Linn Intek Amplifier Repair - Mods gone wild!
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2017
- Got this Linn Intek Amplifier in for repair. There's horror lurking inside!
The contact cleaner I use is Teslanol Oszillin T6. I think it's only available in Europe so if you are closer to the US, you might want to use Deoxit (which I haven't used myself but some folks I trust have tried it and assured me it works well).
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I was expecting there to be a small sign inside, that said "An audiofool was here." lol
I spent quite a few years reading "audiophile" forum threads, dabbling in Digital Room Correction, building and repairing amps, and thought I'd seen it all - until this vid. :p
Hahaha =D
I repaired quite some amps before but this one is by far the worst modification I have ever seen.
Room correction...room correction is only really important if you have a very small room, a room which echoes a lot or are setting up a multichannel sound system.
douro20
Yep - it was mainly for surround sound.
When the log sweep measurement worked OK, movies and music sounded incredible.
Many AV receivers now have Audyssey or similar nowadays, which can get you 90% of the way there.
👍
thats audiophile dust, sold at 100 a gram!
OMFG! Sand & silicone????? What's wrong with previous owner?
I don't know. It's obviously a horrible mod.
"That's... an interesting thing to do" - what an understatement :D I love it!
Excellent as usual. Thanks for the upload.
Thank you, Xavier! :)
The sand prevents oxidation into the switches sanding the contacts
Great vid again Jan love the amp very informative. Kim
Thanks!
You are a remarkably patient and kindhearted person. If I opened that amp up and saw that cluster f@ck, I'd close it right back up and send it back to the owner.
Sand in the pots.....O-M-G!!!
OMG @ sand added into those candle containers lol! Insane the things people do!!! Great job =D
Thanks. Yeah, what an utterly horrible idea. Glad that it ended well. The switches worked even better after the contact cleaner dried completely. Almost as good as new now. ;)
I have the same model ( without the sand etc ) located in CT any suggestions on a repair source ?
Nice overview. I have my Intek since 1990/91. Though it is not High-End and doesn't have the grunt to satisfyingly drive more demanding speakers, it sounds better than many amplifiers of its tier. I did test it side by side against my own Yamaha AX500, which was no contest at all, creek, arcam alpha and mission cyrus and put my money on this one. It may be simple and lacking on some accounts but Linn put some effort into the Phono-Section which offers MM as well as MC amplification. Look at this nicely layouted section in the upper right corner. Both will put many much more expensive (todays used prices) alternatives to shame especially the MC-section. So if you are looking for a good MC-Preamp, your budget is tight and there is an intek at hand: Give it a try as a preamp. May look like overkill using an integrated for that but may not sound like it (pun intended).
@ Jan Beta Do you know what class amp this is considered??
Almost certainly AB
Is it an SX-64 under the table? A video about it would be really nice.
"Skreetch skreetc.. It's all full of sand!" Lol. That's a first one :)
Haha, yeah. Definitely something I have not encountered yet. People have strange ideas. ;)
Linn products are based in Waterfoot a small village outside Glasgow, about 7km from me
You're not going to clean all that silicone that they put around the inside perimeter of the Amplifier? or are you just going to leave it?
can the knobs of these source switches be pulled off so you can spray the contact cleaner inside the front of the switches ?
I didn't really try but in most cases it's rather difficult to get contact cleaner in from the front panel in my experience. Except there are special holes for that purpose (there are sometimes, which is of course very convenient).
ah ok it was just a thought :)
And what was the purpose dir this whole glue areas in the case? Never das those Things before.
I think it was supposed to also dampen the vibration. The transformer was vibrating slightly (which is pretty normal because it's basically a huge electromagnetic thing powered by AC voltage) which made the whole case vibrate. In the end, it was just a screw that came loose...
Hey Jan, great video. You should consider creating a talk-free ASMR video from all the scenes of all your videos where you fix and clean your electronics with sounds of unscrewing, unmounting, , brushing, spraying (alcohol, WD40), vacuuming, etc. I'm sure it would be super chill.
