It is a breath of fresh air to watch and listen to someone who takes the time to explain the who, what and where's of what they are doing. All you get off the other audio websites 85% of the time is a bunch of chest beating and snarky comments from the "Know it folks" instead of any real advice to help a person learn to repair his own vintage equipment.
This was very informative. I have a Rotel RX-2001 that I just had restored. That Marantz set is a beautiful piece of equipment. Vintage just sounds better to me. Nothing compares to these old sets. They are works of art.
I have had wonderful results with "Oven & Barbecue Cleanser", a foamy product that comes in a spray can which is designed to dissolve caked grease. Sometimes I need to clean PCB's that are so incredibly dirty and sticky with tar from smokers that cleaning with the usual products like alcohol (IPA) simply does not work. I remove the PCB from the device and check for delicate components that are sensible to moisture, like coils, enclosed pots and relais. Those sensible parts have to be removed prior to the cleaning procedure. I spray the PCB on both sides with the white foam. It immediately starts to bubble. I use a soft paintbrush to apply the foam between components and leads, so the product reaches all difficult corners. I let the foam do its job for about five minutes untill the bubbling stops. The thick layer of tar gunk dissolves like a brown slurry. Then I rinse the PCB with lukewarm tap water and a clean paint brush. I dry the PCB with paper towels and a hairdryer, so no traces of moisture remain on the PCB. The Oven cleaning product does not attack nor affect the color codes on components, nor does it harm the silk screen printings on the board. The end result is spectacular. I never had any issues with electrolitic caps or transistors.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated, another grand video. Though not a beginner, I still pick up valuable info and tips from you, so watch your vids all the way through. For instance I wasn't aware of the ESR changing with frequency (though it's obvious in retrospect). Another issue with using a cap of different V rating is that of bias V. An incorrectly biased cap, with too low bias V, I've read, can exhibit distortion, as well as not staying formed properly. A classic EG, would be a cathode bias cap in a valve circuit. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated.
I sympathize with your loss of upper range hearing. I have had the same thing for a long time. It seems to be very common among adult males and the frequencies usually affected are those in which the voices of women and children occur. ;-)
I would say that the type of restorations undertaken on this channel are probably best not tried by beginners. Heck, some of them are challenging for experienced techs. You'd be better starting with simpler devices. However, the diagnostic procedures and repair methods demonstrated are sound and well worth practicing.
Another good video Tony, I liked the talk about capacitors, always a can of worms with that kind of discussion. I will have to check out that software it looks really neat.
For aluminum electrolytics Nichicon is about the only brand I will use if I have a choice. Almost every other cap company was named in the class action lawsuit for price fixing last year. Nichicon was one of the few honest cap companies from the looks of it and honesty means a lot to me. I was amazed by the list of premium cap companies that were involved in that price fixing scam.
Let us see you sometime. Learning quite a bit from you. Seen your shop tour videos. Didn't see any of you introducing yourself unless I missed them. Keep it up.
