Thank you for watching! Yeah soon as I broke open the amplifier I knew that was my smoking gun of sorts causing the issue. Whoever was in there before me was cutting corners.
Im very glad i found your video Sir. I am about to pull the trigger on used one. The same design made in USA. Can you please tell me what do you think about when it comes to reliability and longevity ? Is it made with good components ? And where are you located ? I like the work you do!
Very good reliability and components are decent even though the newer ones are made in China. It's the same circuit so a lot of the bugs have been figured out already. I'm located in Connecticut.
2:47 before I watch the rest of the video I'm going to take a stab... Dying capacitor? 🤔 I've come across capacitors that had an ability to recover after the unit is switched off for a while but then give out again and each time they last a shorter time until they finally die. Now to watch the rest of the video to see if I guessed right! 😀 Edit: oh well, I was wrong 😂
That was my initial thought as well but no it was a conductive solder flux issue that prematurely wore out the power valves. Eventually though this amplifier will need its filter capacitors replaced but it's still young for that service.
I've not had that issue. Usually I'm looking for dry joints, cracked tracks, broken wires in my physical inspection. Something to add to my checklist! 😀 Good video 👍
@@unclemick-synths yeah I checked all the typical stuff I did not find any cold solder joints or anything like that. I think somebody was in here before me. They did not clean up the solder flux after replacing the sockets I'm thinking. Many of the pins were bridged together maybe not a low enough resistance to cause a short but certainly enough to stress out the valves.
@@Bassguitarist1985 it seems too clean to have needed work. Back in the day my first CD player was so unreliable that I took it apart and it was full of bad soldering. I know wave soldering was still new back then but this thing was old school hand-soldered components. I went through and resoldered everything! There's a reason I can't hold back a wry grin when people get all misty-eyed about "hand soldered" - fine if it was me doing the soldering but a minimum-wage pieceworker? Give me wave soldering every time!
@@unclemick-synths exactly I was very surprised when I got the amplifier that it needed any kind of this work at all. It looks like it was kept in a studio. Very little to any road rash. Agreed wave soldering is the standard!
Thanks for the explanation on why the flux “can” become conductive. It certainly gave me something to consider.
Thank you for watching! Yeah soon as I broke open the amplifier I knew that was my smoking gun of sorts causing the issue. Whoever was in there before me was cutting corners.
Im very glad i found your video Sir. I am about to pull the trigger on used one. The same design made in USA. Can you please tell me what do you think about when it comes to reliability and longevity ? Is it made with good components ? And where are you located ? I like the work you do!
Very good reliability and components are decent even though the newer ones are made in China. It's the same circuit so a lot of the bugs have been figured out already. I'm located in Connecticut.
@Bassguitarist1985 thank you so much !. I will reach out if I need amp work.
@@hkmz455 You in Connecticut as well?
2:47 before I watch the rest of the video I'm going to take a stab... Dying capacitor? 🤔 I've come across capacitors that had an ability to recover after the unit is switched off for a while but then give out again and each time they last a shorter time until they finally die. Now to watch the rest of the video to see if I guessed right! 😀
Edit: oh well, I was wrong 😂
That was my initial thought as well but no it was a conductive solder flux issue that prematurely wore out the power valves. Eventually though this amplifier will need its filter capacitors replaced but it's still young for that service.
I've not had that issue. Usually I'm looking for dry joints, cracked tracks, broken wires in my physical inspection. Something to add to my checklist! 😀
Good video 👍
@@unclemick-synths yeah I checked all the typical stuff I did not find any cold solder joints or anything like that. I think somebody was in here before me. They did not clean up the solder flux after replacing the sockets I'm thinking. Many of the pins were bridged together maybe not a low enough resistance to cause a short but certainly enough to stress out the valves.
@@Bassguitarist1985 it seems too clean to have needed work. Back in the day my first CD player was so unreliable that I took it apart and it was full of bad soldering. I know wave soldering was still new back then but this thing was old school hand-soldered components. I went through and resoldered everything!
There's a reason I can't hold back a wry grin when people get all misty-eyed about "hand soldered" - fine if it was me doing the soldering but a minimum-wage pieceworker? Give me wave soldering every time!
@@unclemick-synths exactly I was very surprised when I got the amplifier that it needed any kind of this work at all. It looks like it was kept in a studio. Very little to any road rash. Agreed wave soldering is the standard!