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New to me 222 - the venerable triple deuce

Not Sure said:
Also @petesui thats some high praise for the 222, the 3300 is a fantastic receiver. Very underrated imho (Love Mine).
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Agreed, 100%. The 3300 is an absolute tank too. I think its form factor is very similar to an 8500. And so many features. Mine is great, it's not going anywhere. The 222 is better suited to the space on the shelf in the bedroom. My 3300 is very nice, mint really. I bought it from the original owner who brought it back from Okinawa after Vietnam. He flew Military Airlift Command (MAC) flights for TWA. Came with all the original literature, too. The 222 is a simpler machine with pure tone.
 
I just put my 222 back in rotation, replacing a 9090DB. I'm blown away by the sound, there must be something wrong with the 9090.... I think this every time the 222 gets it's turn in the rotation. Such a wonderful & pleasing sounding amp.
 
Scott Muni said:
there must be something wrong with the 9090....
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It's crazy, right? I'm listening to an SR-838 with a Sumiko Blue Point No. 3 into a Hagerman Audio Labs Cornet tube phono stage into the AU-11000 preamping the BA-2000 out to ADS L810s, and don't get me wrong, it sounds pretty $@÷!ing sweet right now, but the tone and simplicity of that little amp is hard to beat.
 
I call it triple deuce supremacy!



Not Sure said:
Can’t wait! Stripping down the last one was ballsy and turned out awesome. Would hate to see the masses start doing it, but do your thing bro.

It would help to figure it out if more Japanese sellers would pop the top in the pics of the units they sold. They do so rarely.
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TY. I'm hoping not to irreversibly modify multiple amps but I know there's two or three I'll keep no matter what so it doesn't matter to me if I make them something other than what most would prefer. I'm feeling like I'm going to have to learn to anodize to get the look I want. Also toying with the idea of a slight tilt on the faceplate, ala the Luxman CL30. (Would only work with a wood case.)

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HFEs for the few 871s I've removed have been mid 200s, mid 200s, mid 300s and a mid 500.

While I wait for my Mouser order I rechecked the last few 1845s and found a couple that are close enough:

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All the electrolytics and 871s are removed, as are a couple of carbon resistors sitting in the signal path. Desoldering so many wires from the tone board is more nerve-wracking than removing the large selector switch on the phono board!


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This amp has lived a harder life than some, I think. I can count a handful of lytics that were anywhere near 20% in spec. The vast majority were more than 50% out of spec, many a 100% off. Even the larger caps, which I would think are less susceptible to drying out, were almost doubled - 470 > 790 uF.
 
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@bhairavi, you mentioned learning to anodize your own parts. If you end up doing so, and become proficient at it, I'll likely want to converse with you over taking on some small "side projects", if you are so willing. Please keep us apprised of your efforts on that front.
 
Sansuiman said:
@bhairavi, you mentioned learning to anodize your own parts. If you end up doing so, and become proficient at it, I'll likely want to converse with you over taking on some small "side projects", if you are so willing. Please keep us apprised of your efforts on that front.
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Almost certainly on the horizon, I've been staring at the silverface for a while. Went back to uniform size knobs (y'all were right), two, I think the protectaclear is not as durable (when I pressed my fingers hard against the surface in order to remove a knob, my nails marred the surface) and I think matte was the wrong option, and three, the engraved letters need black paint.

So it's going to get a xylene bath, which may dissolve the paint in the lettering as well, but either way once it's naked, I will probably be sanding instead of using the scotchbrite, then anodizing, then painting in the lettering. Have to figure out a power supply that will work well..
 
playittwice said:
Maybe, but after I got into CC units my restored 9090, 999, and AU9500 went to new homes. ;)
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I have several CC, really enjoy them. I restored and modified a AU999, it responded nicely to the mods. I would say it's the best sounding of my collection, the rest of the non CC will be the first to go when it's time to thin the herd.
 
Scott Muni said:
I have several CC, really enjoy them. I restored and modified a AU999, it responded nicely to the mods. I would say it's the best sounding of my collection, the rest of the non CC will be the first to go when it's time to thin the herd.
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I have a nice original (I believe) 999 coming. I'm very curious to see and hear what it's like. Future plans for it, if any, TBD.
 
petesui said:
I have a nice original (I believe) 999 coming. I'm very curious to see and hear what it's like. Future plans for it, if any, TBD.
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Mine was original, except for a shoddy repair on one of the driver boards. It was lacking bass, and sounded tired. It responded well to all the tricks posted on AK. And so easy to work on. I really enjoy listening to it.
 
Well I tried using the oscilloscope for setting midpoint, but I couldn't get the sine wave to clip by dialing up the midpoint voltage even past 32V (whereas the top rail is only 53V). However I was only using speakers and not a load resistor. So I just went ahead and ordered some 8 ohm 100W resistors..


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Speakers won't work for load testing, since they have a impedance curve. Resistance changes in relation to frequency. Wish I had paid more attention in high school electronics class... 50 yrs later, the internet is a awesome source to educate this old brain.
 
Alright, after a lot of futzing I figured out how to do this properly. Just going by clipping on the scope, both channels midvoltage ended up right at 26.6V while rail measures 53.9V. So the scopeless way seems pretty accurate - just slightly less than half of rail voltage will get you there. Vol dial had to be around 8 (9 o'clock) to get it to clip at 1khz.

Got carried away looking at the scope and let the outputs get quite hot, moved the 100W resistor and burned my hand. That 5 pack were all exactly 8.0 ohms. If I do this more often I might mount a couple of a piece of aluminum rail.

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By the way, isn't the method of setting the bias somewhat flawed/asymmetric? When you set the L bias it's with no current running through the R channel, but when setting the R channel the L channel is active. Thoughts?
 
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Was listening to this one at the workbench last night. Sounded too bright. Then I remembered I'd put in bypass caps on the outputs. For some reason I thought they were 3.3uf. No go, way too bright, took a look inside and actually they were only 0.47uf! I mean 3.3uf is also miniscule, exactly 1/1000th of the capacitance, but I've been led to believe bypass caps on the output can significantly change the sound, and that is now my experience. Took them back out today. As far as I'm concerned, this amp does not need and does not benefit from bypass caps on the outputs.

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