to gauge that balance.

Enjoying the conversation chaps.

Forgot to ask, does anyone like my new festive avatar?

 

[Leestereo]

I'm across the pond, but above the 49th parallel now, so shipping is $20.00 (£12.60)!
As for "where to draw the line between inbuilt distortion and clean pure sound" remember that whereas its relatively easy to add distortion/colour (tone controls, EQ), its much more difficult to remove it.

 

[bktheking]

And just to think, he hasn't even explored tubes yet lol. Digikey is cheaper for us canucks, they have a warehouse in Mississauga- as for Mouser, they have more selection. Diggin the avatar, where'd you get pics of my wife?

 

[pingu_turbo]

I'm across the pond, but above the 49th parallel now, so shipping is $20.00 (£12.60)!
As for "where to draw the line between inbuilt distortion and clean pure sound" remember that whereas its relatively easy to add distortion/colour (tone controls, EQ), its much more difficult to remove it.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I do fully respect what you have said.

This is very true. But if you are like me, I have a very simple receiver only with inputs directly from source, then it it equally difficult to add the desired effect. It throws up a whole new question of 'what piece of gear to get and what goes well with what'. Don't get me wrong, but I see it as a new problem requiring a solution. To me it is another piece of equipment to loose sq through and another set of connections. Surly being analogue this is important? The way I look at it is simpler the better and although building in the 'desired effect' may be difficult & time consuming, it makes the whole setup simpler? I'm just thinking less is more.

All of the above may be BS to you guys who have the eq and the like (please tell me if I'm wrong). I am just trying to look at it outside of the box, with my limited knowledge of HiFi.

 

[pingu_turbo]

And just to think, he hasn't even explored tubes yet lol. Digikey is cheaper for us canucks, they have a warehouse in Mississauga- as for Mouser, they have more selection. Diggin the avatar, where'd you get pics of my wife?

Tubes, haven't gone there yet. One of my good friends keeps asking me why I faff about with SS stuff. Its because I like it. Tubes are for another time, I want to do this first.

Your wife? I must have stolen her from you then, I see here every night! lol

 

[patfont]

Very good point. It is known that even ordered harmonic distortions are interpreted by the brain as a pleasant "fuller" sound. In fact, the addition of even harmonic distortion is basically the operating basis of the Aphex Aural Exciter, a studio mixing sound enhancer that was used extensively in the 70s. This unit made tons of money for its creators, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphex_Systems. Similarly, in very general terms, tube amplifier designs, especially SET, have more even ordered distortions than solid state designs. Its like my Conrad Johnson tube preamp, I love its sound, but I also know that its not as accurate as my SS preamp and that's OK...sometimes I want chocolate ice cream rather than vanilla. Its a preference at a given particular time. Nevertheless, I tend to prefer a clean, neutral sound as a starting point, which I can modify (tone controls, tube rolling, speaker positioning), to an "enhanced" sound that is built-in to the circuit that can't be undone or compensated for easily.

Cool, I had a Conrad Johnson PV-5 in the past and I got spoiled by the soundstage that it threw out, I also had a Audio Research SP-6B that was very euphonically colored and yet had an open window in the midrange that for it's time was excellent. I too value accuracy but there are several things that I do not like in some of the things (caps) I have listened to. I really do not like a strident upper midrange or high end, and I also do not like a narrowed soundstage or image depth. Tone controls can bump up different freq's but it is impossible to add a soundstage, depth, and body to the music unless it is engeenered in, and some components have done it unknowingly and have become cult classics. So I do like a little midrange body and dimensionality, some of it may be slight distortions but other components of it are the passive component letting the performance come through. I am awaiting some of the 1060 components to be unrolled here, so I can maybe plug in some of the ides to my work and have an open mind about some of the technical side.

 

[bktheking]

It's coming- Yamaha cr-2020 first, then the 1060. I promise I will post the goods when the time is right.

