Mint Sony PS-3000 turntable, SS-3300 speakers, components, what are they worth?

[Sam Cogley]

You might use a multimeter to make sure that the tinsel leads have continuity to the terminals, if you haven't already. I've seen a few that broke in nearly imperceptible ways, or in hidden areas. If the VCs are toast, hopefully you can find some replacements before too long.

 

[bberkom]

You might use a multimeter to make sure that the tinsel leads have continuity to the terminals, if you haven't already. I've seen a few that broke in nearly imperceptible ways, or in hidden areas. If the VCs are toast, hopefully you can find some replacements before too long.

I may give that a shot and see if I can find a break in the leads. It's killing me to not be able to hear these speakers right now!

 

[bberkom]

Additionally, does anyone know what weight of silicone oil I should use in the damping cylinder of the PUA-286 tonearm? Old oil had mostly leaked out and gummed up everything.

 

[markshan]

I use 125000 from the skate shop in my JVC cuing mechanism.

 

[Montycat]

I don't know the best weight for that model but 300k is typically good in many mechanisms.

 

[bberkom]

You might use a multimeter to make sure that the tinsel leads have continuity to the terminals, if you haven't already. I've seen a few that broke in nearly imperceptible ways, or in hidden areas. If the VCs are toast, hopefully you can find some replacements before too long.

I found some replacement tweeters that should be here sometime this week. It'll be a couple long days staring at these speakers until they get here. Turns out they are almost the same tweeters used in Sansui SP2000 speakers, so they aren't too hard to find. I am probably going to try to track down another pair as backups in case these ever decide to go bad.

 

[bberkom]

And I thought I was alone in my steadfast need to recap. Bravo, lads.

Fresh caps are the way to go, but like already stated, just leave the old caps in place. Did this with my Marantz Imperial 6's, because I'm not certain the original caps are electrolytic, so they stayed, but are retired.

Once I get my new tweeters in, I'm going to recap with some Dayton 1% poly's and just run them around the originals. The capacitance values on a couple of the original caps are a little different (17.7 uf, 8.8 uf), so I'll have to run some parallel pairs to get the same values. Good thing there is plenty of space in these cabs.

 

[onwardjames]

Once I get my new tweeters in, I'm going to recap with some Dayton 1% poly's and just run them around the originals. The capacitance values on a couple of the original caps are a little different (17.7 uf, 8.8 uf), so I'll have to run some parallel pairs to get the same values. Good thing there is plenty of space in these cabs.

Save some money, and use the dayton 5%. They spec out at 2 to 3 %, and are far cheaper. Not sure anyone can hear a 1 to 2 pct difference. This has worked well for me.

 

[bberkom]

Save some money, and use the dayton 5%. They spec out at 2 to 3 %, and are far cheaper. Not sure anyone can hear a 1 to 2 pct difference. This has worked well for me.

Good info. I already placed my order for the 1%'s. I usually go for the 5%, but guess I was feeling crazy today. I'll probably stick to the 5% in the future.

 

[bberkom]

Some photos. Just waiting on tweeters and some silicone oil. Is it possible that these are oil caps and not electrolytic caps?

 

[grantly]

I really want to hear these speakers over the break. I couldn't tell from your post, but did you just end up ordering replacement tweeters?

Also, I wonder if the new TT will unseat your Dual as the prized 'table of the house.

 

[bberkom]

I really want to hear these speakers over the break. I couldn't tell from your post, but did you just end up ordering replacement tweeters?

Also, I wonder if the new TT will unseat your Dual as the prized 'table of the house.

Yeah, I found some of the Sansui tweeters that are at least very close replacements for the dead ones. I hope to get them this week sometime. Should have the TT up and running soon too. Every second I can't hear those speakers is killing me.

 

[bberkom]

The replacement Sansui tweeters should be here today. Can't wait to put them in. But out of curiosity I opened up the old tweeters all the way to see if I could find a tinsel lead break or discontinuity somewhere. The tinsel leads are intact but I still get no reading from the voice coil on my multimeter. There's a decent bit of corrosion on the magnet and housing. Just an old dead tweeter now.

If I wanted to upgrade these tweets later on, anyone know of a decent 16ohm tweeter? Could also put in an 8 ohm I suppose and modify the crossover.