Re: electrolytic cap voltage ratings, the way I look at it is this: In the olden days, the caps were that much larger because oxide layer thickness wasn't that tightly controlled yet. Since this is what determines voltage rating, it had to be thicker for the thinnest spots to be matching spec in all but a small number of rejects. On the plus side, this could mean that a very good sample might sustain a much higher voltage than what it's rated for, and also sustain a lot more oxide layer degradation before it becomes excessively leaky. So basically, what they made were, let's say, 50 V caps that were then derated to 16 V for yield. Modern caps are much more optimized. Their sustained voltage will fall within a much smaller range, and you won't get nearly as many of these positive outliers any more. In all likelihood, the average actual sustained voltage will be a good bit lower than for parts back in the day. Also keep in mind that given the same ESR, the physically larger cap will get heated up less. This is why I would almost always uprate to a sensible degree. Physical size actually isn't a bad indication. As a rule of thumb, caps on supply rails should be seeing at least 1/3 their rated voltage... now you might find 25 V rated caps on a 24 V rail, so that would still permit a 63 or 100 V rated part there (80 V not being a common sight in smaller values). Not really a big limitation there. Looking at cap datasheets, it appears that ESR performance degrades beyond 100 V or so, so I'd rather avoid crossing that threshold. Likewise, any reduction in parasitic inductance may be welcome in applications where shunting RF is required, and that is hinging on physical size. In places where there isn't any substantial DC, you're generally best off with whatever gives lowest leakage, and higher rated voltage tends to correlate with just that. As degradation is gnawing away at the oxide layer, whoever has the thickest one in the thinnest spots wins. (Well, with some variation in cap chemistry. Very low ESR parts can degrade rather quickly in undemanding applications when compared to more mundane parts. Longest life tends to be seen with dedicated low leakage parts there, like the orange ELNAs you have no doubt come across. They have become rather exotic but one or two series with a limited number of values are still readily available.) Now of course, this is the kind of spot where you may also consider a film cap or a bipolar (including the DIY version with two polars back-to-back) instead. At the end of the day, there are so many variables influencing electrolytic capacitor life. The best chemistry is for nought if the seals don't hold up. A standard grade cap may last longer than a low ESR part where ripple isn't of much concern, or very much shorter where it is. All we can do is use the ones we see as a good fit and good quality.
@Mike Adams Exactly! I have seen too many customers (on youtube channels) asking their restoration experts to save nickels and dimes and replace the bare minimum number of components. It is like telling your dentist how to do the root canal and crown procedure (unless you are also a root canal dentist...). A full recap project with good quality caps will probably last decades and you will enjoy it. And those old electrolytic caps in the audio path will probably have to be replaced to produce better audio as well.
Hey Tony, thanks for the recommendations for Electrolytic brand and sub types. I've been looking for suggestions for those to start my inventory to fix things with bad caps. Much appreciated Mr. Drinkwater. Yes, I know what your ancestors spoke. 8-))
Hi Tony. I have to replace (4) MPC71 0.47 ohm resistors in my Kenwood SA-7100 because they are all reading between .7-.8. Can I use mouser # 588-TWW5JR47E Ohmite wirewound resistors as replacements? I'm asking because the originals are described as "metal plate" resistors, and the Ohmites are wirewound, which I would think might cause inductance that the metal plate wouldn't. Thanks for your time and keep up the great videos! I learn so much from watching you restore equipment, and I'll say it again: to those viewers who think you go into too much detail, I say "bollocks"! That's how we learn!!
How profound would that be? Today we don't use any coupling capacitors in the audio path for instance and everything is DC coupled. So was the Marantz not the case? It is an oldie.Love your videos. I recommend you to those who love to do audio right, and with a video that is easy to understand. You and Mr. Carlson's Lab are my favorite go too videos electronic. Keep up the great work Tony!
Something I wanted to add to your electrolytic capacitors, people paying good money for a restoration expect high quality capacitors. Also it would suck to have something you restored fail because of a cheap capacitor.
The Comtekk seems to be only a Windows program, shame, but none the less, another great video, I am always picking up a few different ways to look at things which is nice.
45:52 - They need to up the precision of that 'Fs' setting, say, two decimal places. A better idea: Have a 'autotune' setting that will measure the signal frequency and use it as the 'Fs' setting!
When you connect the receiver to your scope with that "T" does the signal go through a 1 megaohm resistor before it enters your scope? Or is the tape out plugged directly into your scope? Or when you are checking the amplifier does it go through a 1 megaohm resistor or is it basically plugged right into the scope?
Hello Tony, Any recommendation where I could get a schematic for a SONDEX S230 amplifier. I have a faulty unit that I want to work on but I don't have the schematic on hand.
It's funny that MARANTZ didn't use TI Blackfin DSP processing chips for receiving, processing and demodulating the RF into audio, Anyway The PANASONIC portable radio that I have is all DSP using High School Mathematics to do the processing as well as generate the audio, That also goes for my TECHNICS ST-GT1000 except for the FM section.