 

[pingu_turbo]

It's coming- Yamaha cr-2020 first, then the 1060. I promise I will post the goods when the time is right.

BK I can't wait.

Well today, as I had a official day of sickness, I decided to go down to the post office depot and collect a couple of parcels that had been failed to be delivered. One of which was patfonts donation parcel. If was stuffed with lots of exciting goodies.

This was what I was greeted with upon opening.

I thought this was going to be good, I felt like a kid at christmas (is that sad?) And inside was some of these.

And all of these for my tone board! All nicely labelled and bagged so my brain couldn't get mixed up.

So anyway I set about removing the old caps from the PS board.

A quick wipe down with some alcohol to get rid of the old flux & glue

And soldered in the new ones. Before \/

After \/

And I then gave her a voltage check and a mini audition.....

All I can say is, amazing. Compared to before which I thought was good to now. The only way I can compare the difference is to describe as follows. Imagine you are stood outside a pub with a live band inside with the door slightly ajar, the music sounds ok, bit muffled with some boom and tizz. Then all of a sudden you open the door and walk through and you have all the sound range available to your ears. Its like someone put the band in here, compared to before.

My only problem now is I have to disconnect it all to carry on with the work, I really don't want to. I want to keep playing my favourite music and lots of it!

I really owe this to patfont, he is a star. Thank you so very much for the caps. You are a very generous individual.:yes:

 

[jstang]

Is that British code words for playing hooky?

Well today, as I had a official day of sickness,

 

[catrafter]

I know what the sharpie is for but how do the fork and the USB dongle fit in with the cap replacement?

Tom

 

[pingu_turbo]

Is that British code words for playing hooky?

Hehe, I suppose so. I was suffering from a squash injury from the evening before, I rolled over one of my ankles. The next morning it was all swollen and extremely painful to walk on, so day off to play

I know what the sharpie is for but how do the fork and the USB dongle fit in with the cap replacement?

They were two very critical pieces of equipment, which would have made this whole thing impossible!

I guess you have a sharpie too then, great little markers! The fork was on standby for when my dinner turned up and my ankle was 'too painful to get to the table' :yes: or so I told her indoors. The usb card reader was for when windows does its poxy update and boots the drivers out for my integral card reader. I put this on another post

Last edited by pingu_turbo; 12-07-2012 at 10:46 PM. Reason: non compliance of sd card reader - prick

made me laugh at the time.

So anyway after a couple of 'what way does this go' and 'is this really the right way' moments that patfont was able to assist with promptly, I now have a fully recapped pre amp board with all of patfonts refinements, that he kindly sent me.

Well here is the board stripped of all the old components.

The old parts

The new parts fitted

Spot the factory mistake that I had to question about, C415 & C414 sharing posts with C411 & C410

I fired her up first thing this morning after all the work was done and OMG how can this receiver get any better? The only down side at the moment due to non burnt in caps is the highs are a little shrill at higher volumes. I guess it will even itself out over the hours of running, but there is definitely a new dimension to this receiver now. I find it hard to listen to anything on my standard 2215b now, as much as I love it.

A little test run with my iphone as a source.

 

[pingu_turbo]

Ok, I have noticed something strange. My mute button no longer works. Not that I ever used it before, but I do know it was working before the recap began.

Where is the circuitry situated for this one? Have I cocked something up? :scratch2:

 

[catrafter]

The mute button is supposed to kill the hiss between FM stations.
Unless you broke a wire, I can't see how working on the power supply and preamp could affect it.

Tom

 

[pingu_turbo]

The mute button is supposed to kill the hiss between FM stations.
Unless you broke a wire, I can't see how working on the power supply and preamp could affect it.

Tom

Thanks for the clarification Tom. I must have been imagining another receiver!

I will check the leads when I'm home.

 

[mark_m]

Great thread for me as I'm on my way through a lesser updating of a 2230 I just picked up. Have done the power supply cap and coupling caps, if that's what they are, found 35 mm Panasonics for all three and lined the 40mm clamp with some black neoprene all the way around the circumference, making a very neat 2.5mm black band between the clamp and cap, very clean and solid.

