PSB Subsonic 6i Repair

[ScooterMcTav]

Hello all,

I just recently acquired a PSB Subsonic 6i that I think might be worth repairing. With the front ports, front volume and crossover, and its reputation for being good for music, I thought it might be put to good use in my system.

Things I know:
- The speaker works fine - confirmed when I hooked up its leads to a second amp
- Once I replaced the severely blown fuse, it powered up, and stayed on
- Nothing produced sound with the sub on, neither the high level nor line level inputs
- No noise, crackles, or anything when manipulating knobs or switches
- The only thing that made noise was when the sub was turned off, it made a typical power-down pop

In doing some Internet research, I saw it suggested that the output transistors could be the first things to go in the event of a failure.

Unfortunately, there were no obviously blown or damaged components on the boards, so I'm not exactly where to start.

If anyone has had experience with this family of subs, or has an idea where I could start, it would be appreciated. Although the amp section seems pretty flyweight, the box, drivers, and engineering look pretty well designed. Better in my music room than a landfill.

 

[ScooterMcTav]

Let me posit a second question:

Suppose I like the design of the box and woofer, and I'd like to move away from the plate amp, how could this be done, short of buying a stand alone purpose made-amplifier?

I guess a car amp with DC power supply is one idea. I also thought of hooking an EQ to the pre outs in my Jolida to scrape down everything in the non-sub frequencies by at least 20db, then run it to a spare amp I have (H/K, Onkyo, and Rotel to choose from) to actually drive the woofer. I have a feeling this may leak through too much information that is at too high of frequencies, though with a 20db drop, it may hopefully move out of the audible range.

Or do I just throw the thing in a dumpster.