I have a Pioneer CLD110 for nearly 50 yrs. It is a 110V CLD player, I found it always shown no dise and cannot be read , how can I fix it and is it hard to do myself ? Thanks !
Is Rubycon up there with Nichicon and the others you mentioned in your own opinion? I've heard good things about them but it's so difficult to get trustworthy data on capacitors. Especially with all the fakes out on the market right now.
I have a question about oil filled caps, they're so expensive! Can you replace them with film or any other caps ? I have an old oscilloscope that has older oil caps. (I think they're oil). They're blue, about 3 by 1-1/4 inch and axial lead, rated at .5 uf at 1500 volts and look like electrolytic but no negative positive signs.
My Chinese home boys can't make a Capacitor to save their own lives so most high end Chinese companies use out sourced capacitors for instance. Like Audio GD uses quality parts and that is the Chinese High End Chinese groupies audio highly touted. Me? I like them too. I used Nichicons on my JVC KD-85 power supply so far.
The best capacitors in the audio chain is mundorf and JJ electronics and there tubes have you tried.. Did you put those blue LEDs behind dial revolting, why didn't you go with green much more pleasant on the eyes specially with the lights off
Marantz uses blue backlighting. Some people change the backlight color, just depends on individual preference. Mundorf and JJ caps are more often seen in tube gear. I've used them before. They are very good quality.
Worse yet, some people replace small electrolytics with huge Mundorf film caps rated at silly voltages that are arguably better suited for speaker crossovers (so not just regular WIMA or Panasonic jobs), and every time I see that I'm like "Why? _Why?!"_ It's parasitics galore, can even make circuits oscillate because of that, not to mention it looks awful. Just use the right tool for the job.
They are too lazy to do research. They believe anything they read in a forum. I bought NOS Panasonic film crossover caps for 60 cents each and the sound is killer
Is your full name really "Anthony Bevilacqua"? I googled that name. He was a late cardinal in the Catholic Church, accused of ... well, you can check it out if you want, but it is not pretty...
So just curious as to what you can charge to restore this unit and how many hours total it takes. Wondering if I can make any money repairing or restoring units.
@@sidtryzbiak4542 It has to be a true collector to spend that money. See for instance a brand new 'RX-A780 AVENTAGE 7.2-Channel AV Receiver with MusicCast' for about $650. I have a humble collection of good Japanese sound equipment of the late 70's and early 80's. I did restorations like that (but in much smaller scale) and spent more than 30 hours on each and used also Nichicon, WIMA, TDK and KEMET capacitors and Omron relays from mouser. I spent more than USD 100 in parts in average on each equipment. I could have bought a new 'Yamaha R-S202 Stereo Receiver with Bluetooth' for $129 but I didn't. I enjoy more the vintage ones -- of course in a home theater setup you can't use those. BTW, try to restore a sound/video equipment from the 2000's or later, with SMD and charge sensitive MOSFET components and double or triple layer PCBs -- for me it is totally impossible in my humble electronics lab (for hobbyist) in my basement...
It is a breath of fresh air to watch and listen to someone who takes the time to explain the who, what and where's of what they are doing. All you get off the other audio websites 85% of the time is a bunch of chest beating and snarky comments from the "Know it folks" instead of any real advice to help a person learn to repair his own vintage equipment.
This was very informative. I have a Rotel RX-2001 that I just had restored. That Marantz set is a beautiful piece of equipment. Vintage just sounds better to me. Nothing compares to these old sets. They are works of art.