Haha, that's a new idea. Maybe a second channel with ASMR repair videos? :)
What on earth was someone thinking with the glue and sand. Ghee whiz. Good repair there anyway.
I don't know. I just don't know. Horrible idea obviously. ;)
Sand is used in some fuses to extinguish an electric arc. Maybe it was applied to extinguish a case fire on Q602 in INTEK ;)
Hi Jan, nice Video! I had the same problem had with my Intek amplifier ( but mine is a non-mod, original inside one ;-) ). I lived with it but now I have "perfect" silence. No listening channel delivers any sound. I know thats another problem, but I would like to ask what you think about it or anyone here in the comments? In my opinion that smells like a broken poti. I'll try to measure the transistor behind the volume poti to have a lok. If that has good values I would like to replace the poti.
The sand grains are meeting their sibblings on/in the board :)
Haha, yeah, something like that. ;)
Strangly enough i have seen that mod with the silocon and sand in two of these amps the idea (so i am told) came from an artical in a well known british magazine.
another interesting video.
about the cleaner spray: i have no experience with the spray you are using - how good is it for long term preservation? many contact cleaners are very agressive and do more harm than good in the long run.
the agressive ones do a good job at removing corrosion at first but leave residue behind that actually corrodes contacts even further over time to the point contacts in switches and pots get completely destroyed.
at work we use "reiniger 601" almost exclusively. it evaporates without any leftovers almost like isopropyl alcohol
I've been using the Teslanol stuff for a couple of years now and it works very well for me so far. Hasn't destroyed any pots yet and it really seems to seal the contacts with a very thin coating. There's also an equivalent of reiniger 601 from the same brand I sometimes use to clean more stubborn dirt. It evaporates fully like you described.
Is there a difference between T6 and Kontakt Chemie Tuner 600?
I think Muricans use DeoxIT D5, but i've never seen it in Europe.
Also you can use the RUclips music library... not that i care about hearing an amp over RUclips, it's bonkers anyway, better to trust your judgement that it sounds fine.
I actually never tried Tuner 600 myself but it seems to have the same effect minus the sealant layer that T6 also claims to add. Deoxit D5 seems to be very similar (although it indeed is nearly impossible to get here -- at least for reasonable prices). Yeah, I thought about the RUclips library but as you say it doesn't matter much because the real sound would never translate through RUclips anyway.
Oh the Tuner 600 seems to be purely volatile, it's got a pretty convincing cleaning action while liquid but it evaporates completely, which is why if in doubt, you can spray it into just about anything you damn desire, like modern CPU sockets or whatever. If you happened to wash out some particular kinds of faders and potentiometers with it, you do need to re-lubricate them.
If it was yours to keep, a complete rebuild would be par for the course. There's a few ways you can remove the selastic, usually white spirits or turpentine replacement paint thinner weaken it sufficiently, but there's also siloxane delinking agents (caulking stripper) you can buy at a home improvement store.
Yes, I would definitely have put more work into it if I was to keep it. The colleague I repaired it didn't care much though and just wanted it to work again (he used it primarily for home cinema stuff, I believe).
Great video! It's easy to recognize M Davis from oscilloscope - just trying to make some jokes. :)
Wow, never seen anything like it! Well done. Wonder how much sand is under the PCB ;-)
You could actually peek inside through the vents on the bottom and there (luckily) was no sand at all.
The only way to fix it is to desolder the switches and pots to clean them properly. I found a Sansui AU-11000 buried in sand on a rubbish tip with a corner poking out, it was full of sand, it took a complete strip down and rebuild to get it going properly again.
They definately fucked that up
Yeah, I've never seen a horrible mod like this before.
I am literally speechless that poor Linn Intek
Yeah, it was pretty bad. Luckily it could be saved.
