This customer’s RCF active speaker was apparently lent out and came back broken – unfortunately the negative rail mosfet and output transistors are short circuit, blew rail fuse – the woofer appears to have overheated and voice coil resulted in shorted turns which would have taken out the power amp (overdriven, probably clipping for ages!). […]
RCF ART310 Class-G active speaker repair Read More »
Customer was unable to continue running the FatTrack on 230V conditioned supply and was thinking it was overheating again. The rectified voltages from the original 2x115v primary 2 x 18v secondaries toroidal transformer should be 22V but on our 250V mains were measuring as high as 28V, the HT (from cascaded voltage doubler circuitry) should
Return of the TLA FatTrack! Read More »
I didn’t get such a good vibe when seeing the corrosion presented around the externals: And naturally the insides didn’t look too optimistic… (but this hasn’t been enough to decline repair in the past) However despite being one of the worst examples (with corroded broken tracks under the 10 way IDC socket too!), neutralised all
Another Linn Kairn battery leak Read More »
Customer stated their Focusrite interface no longer responds on Firewire, and had been repaired by Focusrite for the same problem in the past. Identified the TI TSB41AB2 Firewire IC as the most likely point of failure and managed to remove easily thanks to ChipQuik. In fact it was apparent that the IC was not properly
Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 broken Firewire fix Read More »
Sourced replacements but were supplied centre-detent versions, but a quick hack sorted that by removing the clicker ring: And fitted
Alesis DM10 broken volume pots Read More »
Rather forlorn-looking woofer from a Technics organ with disintegrated foam surround. Cut away the old material before prepping for surround replacement: New surround interior-glued to the cone and wait for curing Support the edges of the cone and verify central placement (important to ensure the coil is free from dragging in the narrow gap –
8″ woofer foam rubber surround replacement Read More »
Customer mentions having previously lent out their KRK Rokit passive speakers, they came back ‘sounding awful’, and went for a service elsewhere, apparently there was ‘some rewiring done’, mentioned the crossover, and something had burnt out? All a bit vague. Opened up inside and couldn’t see anything immediately obvious with the crossover (didn’t look like
KRK Rokit sounding awful Read More »
Customer stated that they inadvertently connected the speaker output to a mixer rather than the line output, and claimed it stopped working, no longer any output. Quite how this catastrophic failure occurred as a result of connecting to a high impedance input, not sure! Clean some of the compound away to see the damage (obliteration
Brennan JB7 blown up! Read More »
Customer asked service of this really nice 10″ reel capable 7.5IPS stereo quarter track reel to reel with a handy reverse-play option! Back off first – a bit of dust removal to undertake! Front panel removed for access to mechanicals: Restored tape counter to aid visibility (black plastic faded): Some more photos prior to service:
Akai GX635D Reel to Reel service Read More »
Customer brought in a couple of Lux91 300B-based amps, one suddenly stopped working. First off noticed customer had inadvertently managed to remove and reinsert the 300B 4-pin valve rotated 90 degrees (as a ‘diy’ check swapping valves between units) prior to bringing to me which of course failed to fix anything. Thankfully nothing damaged being
Lux91 MonoMax monoblocks one dead Read More »
With the Cary 300SE Monobloc amp in the previous post, turned out the intermittent popping sound was one of the expensive 300B valves! Customer had already considered new valves, so with nothing to lose thought lets just check the connections and after extracting some solder from the pins, found this! One of the wires loose,
300B valve surgery Read More »
A friend reported intermittent issues with loud pops from one of speakers connected to his Cary 300SE monobloc setup. After some diagnosing swapping leads round to rule out the preamp, the issue stayed with one of the monoblocks. Suspected perhaps intermittent shorting of high voltage capacitor plates. Brought them over and found quite a number
Cary 300se Monoblock Amps Read More »
Customer states this unit was turned on after a period of non-use and apparently some electrical smell came out! Let’s have a look inside. There’s a pair of complementary MJ15003/MJ15004 output transistors, and oops some burned out resistors in the middle. One of them got so hot it had clearly melted the solder it was
Deltec / DPA 50S Amplifier – smoking hot! Read More »
Customer had recently obtained this excellent Sony Walkman but had slipping belts. At first thought this wasn’t going to be an easy fix, as had another walkman in the past which would have needed about 30 wires desoldered from unmarked locations to gain access! However this one we had a service manual available if needed,
Sony WM-D6C Walkman belt service Read More »
A friend bought this amp but didn’t do anything when plugged in. Opened to find out the power board wire jumpers were cut from the preamp board inside. That would explain it. Apparently this is done so it can be powered externally from another device, and used just as a preamp, or split the preamp
Naim Nait 3 Amp no power Read More »
