Steve Livingston is StereoMan. Steve has over forty years of technical experience in electronics, including two-way radio, radio common carrier, and over 30 years in consumer electronics repair.
Steve provides both bench repairs and in-home service as needed, and is always willing to offer a little guidance if you’re unsure how to proceed with your equipment needs.
What experience does StereoMan have?
Why does Stereoman do this work?
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StereoMan is conveniently located at 30 Park Lane Ave, one mile from I-40 Exit 44. (Smoky Park Highway). Just turn right onto Acton Circle at the McDonald’s, go past the entry lane to Home Depot and turn left at the light onto Sand Hill School Road. It’s easy to get here from Sand Hill Road as well, just turn onto Sand Hill School Road at the Sand Hill Grocery (Marathon gas station). From points west on Smoky Park Highway, turn right at Bruce Road (the last turn before the I-40 on-ramp), right again at Highland Center Blvd, then left onto Sand Hill School Road. Click on the map for a larger view. When you arrive, please park in my driveway and walk across the front yard on the path provided. I will meet you at the table under the pop-up canopy!
Apr 5, 2025
Most people would say my $25 bench fee is very reasonable, and I’m happy to keep it that way, as I find the vast majority of the time, my repair cost estimates are accepted and I am able to recoup the cost of my time beyond the 30 minutes it covers. Not always though. Sometimes it doesn’t even cover the time I spend trying to communicate with the customer. Here’s an extreme example.
On Jan 21, this person — I’ll call him “Chaz” to obscure his identity — brought me a classic Technics SL-1210 turntable in a nice heavy-duty road case, with instructions to check it out and let him know what was needed and what it would cost. He paid my $25 bench fee and I told him to expect a call on a couple of weeks.
On Feb 3 I checked out the table and found it had several issues, a couple of which would be quite costly, but perhaps not necessary, to resolve. I called to let him know what I had found and talk about his options. I got no answer, so I left a voice mail. Weeks went by and I did not hear from him, so I called again on Mar 10, again got no answer, so again I left a voice mail. Weeks went by, no word, so on Apr 1 I tried texting him.
Finally, on Apr 11, I got a text reply. “I’ve been out of town,” Chaz said. “Is my turntable ready for pickup?” Well no, it wasn’t, we needed to have a conversation about the several issues it had, so I texted him to please call me. “I’ll just pick it up,” he replied, “please let me know when I can.”
Did I misunderstand his intention when he brought it in? Did he not in fact want me to assess it and report my findings? “We need to talk,” I texted back. But Chaz was adamant. “Just please let me know when I can pick it up. I don’t care if it’s been repaired or not,” he replied. “I just want my turntable back.” As if it was my fault I’d had it for so long.
I thought it best to take him at his word, so I replied “10:00 a.m. tomorrow.” Did he show up at 10:00 a.m.? Well no. I texted him at 10:15, “Checking in about our 10:00 a.m. appointment.” Crickets.
Most people would say my $25 bench fee is very reasonable, and I’m happy to keep it that way, because the vast majority of my customers are more respectful of my time than this.
March 1, 2025
I’ve been charging the same rates for my services for over a decade, and am resistant to making a change in my hourly, but I do need to start charging more for my travel. It’s never been quite enough to cover my time behind the wheel and the wear on my car, and so much more so now with the cost of gas and maintenance being so much higher. So that’s what I’ve decided to do. My old rate was a flat $2/mile with a $10 minimum. My new rate is a little more complicated:
* $15 for the first five miles (just about anywhere in West Asheville)
* $3 per mile for miles 6-18 (so 18 miles would be $54)
* $5 per each two miles for 20 miles or more (so 19 or 20 miles is $59, 39 or 40 miles is $109, etc.)
To be clear, the mileage is the distance from my house, not the round trip. I will always let you know in advance what the exact mileage charge will be. Just ask!
Feb 15, 2025
Sony’s STR-DE### series home theater receivers were very popular in the 1990s, but buyers might have been less eager had they known that Sony designed these stereos with a built-in time bomb sure to prevent long life. The output amplifier transistors are hefty and well protected from overheating by a massive aluminum heat sink, but the drivers are hybrid modules with no provision whatsoever for heat dissipation. Inevitably they overheat to the point of melting their solder connections. At first the sound will just shut off occasionally, but over time more serious problems will arise, ranging from failure of the module to smoke and flames emanating from the chassis. Here is an example of the initial, least catastrophic, failure due to melting of the solder connections.
The module’s pins are the ones arranged diagonally on the horizontal in the photo. Notice the obvious circular breaks around every pin. Here is a photo after removing the old solder, cleaning the board, and resoldering the pins.
Repair cost was under $75. Customer was happy to pay!