Gorgeous amp, but holy cow, 'sand-in-tealights anti-vibration modules' are not a quality DIY spark of genious. I chuckled out loud when you found those. Fun vid!
Thanks Mark! Obviously an absolutely horrible idea to put these candle things in there. I couldn't believe it when I realized what they were. Huge facepalm. ;)
I was thinking that you might turn the sand into mud with that contact cleaner. What an idiotic thing to do. To choose sand as a weight inside an amplifier. Why would you do that anyway? aha...transformer vibration. Makes sense.
Nice job getting it tidied up again.
It really was a bit muddy in the end but I got most of the Sand out by washing it out with about a gallon of isopropanol alcohol (couldn't show it in the video because I had to do it in the crammed bathroom). Turned out okay in the end. The screeching noise also went away after the contact cleaner fully dried so it's nearly as good as new now. :)
I wonder if the person who put all that glue and sand in saw your video. It was the transformer all along!
So I am assuming that the sand in the switches is what was causing all the problems. A very strange modification to keep vibration down. They Have isolation feet for that, lol. Yes Linn is very high end, a very nice integrated amplifier.
Yes, the sand and a dirty volume pot were the reason for the crackling I think. I don't know what whoever modded this was thinking with the sand... It's just wrong in every possible way. ;)
I've seen stuff like this with the glue on guitar power heads but never seen weights.
Some RG-6 or RG-59 Coax with BNC ends and a BNC to Banana adapter works well. At my job we use RG-6 for Subwoofers, works quite well.
Ah, it might make sense in the guitar amp heads because they are often sitting on top of the speakers I guess. At least it makes more sense than in a hifi amp. I really need to get some adapters and proper cables. It's definitely not going to be the last amp I'm going to be working on.
Come to think of it the worse I seen however was some one used expand foam between the circuit board and chassis, caused a huge crack to form on the circuit board. I had to jump the traces with magnet wire and hookup wire on the traces. That was the worst repair ever and thank goodness the PCB was single sided and a schamatic was available.
Whoah. Expand foam? That's a really bad idea indeed... Glad you were able to fix it. Hope it was worth it. ;)
Not really, removing the foam from the PCB was a real pain and the owner didn't want to pay me the full amount. He didn't want to pay me the labor cost and only wanted to pay me the price in parts. So I kept the amp and replaced the power head with a lesser grade unit and sold it on craigslist, got half the money for the work. Since then I only work of stuff for friends, family and share my knowledge with others.
Oh, that sucks. :( I like the "sharing your knowledge" part very much though. Thanks for that.
what about recapping the capacitors ?
Probably a good idea!
they also made the very very famous linn drum machine from the early 80's
No they didn't
I wonder if the previous imbicile owner used acetic acid based silicone. The acetic acid will cause bad corrosion inside.
Wonderful. Miles Davis has never sounded so good :D
Haha, would have loved to play some cool jazz but I guess RUclips wouldn't approve. So at least I got the visual representation running for a bit. ;)
Jan Beta - Yep. They wouldn't like that at all. You could have used something from the RUclips library, though. I still can't believe someone went to all that trouble over a loose screw. I'd love to know story behind that.
We'll never know, I guess. The RUclips library is one idea. I think I might try to use some of the recordings I made (when I worked as an audio engineer years ago) in future videos. Just didn't have any of that stuff handy.
I would love that amp.
It is a beautiful unit indeed. :)
Teslanol Oszillin T6 is definitely the best.
The Intek wasn't a particularly high-end amp to begin with. If this was a higher end one it would had been made of aluminium extrusion and the PCB would had been floating on rubber mounts.
These Darlington transistor hi-fi amps were very popular at that time. I have one myself but it's a Phoenix Gold M25 and it needs a very beefy power supply to run properly so I haven't tried it yet.
You're right, the high end is open to even higher stuff. Maybe the Linn stuff is the high end of good consumer stuff or something. It's a decently made and nicely sounding amp for sure.
