Real Music Lover

Mar 30, 2014

My good customer Lew wrote a kind note on my facebook page regarding the repair of his Musical Fidelity A-220 Integrated amp. It was fun to troubleshoot because the problems were just a little outside the usual box, but both easily repairable.

One: the unit would not always shut off. This was due to the anti-sparking capacitor across the power switch developing a leak. Haven’t seen that problem in years and years.

Two: the indicator lights wouldn’t always come on. This was due to a wire that had broken inside the insulation, but the insulation was still intact. So occasionally the broken wire made contact and the lights would come on.

Lew really loves his music, and listens constantly – when he’s not riding his motorcycle! I feel especially satisfied when I’ve restored a quality vintage stereo for a real music lover. Lew tells me his amp has “rested” maybe three hours since he got it back.

Tiniest Turntable Ever

Mar 8, 2014

The Sony?PS-Q7, circa 1982, direct drive, fully automatic turntable.

The tonearm has an elbow in it. You can’t see it, it’s hidden under the plastic cover.

Here it is playing an LP. It plays 45’s too, 7 inch or 12 inch either speed.

The top cover closed while it continues to play. Wild!

A Tale of Two Cars

Feb 8, 2014

I went on a service call this morning, a few miles south to a posh community of McMansions. To my surprise, there was a Hummer parked in the driveway of the customer’s house. When he came to the door, he exclaimed that he had forgotten I was coming today. I said I hoped that was okay and we could still get the work done. Well no, he said, he didn’t need my services any more, he figured out what was wrong himself. Well, said I, you will have to pay me for my service call, I might as well check things out and make sure you got it right. Oh no, said he, he would not pay me for anything. He distinctly remembered instructing me to call the day before to remind him I was coming, so it was my fault for not doing so. And would I please get out of his house right now.

So, unexpectedly, I had some free time today to do bench work. But then I got a call from someone wanting me to put a new stereo in his 1995 Buick LeSabre. I had to check my stock to be sure I had the necessary parts, I said, but as it happened, I did, so I told him to come on over. And so he did, along with his wife and 2 year old boy. They sat on the front porch while I did the work. But I ran into a problem fitting the radio into the old car’s dash, and had to break out my Sawzall and do some surgery. I advised them that there would be an extra $20 charge for the additional time and effort. No problem, they said. When at last I was finished and pulled the car out, my customer was in the front yard dancing and singing with the child. They were delighted to have the new stereo and didn’t mind having to wait the extra half hour.

Now, three hours later, my day’s work done, I finally looked at their check. They tipped me ten bucks.

New Car

Dec 31, 2013

I decided years ago that my ideal vehicle would be large enough to carry almost all of my essential tools and supplies, but fuel efficient, and – most importantly – capable of running on pure biodiesel. Of course it had to be affordable, so a new car was out of the question, but I wanted a car that would last for many years to come, so it couldn’t be too old either.

Given the amount of funds I was able to save up (and my unwillingness to go into debt to buy a car) my search quickly narrowed down to a VW Jetta wagon. I began actively searching in July, but competition was fierce! It took five months to find the right one and make an offer before someone else got it.

So StereoMan starts the New Year with a new (for me) car, the car of my dreams, a car that treads very lightly on the Earth yet will carry me safely and comfortably to 95% of my service calls. I’ll keep my gas guzzler Dodge Dakota for those few jobs that require heavy hauling, or until I get a trailer to tow behind my Jetta. Did I mention it came with a trailer hitch?

Lots more changes on the horizon for StereoMan. The new car is an auspicious start.

Flakey Speaker Setting On H/K AVR3700

?Dec 4, 2013

I like Harman Kardon. And this year they’ve come out with a really revolutionary new home theater receiver with amazing sound and functionality – plus one very serious quirk.

My customer purchased the AVR3700 and tried to set it up himself, but after making all the connections, he couldn’t get any sound from it. Only from his TV speakers. Not good! After three HOURS on the phone with Harman tech, they advised him that his new unit was defective, and sent him a replacement. He called on me to set it up.

Oddly, the replacement had exactly the same problem! After checking over everything I had done, I began to suspect some arcane setting on the receiver, and explored the setup menus with great care. Finally, in the “General AVR Settings” menu, I found it. For some reason, beyond my ability to explain, HK has provided an “HDMI audio to TV” setting, and if you leave that setting “ON” to route sound to the TV – a function that is absolutely standard on any other receiver I’ve seen – it mutes the HK speaker outputs. If you turn it “OFF”, no sound is routed to the TV, but at least the other speakers work!

I also determined that the setting affected not just the HDMI connections, but even the analog inputs! Why, Harman Kardon, why did you do this?

My customer was furious with HK, and thought I was something of a genius for identifying and resolving a problem in one hour that their tech couldn’t figure out in three. I was just amazed that their tech wasn’t even familiar with their own product’s setup menus. And still scratching my head over what is the point of this ?crazy setting!