 

[bberkom]

Tweeters are in, and these are very good speakers. I'm powering them with my Fisher 500c now, and they are loving the tubes. Very surprised at how efficient they are. I've been listening to Klipsch Heresy's, so it's a very different sound. A lot less forward and tons more low end as you would expect. Someone else who has these speakers said they use oil-in-paper caps in these that don't go out of spec as easily as electrolytics, but I still bet they could benefit from a recap. Looking forward to trying them out with the Sony amp tomorrow.

 

[bberkom]

Thanks to anyone who gave me advice and encouraged me to go after this stuff. I finally got the turntable operational, and it just sinks into the background with my Fisher and the Sony speakers. It's holding speed very well, but I'm sure I'll eventually rebuild the speed/servo section. It came with a Grado ZF3 cartridge, and I ended up going with a Red1 stylus. I've never had a Grado cart before, and I am really enjoying it so far. The only part missing on the turntable was the fingerlift, but I managed to pirate a very similar one from another Sony headshell and just need to source some tiny screws for it. I even have the milled aluminum 45-puck and foldable dust cover (although it's a little rough and was held together at the corners with duct tape at some point).

I talked to the original owner about coming over to hear the setup all together once I have it up to snuff. He bought it in Guam 45+ years ago from a Japanese-run electronics shop and has been hauling it around the country all this time even though he hasn't used it in decades. It's definitely a set I'll never break up, so it'll be cool if he can hear it rocking again. Heck, I'll probably give him a lifetime pass to come over any time he wants for the price I paid. Freddy Mercury is just melting my face right now.

 

[HyKlas]

Glad to hear everything is going well.

Interested to hear how your turntable rebuild goes, when it happens. I recapped mine and now the speed just runs full steam ahead. Haven't cared enough to examine further so it's just a dust magnet for now...

 

[bberkom]

Glad to hear everything is going well.

Interested to hear how your turntable rebuild goes, when it happens. I recapped mine and now the speed just runs full steam ahead. Haven't cared enough to examine further so it's just a dust magnet for now...

I actually read your thread on that. I may hold off until mine gives me problems. I worried about the variable resistors for the 33 or 45 speed controls opening up after looking at mine but I think they're in okay shape after I cleaned them up. I'm super happy with how it sounds. Sorry yours isn't cooperating. It'll come around.

 

[bberkom]

I ended up recapping these speakers yesterday, and I can say there is already a noticeable difference in the way they sound. Before recapping I had the treble turned up a hair and the bass turned down a good bit on my receiver. Highs weren't quite all there, and the bass sounded good but had some extra resonance and muddiness to it. Now there is a lot better separation of the bass and highs so that my tone controls are back at center and they sound much more balanced and forward. Still a very laid back speaker though. I measured the old (must be PIO) caps, and most were pretty far out of spec, especially the cap for the tweeter. Glad I decided to go ahead with the new caps.

 

[bberkom]

Glad to hear everything is going well.

Interested to hear how your turntable rebuild goes, when it happens. I recapped mine and now the speed just runs full steam ahead. Haven't cared enough to examine further so it's just a dust magnet for now...

It's been a while since I put my PS-3000 on the shelf, but last week I finally ordered caps for the servo board and recapped it today. I ordered transistor replacements as well just in case, but new caps tightened things up, so original trannies are still installed. Speed is very steady, and I didn't have any issues. If you decide to open yours back up, I would look for cold/cracked solder joints first. Since the circuit in question is a servo, and your motor is just spinning full speed, it sounds like the circuit is not reading the feedback from the motor correctly, and is just running wide open. As long as your caps are all oriented correctly, I'd imagine you may have disturbed a solder joint when removing the board from its enclosure, which was a bit of a pain. Many of the factory joints looked old and dry and got reflows. I double-checked polarity of the installed caps versus the schematic as well, and there were no inconsistencies. I would also make sure that there isn't a cold joint with either of the green jumper wires that are installed on the solder side of the board. One of them is installed with one of the leads of a capacitor, and I had to make sure the wire was fully heated so that the solder would reflow onto it when I replaced that cap. I would also suspect the two speed pots that set the 33 and 45 rpm speed ranges. Mine were clean and work fine, but if one of those went south, it could be causing your speed issues, but it would only show up in one of the two speed settings unless both pots went bad. Hope you can get it up and running again. It is a great table.