Now this 2230 already sounded good enough that I thought it was maybe gratuitous to even do this, but they definitely improved the bottom end, gratifying indeed. I'm curious to know how much benefit doing all those other caps provided, as compared to the first step of the three big caps. I'm very tempted to leave it as is...

For me this has been an interesting diversion from my developing tube setup and now I'm perplexed as I'm not sure I want to swap out the Marantz once my tube pieces are back together. Plus I don't have a tuner for the tube setup and it sure is nice having just that one honkin piece of S.S. hardware in the living room, very pretty too...

 

[pingu_turbo]

mark_m that is something that cannot be taken away from the 2230 is the good looks. With regard to what to do with it, why not just put it in rotation with some of your other stuff. I know I like a change now and then, sometimes I like to listen to one set of speakers and others another, for example.

So far I am furiously burning in the caps I have installed and quite liking the results. The shrillness that I described earlier is fading (still there at high volume) and the receiver as a whole seems to be clearing up, just a bit more precise and more transparent, less sorta distorted (its difficult to describe) without loosing the marantz charm and smoothness.

I will say that I have been listening to some stringed orchestral music this evening and it sounds absolutely amazing. I am a bit taken back tbh.

 

[mark_m]

I'm playing it through some Klipsch Heresey I's, with x-overs updated to II's. Cannot complain about the sound. I'd love to do the full recap that you did, but it's an awful lot of caps to go through. If you or anyone knows what the next most valuable caps to replace would be, after the three cans, I'll go back into it for up to maybe another half-dozen caps. I still need to set the bias after putting the new caps in I guess, have not done that, I'm sure there's a thread here about how to do it...

Definitely gratifying fixing old stuff up and having it work better than you would have imagined. Working on getting a Dynaco ST70 going with a CJ PV-5 and when that's up I'll probably take the 2230 back down for biasing and any other caps. Too much fun and not enough time Glad you've had such success with yours. Someone in one of my dorms had one of these when i was in undergrad school, would have been brand new at the time and I remember being blown away by the sound at the time. And like you said, you can't beat them for looks

 

[patfont]

I'm playing it through some Klipsch Heresey I's, with x-overs updated to II's. Cannot complain about the sound. I'd love to do the full recap that you did, but it's an awful lot of caps to go through. If you or anyone knows what the next most valuable caps to replace would be, after the three cans, I'll go back into it for up to maybe another half-dozen caps. I still need to set the bias after putting the new caps in I guess, have not done that, I'm sure there's a thread here about how to do it...

Definitely gratifying fixing old stuff up and having it work better than you would have imagined. Working on getting a Dynaco ST70 going with a CJ PV-5 and when that's up I'll probably take the 2230 back down for biasing and any other caps. Too much fun and not enough time Glad you've had such success with yours. Someone in one of my dorms had one of these when i was in undergrad school, would have been brand new at the time and I remember being blown away by the sound at the time. And like you said, you can't beat them for looks

Had at different times the CJ PV-5 and also a Van Alstine ST-70 both great units! I ran the ST-70 with a Pas 3, and at the time I had the PV-5 I ran it with a Threshold S150.

 

[pingu_turbo]

I'm playing it through some Klipsch Heresey I's, with x-overs updated to II's. Cannot complain about the sound. I'd love to do the full recap that you did, but it's an awful lot of caps to go through. If you or anyone knows what the next most valuable caps to replace would be, after the three cans, I'll go back into it for up to maybe another half-dozen caps. I still need to set the bias after putting the new caps in I guess, have not done that, I'm sure there's a thread here about how to do it...

Full recap? I haven't hardly scratched the surface. Still have loads to do. I need to post about the led conversion too. I did that yesterday.

I'll have a look at how to set the bias when I'm at a PC. I hate using my phone to post.