I have had wonderful results with "Oven & Barbecue Cleanser", a foamy product that comes in a spray can which is designed to dissolve caked grease. Sometimes I need to clean PCB's that are so incredibly dirty and sticky with tar from smokers that cleaning with the usual products like alcohol (IPA) simply does not work. I remove the PCB from the device and check for delicate components that are sensible to moisture, like coils, enclosed pots and relais. Those sensible parts have to be removed prior to the cleaning procedure. I spray the PCB on both sides with the white foam. It immediately starts to bubble. I use a soft paintbrush to apply the foam between components and leads, so the product reaches all difficult corners. I let the foam do its job for about five minutes untill the bubbling stops. The thick layer of tar gunk dissolves like a brown slurry. Then I rinse the PCB with lukewarm tap water and a clean paint brush. I dry the PCB with paper towels and a hairdryer, so no traces of moisture remain on the PCB. The Oven cleaning product does not attack nor affect the color codes on components, nor does it harm the silk screen printings on the board. The end result is spectacular. I never had any issues with electrolitic caps or transistors.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated, another grand video. Though not a beginner, I still pick up valuable info and tips from you, so watch your vids all the way through. For instance I wasn't aware of the ESR changing with frequency (though it's obvious in retrospect).
Another issue with using a cap of different V rating is that of bias V. An incorrectly biased cap, with too low bias V, I've read, can exhibit distortion, as well as not staying formed properly. A classic EG, would be a cathode bias cap in a valve circuit. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated.
Wonderful rambling Tony, rest my eyes and just listen to your humble opinions. Thanks man!
I sympathize with your loss of upper range hearing. I have had the same thing for a long time. It seems to be very common among adult males and the frequencies usually affected are those in which the voices of women and children occur. ;-)
MOST PEOPLE CAN NOT HEAR 20KHZ UNLESS YOU ARE A BABY.
I would say that the type of restorations undertaken on this channel are probably best not tried by beginners. Heck, some of them are challenging for experienced techs. You'd be better starting with simpler devices. However, the diagnostic procedures and repair methods demonstrated are sound and well worth practicing.
19:54 - With solder-wick you dwell longer, but the wick pulls the heat AWAY from the track!
Another good video Tony, I liked the talk about capacitors, always a can of worms with that kind of discussion. I will have to check out that software it looks really neat.
Another great video. The software info really was neat
For aluminum electrolytics Nichicon is about the only brand I will use if I have a choice. Almost every other cap company was named in the class action lawsuit for price fixing last year. Nichicon was one of the few honest cap companies from the looks of it and honesty means a lot to me. I was amazed by the list of premium cap companies that were involved in that price fixing scam.
Let us see you sometime. Learning quite a bit from you. Seen your shop tour videos. Didn't see any of you introducing yourself unless I missed them. Keep it up.
Re: electrolytic cap voltage ratings, the way I look at it is this: In the olden days, the caps were that much larger because oxide layer thickness wasn't that tightly controlled yet. Since this is what determines voltage rating, it had to be thicker for the thinnest spots to be matching spec in all but a small number of rejects. On the plus side, this could mean that a very good sample might sustain a much higher voltage than what it's rated for, and also sustain a lot more oxide layer degradation before it becomes excessively leaky. So basically, what they made were, let's say, 50 V caps that were then derated to 16 V for yield.
Modern caps are much more optimized. Their sustained voltage will fall within a much smaller range, and you won't get nearly as many of these positive outliers any more. In all likelihood, the average actual sustained voltage will be a good bit lower than for parts back in the day.
Also keep in mind that given the same ESR, the physically larger cap will get heated up less.
This is why I would almost always uprate to a sensible degree. Physical size actually isn't a bad indication. As a rule of thumb, caps on supply rails should be seeing at least 1/3 their rated voltage... now you might find 25 V rated caps on a 24 V rail, so that would still permit a 63 or 100 V rated part there (80 V not being a common sight in smaller values). Not really a big limitation there. Looking at cap datasheets, it appears that ESR performance degrades beyond 100 V or so, so I'd rather avoid crossing that threshold. Likewise, any reduction in parasitic inductance may be welcome in applications where shunting RF is required, and that is hinging on physical size.
In places where there isn't any substantial DC, you're generally best off with whatever gives lowest leakage, and higher rated voltage tends to correlate with just that. As degradation is gnawing away at the oxide layer, whoever has the thickest one in the thinnest spots wins. (Well, with some variation in cap chemistry. Very low ESR parts can degrade rather quickly in undemanding applications when compared to more mundane parts. Longest life tends to be seen with dedicated low leakage parts there, like the orange ELNAs you have no doubt come across. They have become rather exotic but one or two series with a limited number of values are still readily available.)