Jan Beta No, this is low-end Linn. High-end is all component systems with separate preamps and processors. Those are only available by request and can be upwards of $20-30k for just an amp/preamp combo.
Ah, okay! Now I get it. Thanks for clarifying.
Sand! I didn't see that one coming.
Me neither. Never seen anything like this in an amplifier before.
LOL😅 Interesting mod
i guess bar was to strengthen top for other hifi to stand ontop, but the rest, i have some green sharpies to sell him to paint the edges of his CD collection, for a cheap $50 each , haha
Haha, yeah, there's a lot of bs going on in the audiofool realm. :P
LOL, I thought the glue was horrible when you opened the case. That was until I saw the sand filled tea lights. WTF! I can´t see anyone doing that without drugs - seriously.
You probably could clean the switches using a vacuum cleaner with a small nozzle.
I did this on the switches and potis of my Harman Kardon 6250. It worked very well and I got rid of about 95% of the scratching. But I´ve read it can be problematic because the air flow can induce electric voltage. But that goes for all kind of airflow, including blowing.
And the problem with blowing is of course you could get dust everywere - or in your case SAND. I can´t get over that mod.
BTW Thanks for the recommendation of Teslanol Oszillin T6. I´m gonna get some of that at some point.
Yeah, it definitely was the most horrible mod I have seen so far. I think inducing electricity in the potentiometers usually shouldn't do any harm (and I don't really know how blowing air through them could induce a voltage)... You could also induce a voltage by turning them quickly. No harm done at all probably. I used compressed air for cleaning out dust a lot in the past (just ran out of it before this video) and afterwards put tuner spray into the pots to lubricate and seal them.
If you can't find Teslanol where you live, try to find Deoxit. It's a similar product (often recommended by US/Canadian citizens).
Well, the mod was absolutely horrible, but to be honest it was even more funny than it was horrible. It was absolutely unexpected - so weird - and there was some phantasy involved in doing that. Most likely it was made just to weight it down, as you said. First I thought there would be some electrical components inside of the sand filled tea lights.
I´d love to know the guy who did that.
Imagine an archeologist would have found the amplifier in 50 years and tries to figure out what that was for...LOL
hi friend do you speak dutch, i have a schematic needs translation to English if you can thanks in advance
I have this model amp, I got it out of storage after many years travelling, I took off the cover, gave it a good clean with vacuum and cotton buds and it is honestly like new.... the sound is awsome like the day when I bought it from new. To see what this guy did to his unit is a total disgrace.
My first job from school was working in a shop repairing and selling this very type of Amp, to see what somebody has done here just makes very angry and sad
Sand? I am speechless.
In worst case scenario, you might have to disassemble the switches and get rid of sand particles.
I'd prefer big hex nuts wrapped with plastic over sand-filled tealight cups!
I think I got most of it out and as I mentioned, the contacts are clean and work perfectly now. I returned it to the owner and he was horrified when I told him about the mods. He did never look inside (got it from a flea market years ago). :D
.....jan, mate. my brother from another country. i have an old marantz pm250 to fix the potentiometer :) a bit of compressed air would have been good to blow out that sand from those selectors (just a suggestion)
Yeah, compressed air would have been my preferred choice but I don't have a compressor and ran out of compressed air in cans when I shot the video.
I had a PM250 for repair some time ago. Very nice sounding amp and pretty well build. I remember loving the design except for the LED meters. I read later that Marantz didn't want to put them on (there's also a version of the amp with analog meters) but gave in to the trends of the time. ;)
yeah. there was a model with the analog VU meters back then as well. i have the LED one. much preferred the other. i think the volume POT in mine needs cleaning as it scratches when you increase the volume - its something thats on my to do list alongside fixing other peoples amigas and my own :)
If you have scratching noise it's dirt on the pots for 99% of times in my experience. Get some nice contact cleaner and go for it. Actually most "repairs" I did on audio equipment were exactly that: corroded switches, dirty pots, sometimes speaker relais with corrosion. ;) Fixing Amigas is also an honorable way to spend time. I'm going to restore my own original Amiga 500 soon. Didn't even dare to check if it still works yet.
or is it silica gel?
