What to do with this Sansui AU-666

[rugene]

Hi audio karma dot org,

Long time listener, first time caller, etc etc.

About five years ago I decided to replace my Sansui 661 (bought refurbished from Hawthorne Stereo in Seattle) with something a little nicer and a little more powerful. I read a lot, I mean a lot of posts here and eventually bought an AU-666 from eBay. It was functional but needed help and I went to "some guy" named Tone(!) who did enough to it to bring it to life but categorically refused to recap it. I told him I did not mind paying for the labor and he got angry at me.

Anyway, I've paired the AU-666 with a set of Large Advents (that I refoamed but did not recap) and a Denon DP-300F turn table mounted with a Denon DL-110 cart.

It had been sounding okay but doesnt seem to quite have the clarity I'd expect. Also, recently one of the stereo channels has started to drop out occasionally, so I have to switch it to mono to get sound out of both speakers. Some records sound altogether muddy while others seem alright, it really changes.

So here are my questions:
1) I understand the ~40wpc this amp produces may be a little low for the Advents, do you folks have any recommendations for speakers for a sparsely furnished 12x20 room?

2) I guess its time to take the Sansuisan in for a check up, figure out whats messing with the stereo and probably get it recapped. Could anyone recommend where to go for this in the NYC area? I found out about Blackie Pagano here but he only does tube amps.

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[avionic]

Welcome aboard ru..

 

[century tek]

The channel dropout is most likely dirty switches. When it acts up, wiggle the switches/buttons. If it crackles and/or comes back in, they just need some deox which you could probably do yourself.

It probably doesn't need a recap if everything is working and they are in spec.

 

[Dswankey]

Welcome aboard!

1) I understand the ~40wpc this amp produces may be a little low for the Advents, do you folks have any recommendations for speakers for a sparsely furnished 12x20 room?

The Sansui'ss punch well above their weight and at 40WPC they should be more then enough for those speakers. You would be amazed at how many watts one is actually listening to.

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/advent/new-advent-loudspeaker.shtml

AK has a lot of sub forums for certain manufacturers Sansui being one of them, all Sansui all the time.

https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?forums/exclusively-sansui.39/

 

[ivandezande]

Hi audio karma dot org,

Long time listener, first time caller, etc etc.

About five years ago I decided to replace my Sansui 661 (bought refurbished from Hawthorne Stereo in Seattle) with something a little nicer and a little more powerful. I read a lot, I mean a lot of posts here and eventually bought an AU-666 from eBay. It was functional but needed help and I went to "some guy" named Tone(!) who did enough to it to bring it to life but categorically refused to recap it. I told him I did not mind paying for the labor and he got angry at me.

Anyway, I've paired the AU-666 with a set of Large Advents (that I refoamed but did not recap) and a Denon DP-300F turn table mounted with a Denon DL-110 cart.

It had been sounding okay but doesnt seem to quite have the clarity I'd expect. Also, recently one of the stereo channels has started to drop out occasionally, so I have to switch it to mono to get sound out of both speakers. Some records sound altogether muddy while others seem alright, it really changes.

So here are my questions:
1) I understand the ~40wpc this amp produces may be a little low for the Advents, do you folks have any recommendations for speakers for a sparsely furnished 12x20 room?

2) I guess its time to take the Sansuisan in for a check up, figure out whats messing with the stereo and probably get it recapped. Could anyone recommend where to go for this in the NYC area? I found out about Blackie Pagano here but he only does tube amps.

Thanks in advance for the help!

The AU-666 will have a lot of "flying saucer" transistors and plenty of others will need replacing.

It's one of my favorites though.

 

[Old-School]

Also sprinkle with holy water. Welcome.

 

[rugene]

Also sprinkle with holy water. Welcome.

hah yes there's this weird thing where sometimes it growls at me and tells me my "mother sucks d***s in hell" is this normal?

 

[zastin17]

The Au666 is a Sansui Amplifier that has captured my heart!!

It sounds lovely in all scenarios I can throw at it!! Really great quality construction top to bottom!!

Its probably the very best middle ground for these beautiful old SS Sansui Units!!! Really a very special and very "completed" model from that line! Though the model name "666" makes me nervous to own it!! LMFAO!!!!

I recapped this unit, and I found all of the small capacitors to be drifted by 20-40%. 100ufs where 120-160uf. 10Uf where 25Uf or so. Small caps this age all have drifted.

I found the main power supply caps where fine, I will end up replacing them, but they are in tolerance and have incredible low leakage current. I find many large low voltage capacitors to be very well off if lightly used.

Some do need replacement, yes. But many large capacitors are so close too brand new in leakage tests, I can't bring myself to pull them.

Smaller capacitors, not so much. Just go in and pull them ALL!

Many of these caps are filters, decoupling, ect, ect. When all of them drift slightly, these set frequency "filter" points will aswell.
Soo the entire amplifier circuit will be slightly out of wack, assuming the capacitors are not flat out failing causing drop outs.

That can also be caused by flaky transistors. None of mine where bad, but those UFO transistors are WELL known to go noisy or even short out in that unit

Inside this unit there is also 1Uf Bipolars. Don't forget to use Bipolar Film capacitors as replacements.
And not polarized Electrolytic, just something I noticed today they are BP and not Polarized.