Punctuality

Nov 15, 2013

StereoMan strives to be on time for all appointments, whether for service calls or installations. If I am going to be more that 15 minutes late, you?will get a call. Conversely, if you are going to be late, it’s a good idea to call and let me know. There’s a chance that we may have to reschedule, especially if I am very busy – which is most of the time. Fifteen minutes is always ok. A half hour, probably ok. If you’re going to be an hour late, though, please don’t expect me to inconvenience the rest of my customers to accommodate you. We’ll have to try for another date.

Philco Tube Radio

Nov 6, 2013

A couple of months ago, a woman came by with a beautiful old antique cathedral-style table radio. The cabinet was perfect – she had just had it restored – but the radio did not work at all. I agreed to rebuild it for her.

It took a lot of effort, spread over a long period of time ?- otherwise it would have been cost prohibitive – and I ended up replacing almost every part in it. And then, just when I finally got it working, after a few minutes of flawless operation, the rectifier tube went out! Fortunately that is the one and only tube in this 80 year old set that can be replaced with a modern semiconductor.

See the missing tube? Underneath, on the left, you can see the two little tiny diodes I replaced it with. How things have changed in 80 years!

You can also see all the other new parts I had to put in, and a lot of old frayed wires that had to be replaced.

I also had to replace the speaker, which was made of paper and thus was crumbling like a damp soda cracker. If you know anything about these old sets, you know that the speaker had a “field coil” which is part of the power supply, and a “speaker transformer” to connect the sound from the plate of the audio tube. Once I had replaced the big, worthless original power supply capacitors with much smaller modern caps, there was plenty of room to put the speaker transformer on the main chassis.

But what about the field coil? That part was integral to the speaker.?Solution: I replaced it with a 120 ohm resistor and a pair 0.1H chokes. Worked great!?Here’s a closeup of the “field coil” rig-up, with the resistor heat-sunk to the chassis and the chokes hot-glued to the resistor:

To replace the speaker, I had to grind out eight rivets with a Dremel tool, then I epoxied a modern speaker into the original speaker frame so it will fit properly into the original cabinet. That part alone took more than an hour.

I’m looking forward to dropping it back into the gorgeous restored cabinet and seeing the look on the owner’s face when it plays. I asked her about replacing the dial, I thought with everything else in tip-top shape it would be a shame not to. But she deferred. Maybe she’ll change her mind. I took the light bulb out to take the photos.

The Dreaded Nuvo

Nov 1, 2013

Nuvo is not a bad system really, for what it is. What is it? It’s a whole house multi zone wired sound system. Kind of old school by today’s standards, but still very popular.

My client hired me primarily to make their Nuvo system do something it’s not designed to do: play streaming internet content. I recommended they replace their existing 20th Century stereo with a home theater unit with wifi and bluetooth, and use the second zone as a source for the Nuvo, retaining the existing sources. They bought the model I recommended, and today was the day to hook it all together.

But first! There’s a couple of problems with the Nuvo that had to be addressed, by the way. Like, it takes a notion to shut off completely. And, some of the remote control keypads stop working. Fortunately these issues were easily resolved once I got my head in the cabinet and straightened out the wiring.

Oh, and one more thing. There’s this hum.

I spent an hour tracking down the hum, and couldn’t figure it out. Luckily, I’ve encountered intractable hum problems in the past, and have acquired a foolproof remedy: a magical little device called an isolation transformer. One for the left channel, one for the right. Inexpensive, easy to install and 100% effective.

I conquered the dreaded Nuvo.

Think Outside the Bar

Oct 22, 2013

The latest thing in wire free surround sound is a “Sound Bar”. It’s a wide, skinny tube with a whole bunch of small speakers in it that sits right under (or over) the TV, and a subwoofer that works wirelessly with it through a Bluetooth connection. It’s not really surround sound, but the better ones are a respectable substitute.

My client wanted to install a big screen above the mantle and put a Sound Bar right under it. I recommended a Samsung for its superior Smart functionality and excellent picture at his price point. For the Sound Bar, I went with Harman Kardon’s innovative SB16. One of the innovations turned out to be an aggravation: instead of coming with its own remote, the SB16 “learns” the remote commands from the TV remote. One aggravation I read about was that with the TV speakers turned off, when you press the volume buttons on the TV remote, an annoying message pops up on the TV reminding you that the speakers are turned off. But, I read, the newer Samsungs don’t do that.

Wrong! Once I had everything in place and the TV speakers turned off, I got the annoying message every time I touched the volume buttons on the remote. Worse, I couldn’t get the Sound Bar to respond to the TV remote. I struggled with that for a half hour before it dawned on me that the Bar was looking for an infrared signal but the TV remote was so smart, it was a Bluetooth remote!

What to do? What to do? And then, Eureka! Who says you have to use the TV remote to work the Sound Bar??? Any old remote would do! I asked the client to dig up some old remote he didn’t use any more. He came up with a CD player remote. I “taught” the Sound Bar that “Skip Fwd” was the “volume up” function, “Skip Back” was “volume down”, and “Stop” was mute.

Voila: problem solved. Moral of the story: think outside the bar!

StereoMan sings Dylan

Aug 26, 2013

StereoMan sang “Subterranean Homesick Blues” to a customer today.