No, it definitely was just fine sand. Maybe from the beach (the coast is very nearby and the amp came from a flea market in town). Silica gel would have made more sense, I guess. ;)
Probably cheap bird sand :D Usually gets pooped on, this time it got it's revenge and pooped all over the amp.
Haha, that must be it! :D
I do audio mods, ones that actually work. Unfortunately idiots on forums talk about things like the effects of vibration on amps so others go and do dumb stuff like this. I guarantee that a double blind test would show no difference between before and after. I also guarantee that the person who did that 'heard' a huge difference.
There are mods that work like upgrading power supply and coupling caps. These things make a big difference. Most of the smoke oil stuff makes zero difference.
Just unbelievable... First for everything I suppose.
Yeah, never seen anything like that before. (And I hope I won't see anything like it again honestly...)
The sand is an old trick - it weighs up the "audiophile" grade piece of equipment to make the old addage "if its damn heavy it must be good" appear true. It serves no other purpose. Never seen it in an amp though - Have seen it in an "expensive" SMPS and a CB radio before!!! :P At least in the SMPS the sand was in a "cap" sized can and even soldered to the board (with no traces going to it)!
Oh, that's an explanation that makes sense. This thing came to the owner through a flea market buy I think.
A cap sized can soldered to the board? Well, at least there was some thought and effort put into that... Wow. xD
Sand to weigh/damp speaker cabinets is a known thing, but I'd draw the line there!
Im an audiophile aka " i Want best sound quality" . But these cups with sand? I never heard about IT and saw something like this. IT looks like somekind a set up to trigger all these audio haters. And as i see comments they are triggered 😁
Always play NCS - music No copyright ..
Btw you've used way too much contact cleaner there.
I'd rather flusch the pot with a bunch of isopropanol, like really much of it.
Then you turn the pot fully to the left spray a little bit of contact cleaner into the pot, move it around ,then fully to the right and spray again a little bit.
But in the end you've fixed it and that's what matters :D
BTW I'm already getting mad when I'm being a given something to repair and screws are missing but now I've seen it all :D
In Europe Linn is a more than well known name amongst us "purists" who doesn't like the warm sound of American HiFi like Krell etc. I used to be a Krell/Mark Levinson guy before I discovered Linn and I've stayed true since the mid 90's!
Really horrible anti--vibration measures by someone... There are much simpler ways to eliminate vibrations!
I really liked the sound of this one. Very well made, too. (Except for the horrible "mod" of course) Currently using an old 1970s Sansui with a pretty linear sound myself. I guess I like the "warm" looks and the clean sound. ;)
I wouldn't part with my intek- powertek combo.
sand! never, lead does just fine bolted in..
Well that's a first.... sand weights.
It was very unpleasant surprise. ;)
It's dusty maybe because its filled full of glue and sand? If you google "Machina Dynamica's Brilliant Pebbles" you'll see where this nonsense comes from (well at least one place).
In the US I've never heard of this brand - nice find though :).
That brilliant pebbles stuff just made me laugh out loud... Wow. Never heard of that but it's indeed pretty close to putting sand into an amp. There's a lot of nonsense going on in the audiophile world. Wow.
lol - yeah this one is my other favorite: www.head-fi.org/threads/its-done-power-cord-shoot-out-22-power-cords-reviewed.219202/
Hahaha... Wow. I should really start an audiophile power cord business I think... I'd guarantee my cables produce the best possible sound. ;)
If you find out who it was... play "Enter sandman" every time you see him.
Haha, good idea. ;) I hope I find the modder some day. It won't be easy though. This came from a flea market and was gifted to the current owner. He had absolutely no idea what was inside.