Jan 10, 2025
A customer brought me a pair of vintage JBL L-100’s and requested that I replace the original, very simple crossover with something entirely different. He directed me to a discussion forum where this sophisticated device was posted, along with rave reviews from some L-100 owners who had incorporated it into their speakers. Could I provide this service for him? Of course! All I had to do was assemble the components as indicated in the schematic and install it in the cabinet!
Famous last words. Here’s the schematic:
It “only” took a few hours for me to figure out how to arrange everything, but then came the testing phase, and I was a little taken aback by the wild variations in impedance and response at various frequencies in the audible range. Whoever designed it, I reasoned, must have done that on purpose to compensate for nonlinearities in the speakers themselves, so the result would be a smooth, detailed output. But one thing bothered me about the design: at frequencies above about 12khz, the response rolled off rapidly, so that by the time I got to 20khz, the output was negligible. Granted, most people “of a certain age” can’t hear much in that frequency range, but I couldn’t just dismiss such an obvious flaw.
I was not at all inclined to redesign the crossover and I sure wasn’t going to give up and walk away from the project, but as I pored over the schematic I realized there was one simple change I could make that might, might, resolve the issue. Directly across the tweeter connections is C3061, a 3.9uf capacitor. In a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized that capacitor could be changed to a smaller value, thus reducing the attenuation of the higher frequencies without affecting the operation of the T-filter consisting of C3011, C3031, R3021, and L3021. So I changed it to a 1uf and the difference was astounding!
Granted, the result might be that frequencies above 12 khz are unduly emphasized, but here again, for people “of a certain age,” that would be a good thing! Besides, the L-100 has level controls for both the midrange and the tweeter, so if the highest highs were a bit on on the “high” side …
Here’s what the crossover looks like, mounted on a 1×12 board, ready to install in the cabinet:
Over the past several months I have been able to maintain my commitment to keep my bench backlog down to two weeks, in other words the time from the day you bring in your equipment to the day it gets to my work bench. But over the past couple of months I have taken in an unusually high volume of work and it has set me back an additional week. With regrets for the inconvenience, please be prepared for a three week time frame between the day you bring your equipment in for repair and the day it reaches my workbench.
June 3, 2024
I’ve done a few of these over the years, but this is the first time I’ve had one where the customer tried to DIY before bringing it to me. Not too shabby for an amateur, but what they did defeats the whole purpose of the extra ground wire, which is to provide an isolated ground for the tone arm.
From the factory, the tone arm is grounded to the chassis, and the cartridge wires are not. So what you don’t want to do is solder the cartridge wires to the chassis ground.
So my first task was to remove the wires installed by the customer and clean up the circuit board, then install the extra ground wire without connecting it to the cartridge wires.
Next, “dress” the ends of the patch cord and solder to the clean interconnect board. “Dressing” is the process of cutting, stripping, twisting, and tinning the wire ends so they fit perfectly and solder securely.
I know, and you should know, that if you use the overly thick patch cords, the factory strain relief clamp is not going back on again. To keep the wire connections secure, I epoxied the wires to the circuit board. Believe me when I tell you, there is no advantage to the extra thickness. In this case, it was mostly extra rubber, but extra wire doesn’t make much different at all in a low frequency, low current situation.
Next the original cover is reinstalled, taking care not to yank on the wires, which in turn would yank on the epoxy seal, possibly breaking it (and other things!).
And last, I reinstall half of the original strain relief clamp. The oversize patch cord is firmly clamped in place.
March 30, 2024
Surface mounted parts are by nature very small, and require some specialized solder techniques to replace without damaging the circuit board. Over the years I’ve replaced more than a few, some of them quite small. But the one I did today wins the prize for Smallest Part Ever! It’s a voltage regulator, and it goes in a Yamaha home theater receiver. Here’s a photo of the part sitting on a dime to give you an idea of its size: a tad larger than a grain of salt.
Here’s a photo of the circuit board it goes on.
Can’t find it? I’m not surprised! Let’s zoom in some.
You can make it out pretty plainly now, just above the center of the photo. It’s designated as IC10. Here’s what the completed work looks like.
The bad news is that replacing the defective voltage regulator did not restore proper operation of the stereo. It’s not unusual for a power supply part to go out due to the failure of a processor, and that was probably the case here. But my customer was willing to pay me to take the risk, even if it didn’t prove successful.
Welcome to 2024! StereoMan expects to continue providing repair service on all kinds of vintage stereo equipment, including turntables, amplifiers and receivers, and even old console stereos! Please call 828-775-5905 to discuss your needs, and I’d be happy to give you advice or a rough assessment, and make an appointment if it looks like I can help you. My hourly rate remains at $48, as it has been for the past ten years.
Home & Car Stereo - Home Theater
Installation - Maintenance - Advice