Now of course, this is the kind of spot where you may also consider a film cap or a bipolar (including the DIY version with two polars back-to-back) instead.
At the end of the day, there are so many variables influencing electrolytic capacitor life. The best chemistry is for nought if the seals don't hold up. A standard grade cap may last longer than a low ESR part where ripple isn't of much concern, or very much shorter where it is. All we can do is use the ones we see as a good fit and good quality.
@Mike Adams Exactly! I have seen too many customers (on youtube channels) asking their restoration experts to save nickels and dimes and replace the bare minimum number of components. It is like telling your dentist how to do the root canal and crown procedure (unless you are also a root canal dentist...). A full recap project with good quality caps will probably last decades and you will enjoy it. And those old electrolytic caps in the audio path will probably have to be replaced to produce better audio as well.
Hey Tony, thanks for the recommendations for Electrolytic brand and sub types. I've been looking for suggestions for those to start my inventory to fix things with bad caps. Much appreciated Mr. Drinkwater. Yes, I know what your ancestors spoke. 8-))
Thanks for your videos, your insights and know how are much appreciated.
Hi Tony. I have to replace (4) MPC71 0.47 ohm resistors in my Kenwood SA-7100 because they are all reading between .7-.8. Can I use mouser # 588-TWW5JR47E Ohmite wirewound resistors as replacements? I'm asking because the originals are described as "metal plate" resistors, and the Ohmites are wirewound, which I would think might cause inductance that the metal plate wouldn't. Thanks for your time and keep up the great videos! I learn so much from watching you restore equipment, and I'll say it again: to those viewers who think you go into too much detail, I say "bollocks"! That's how we learn!!
Great job thanks
How profound would that be? Today we don't use any coupling capacitors in the audio path for instance and everything is DC coupled. So was the Marantz not the case? It is an oldie.Love your videos. I recommend you to those who love to do audio right, and with a video that is easy to understand. You and Mr. Carlson's Lab are my favorite go too videos electronic. Keep up the great work Tony!
Something I wanted to add to your electrolytic capacitors, people paying good money for a restoration expect high quality capacitors. Also it would suck to have something you restored fail because of a cheap capacitor.
43:36 - Ironically, the computer may be contributing to that noise :)
The Comtekk seems to be only a Windows program, shame, but none the less, another great video, I am always picking up a few different ways to look at things which is nice.
Most pieces of software that cost $60+ will be Windows only. If only everyone understood the glory of open source...
Awesome Tony!!
I'm very into your test setup :D
Great stuff Tony. I hope you are working on a solution to the drunken camera mount. I'm getting seasick! :o)
45:52 - They need to up the precision of that 'Fs' setting, say, two decimal places.
A better idea: Have a 'autotune' setting that will measure the signal frequency and use it as the 'Fs' setting!
Great video Tony. Are there any other software type packages you'd recommend? Test hear can be expensive/hard to find.
Thanks Tony.
When you connect the receiver to your scope with that "T" does the signal go through a 1 megaohm resistor before it enters your scope? Or is the tape out plugged directly into your scope? Or when you are checking the amplifier does it go through a 1 megaohm resistor or is it basically plugged right into the scope?
About a two weeks ago i have work with my NAD 7045 and i burn scale linkage with desoldering gun. Fitting new one was a pain.
That thing has a ton of ceramic capacitors. Since they are so old do you think they drifted so far they're out of spec?
16:30 - Wow, THAT was a bad design! I'd expect the left side to fold down so you could get at the component side of the FM tuner board!
Hello Tony,
Any recommendation where I could get a schematic for a SONDEX S230 amplifier. I have a faulty unit that I want to work on but I don't have the schematic on hand.