That poor amplifier :(
When I was in Audio business , I learned that there are many kinds of people in it, but must say ,majority of audiophiles are psychiatric cases.
OMG O.o i seen strange things but yeah that's so dumb.....
Yeah, definitely a horrible idea to put that stuff in an otherwise decent amp.
Use WD40 should always use WD40 after using contact cleaner recommended by the radio Institute
With the product shown, Teslanol Oszillin T6, do not flush. It is gently working and leaves a residual layer which is protecting and lubricating the internal surfaces, so better not flush that of. With the more aggressive products like Kontakt 60 definitely give it a flush but not with regular WD40 as found in your Walmart. WD40 has a special contact cleaner under its brand, be sure to have the right one.
Sandboxaudio. :-)
Something like that, yes... ;)
:)
whoever put those stupid sand filled candles in there was clearly on drugs.
Yeah, horrible idea obviously.
DRUGS, that's all i can say.
Most likely. ;)
Sometimes audio files are mentally ill they have a tendency to go overboard with their equipment I have prepared some of their equipment some of them and treat their equipment better than they treat their families you would not believe I have some stories to tell you I had a person who had I would say close to a million dollars invested in audio equipment in one room in Upstate New York and I don't think he knew how to operate 10% of it properly and half the time I would be cold over there to show him how to operate a piece of equipment that he had not braided in 10 years and his wife needed a new car and he would go out and spend $10,000 on a set of cables 4 speakers yes right you heard what I said $10,000 on a set of cables for a set of speakers and his wife was driving around that a jalopy just so he thought he could hear the difference in the sound of the speakers when I told him that for about $500 he could make his own cables same quality same specs I need to save $9,500 but he'd rather go out and spend the 10,000 then go out and do it yourself makes no sense that's like I have a Yamaha receiver here that I've done so many modifications to that I would put it up against any Marantz you could not even close your eyes I put into the same pair of speakers that I have but the two receivers side by side play both peace the music out of the same two of the same turntable you would not be able to tell the difference between those two receivers 1 Receiver right now on eBay is going for a believe $4,800 and my receiver with all the modifications that I did to it cost me $600 and that includes two parts souten it's impressive that these audiophiles will spend all kinds of money for Stuff that really is nothing but a psychological thing and not really something that you can tell the difference you can put all the gauges in the world all the sound testing equipment you want in the world and you cannot tell the difference between a system the cost $2,000 and a system that cost $15,000 because the human ear can only hear a certain amount and anybody who tells you any different needs their head examined that's like when somebody tries to tell you that you going to when you look at a 4K TV and you look at 8K TV you can tell the difference the human eye cannot see an 8K it's all a gimmick so when they try to sell you your 8K television you can barely tell the difference between regular good television and a 4K TV is barely a difference you can see the difference you cannot tell the difference between a 4K 8K television because the human eye cannot see it it's not made for it just like the human ear can only hear a certain amount of Lowe's and a certain amount of highs I are one of these people who have had an injury to my right ear where I am fortunate enough I can understand I can determine a certain amount more high frequencies then some people it was all due to an accident when I was a child I can hear a few octaves higher that a normal human and it was tested. And the doctor's office that's the only difference I have and that's only my right ear nobody no matter who you say you are can literally tell a whole lot of difference between a really big expensive sound system at a medium priced sound system you just a fool yourself when you go out you can get your money you go out to spend with the way you want do you want to spend a million dollars on a sound system the right ahead but I find it foolish and wasteful I would much rather do it myself I build my own speakers I modify my own amplifiers and receivers and I enjoy it I even build my own crossovers and it's a lot of fun because what I'm done I know that I made it sound good
Ugh. Yes I have seen audiophool idiots doing this with silicone caulking to dampen "resonance". Absolute snake oil. No wonder they put tamper proof screws on things these days :/
At least the fool who did this "mod" didn't pay a lot of money for it... ;P
Could well have cost him an expensive amplifier though... I've seen this done to CD players as well. Crazy.