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New Leak System

S

Sept61

Active Member
Just picked up a Stereo 50, Point one stereo preamp, and a Trough-line FM tuner.

Haven't tried it yet. Should I get it serviced first or just go for it?
I never had any tube audio before. Any precautions? Words of wisdom?

Unit came with original tubes, and eight new spares.:banana:
 

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Very pretty set. My vote is to have it serviced first unless you know that it has been working from the previous owner.
 
Sept61 said:
Just picked up a Stereo 50, Point one stereo preamp, and a Trough-line FM tuner.

Haven't tried it yet. Should I get it serviced first or just go for it?
I never had any tube audio before. Any precautions? Words of wisdom?

Unit came with original tubes, and eight new spares.:banana:
Click to expand...

At least do a thorough visual check first before firing it up. Look for any component that looks cooked, resistors usually or capacitors that are swollen or have leaked.

It is likely that you need to recap to get the best out of your 50/50. I picked up a nice example of a 20/20 not long ago and plugged it in to see if it was working, after doing a visual :D. It was passing signal but was humming on one channel, which is usually a bad cap.

I'm going to do a complete recap of the power supply as well as replacing the coupling caps. Those old Leaks were under filtered in the power supplies and you can, at least, double the capacitance value. The cap that is directly after the GZ34 rectifier tube needs to be kept at 50uF or less. I have been finding this to be a great place to put in a Poly cap instead of an electrolytic. Putting a Solen 47uF can really clean things up. Make sure the voltage is as high if not higher than stock. There is quite a bit of room underneath my 20/20 not sure about 50/50 but a 47uF-630V Solen Poly might fit.

If everything looks OK and the amp does work make sure you don't leave it unattended or run it for a long period of time before recapping. The caps are probably getting on 40 years of age and have long out lived their life expectancy.

There are some great sites for rebuilding the 50/50. I'll see if I can't track them down for you.

Cheers

Lar
 
Very nice, congrats! :thmbsp: One day I'll find the right deal on a Leak amp, been wanting to at least hear one for quite awhile now.
 
Congrats on a great scroe :thmbsp: . I would do a recap and increase capacitance where applicable like diamodsouled said . Maybe we can have a recapping your new gear party :banana:...
 
It no good, ship it to me, back to the land where it was born!

Very, very nice, sympathetically serviced, it should give you hours of joyful listening. Nice to have a complete Leak set up.

"Leak Sandwich Speakers" I hear it calling!
 
Radfordman said:
It no good, ship it to me, back to the land where it was born!

Very, very nice, sympathetically serviced, it should give you hours of joyful listening. Nice to have a complete Leak set up.

"Leak Sandwich Speakers" I hear it calling!
Click to expand...


I agree send it to Radfordman back to the land of hope & glory! Lovely unit wish I had one.
 
Maron said:
Congrats on a great scroe :thmbsp: . I would do a recap and increase capacitance where applicable like diamodsouled said . Maybe we can have a recapping your new gear party :banana:...
Click to expand...

Thanks,

Recapping party.............never used that excuse before!

Sounds like fun!
 
wajobu said:
Very pretty set. My vote is to have it serviced first unless you know that it has been working from the previous owner.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If you're familiar with soldering, it shouldn't be much different than recapping a SS unit. If you have access to a Variac, that's always a good way to check out unknown tube gear.
 
+1 on the variac .. :thmbsp:

If you don't have access to one , you could always make a " poor man's variac " .
 
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