It's funny that MARANTZ didn't use TI Blackfin DSP processing chips for receiving, processing and demodulating the RF into audio, Anyway The PANASONIC portable radio that I have is all DSP using High School Mathematics to do the processing as well as generate the audio, That also goes for my TECHNICS ST-GT1000 except for the FM section.
That is because DSP did not exist in the 1970s.
I have a Pioneer CLD110 for nearly 50 yrs. It is a 110V CLD player, I found it always shown no dise and cannot be read , how can I fix it and is it hard to do myself ? Thanks !
Is Rubycon up there with Nichicon and the others you mentioned in your own opinion? I've heard good things about them but it's so difficult to get trustworthy data on capacitors. Especially with all the fakes out on the market right now.
I have a question about oil filled caps, they're so expensive! Can you replace them with film or any other caps ? I have an old oscilloscope that has older oil caps. (I think they're oil). They're blue, about 3 by 1-1/4 inch and axial lead, rated at .5 uf at 1500 volts and look like electrolytic but no negative positive signs.
My Chinese home boys can't make a Capacitor to save their own lives so most high end Chinese companies use out sourced capacitors for instance. Like Audio GD uses quality parts and that is the Chinese High End Chinese groupies audio highly touted. Me? I like them too. I used Nichicons on my JVC KD-85 power supply so far.
Speaker relays? Mine are bad. Can i clean them?
No have any Marantz reverses for sale?
The best capacitors in the audio chain is mundorf and JJ electronics and there tubes have you tried..
Did you put those blue LEDs behind dial revolting, why didn't you go with green much more pleasant on the eyes specially with the lights off
Marantz have pretty much always used blue lighting on solid state stuff. I do agree that green or amber is far softer and more natural.
Marantz uses blue backlighting. Some people change the backlight color, just depends on individual preference. Mundorf and JJ caps are more often seen in tube gear. I've used them before. They are very good quality.
Mundorf is overrated and overpriced. If you do a blind test with Nichicon you won't hear any difference
Worse yet, some people replace small electrolytics with huge Mundorf film caps rated at silly voltages that are arguably better suited for speaker crossovers (so not just regular WIMA or Panasonic jobs), and every time I see that I'm like "Why? _Why?!"_ It's parasitics galore, can even make circuits oscillate because of that, not to mention it looks awful. Just use the right tool for the job.
They are too lazy to do research. They believe anything they read in a forum. I bought NOS Panasonic film crossover caps for 60 cents each and the sound is killer
How do you like the Black Gate Capacitors?
I've heard of them, but I've never tried them.
Is your full name really "Anthony Bevilacqua"? I googled that name. He was a late cardinal in the Catholic Church, accused of ... well, you can check it out if you want, but it is not pretty...
I'm not related to him. I don't really pay attention to what the media says about people, so I'm not sure what was said about him.
So just curious as to what you can charge to restore this unit and how many hours total it takes. Wondering if I can make any money repairing or restoring units.
if you want to do it _right_ you will make no money ;)
It takes about 60 Hours, thats what I'm guessing
@@19janiboy96 So e en if you only charged 10.00/hr, you would have to charge $600. Would anyone pay that much?
@@sidtryzbiak4542 It has to be a true collector to spend that money. See for instance a brand new 'RX-A780 AVENTAGE 7.2-Channel AV Receiver with MusicCast' for about $650. I have a humble collection of good Japanese sound equipment of the late 70's and early 80's. I did restorations like that (but in much smaller scale) and spent more than 30 hours on each and used also Nichicon, WIMA, TDK and KEMET capacitors and Omron relays from mouser. I spent more than USD 100 in parts in average on each equipment. I could have bought a new 'Yamaha R-S202 Stereo Receiver with Bluetooth' for $129 but I didn't. I enjoy more the vintage ones -- of course in a home theater setup you can't use those. BTW, try to restore a sound/video equipment from the 2000's or later, with SMD and charge sensitive MOSFET components and double or triple layer PCBs -- for me it is totally impossible in my humble electronics lab (for hobbyist) in my basement...
@@sidtryzbiak4542 There are definately people that would but they are not dime a dozen