Burn out - and finding the joy in Quad again

[timothyemerson]

I never owned a stand-alone CD-4 demod. The big Kenwood had a module that slid in from the back, and that's where the calibration controls were.

But you guys with the vintage equipment, at least you know you're going to have to sink money into upkeep. I'm pretty low on the scale of what's affordable, and these days if it ain't in warranty (modern equipment that is, in my price range) to me it's hardly worth the money to pay shipping. With my last AVR I sent it for repairs for the HDMI board, barely under warranty. Two years later it was screwing up again. I soldered some better caps in and it's still working at my Daughter's house a couple years after that. But that is more the exception than the rule.
Temperature and time just kill the stuff. They put fans on pc power supplies. Why not on audio equipment? Some of it gets pretty damn hot.

Yeah, I've often wondered why fans aren't included. I guess they make the whole box larger and are just something else to wear out. I got these a while ago MULTIFAN S7, Quiet USB Cooling Fan, Dual 120mm to sit on top of my receiver and they do an awesome job of quietly keeping it cool. Probably the cheapest cooling solution around my neck of the woods.

 

[mandrix]

I never owned a stand-alone CD-4 demod. The big Kenwood had a module that slid in from the back, and that's where the calibration controls were.

But you guys with the vintage equipment, at least you know you're going to have to sink money into upkeep. I'm pretty low on the scale of what's affordable, and these days if it ain't in warranty (modern equipment that is, in my price range) to me it's hardly worth the money to pay shipping. With my last AVR I sent it for repairs for the HDMI board, barely under warranty. Two years later it was screwing up again. I soldered some better caps in and it's still working at my Daughter's house a couple years after that. But that is more the exception than the rule.
Temperature and time just kill the stuff. They put fans on pc power supplies. Why not on audio equipment? Some of it gets pretty damn hot.

Yeah, I've often wondered why fans aren't included. I guess they make the whole box larger and are just something else to wear out. I got these a while ago MULTIFAN S7, Quiet USB Cooling Fan, Dual 120mm to sit on top of my receiver and they do an awesome job of quietly keeping it cool. Probably the cheapest cooling solution around my neck of the woods.

I've got a 240mm fan propped at an angle on my AVR inhaling the heat. At the top of the audio cabinet I have two Nidec AP-15 120mm fans sucking air out the back run by a pc power supply and a pc fan controller which also has a few temperature leads attached, and the temp is displayed on the fan controller. The cabinet itself usually gets no hotter than 80 F at the extreme inside but normally follows room temp within a few degrees. The cabinet is closed on 3 sides with glass door in front and open areas in the back for cables, and has the AVR with two Oppo's above it. Was at first going to try and find a 12v source in the AVR to drive a fan but I had the other stuff sitting around so used it instead.

 

[timothyemerson]

I've got a 240mm fan propped at an angle on my AVR inhaling the heat. At the top of the audio cabinet I have two Nidec AP-15 120mm fans sucking air out the back run by a pc power supply and a pc fan controller which also has a few temperature leads attached, and the temp is displayed on the fan controller. The cabinet itself usually gets no hotter than 80 F at the extreme inside but normally follows room temp within a few degrees. The cabinet is closed on 3 sides with glass door in front and open areas in the back for cables, and has the AVR with two Oppo's above it. Was at first going to try and find a 12v source in the AVR to drive a fan but I had the other stuff sitting around so used it instead.

Nice. Mine's low to the ground where it's coolest and pretty open all around. Everything needs a jolly good vacuum every now and then. Flippin' dust, man - unavoidable.

 

[MidiMagic]

Yes, but I find that a bit odd. They were practically unobtainable for many, many years and now all of a sudden they are apparently in limitless supply for just a few quid each. As you say most of them seem to come from China. I wonder why that is, did Motorola secretly store chips there and they've just been found?! - I mean, they couldn't possibly be fakes could they?! I've occasionally looked at a few of the ads for some of them and frankly very many look, shall we say, dodgy. Motorola had a particular chip encapsulation style that a lot of them don't share, the font can look wrong and the date codes often don't make sense, and some just look too sparkly new to be fifty years old! I'm not sure of a truly reliable source of the genuine article anymore.

And time for the patent to expire. Then they can make them with no legal penalty.

 

[timalin]

Feeling guilty here. I'm 100% digital file, many ripped from your DVD-ISOs. It's all sitting on a server, fed through an old Kodi Raspberry Pi, and plays on my receiver. It just works. If I need to decode a record I do it digitally. I'm very happy with this set up and I'm glad I've never had the vintage equipment bug as I lack the necessary skills. I've got a good few quad LPs but I don't suppose there's much point to it as I don't play them other than to rip.

 

[MidiMagic]

(1) My stereo system(s) are the result of almost 50 years of research and building.

(2) We actually rebuilt the house and made sure the den and living room closely followed Fibonnacci's sequence. Its eigenvalues are not multiples of each other. The rooms sound really good.

(3) Buy the best equipment you can afford. In most cases that is NOT modern. In fact, in some cases, going DIY is by far the best way. Commercial products have many limitations, DIY is like Open Source Software: they are made to the best quality because everybody sees the internals and the name of the builder. Note: Nelson Pass is awesome.

(4) Building a stereo will take years and plenty of patience but when the time comes, and the right component appears, you pound! I've lost a couple of pieces when I hesitated or I was in travel.

(5) My kids moved out too, so I'm building the "martini room" in one of their bedrooms.. put in a mid century console that I'm building up with components.

(1) My stereo system(s) are the result of almost 60 years of research and building.

(2) I built my media room when I actually had money to add onto the house. I designed it to not have standing waves. Wall treatments: shelves full of books, records, CDs and tapes.

Can I see which Fibonacci numbers you used? And show me the matrix and the eigenvectors used for the eigenvalues.

(3) Who could buy the best equipment? I was a college student during the original quad era. There were many pieces of equipment I wanted and could not afford.

I made my own quad equipment, including matrix decoders and encoders and Dynaco kits. I also scrounged at auctions and pawnshops.

(4) When the right component appeared, I didn't have the money or any way to get it. I passed up the Sherwood SEL-100, a Tate SQ decoder, and a Scheiber surround decoder.

(5) I have had to rebuild after a tree fell on the house.

 

[par4ken]

4) When the right component appeared, I didn't have the money or any way to get it. I passed up the Sherwood SEL-100, a Tate SQ decoder, and a Scheiber surround decoder.

(5) I have had to rebuild after a tree fell on the house.

Get the Tate and live in a tent!

 

[tonyE]

(1) My stereo system(s) are the result of almost 60 years of research and building.

(2) I built my media room when I actually had money to add onto the house. I designed it to not have standing waves. Wall treatments: shelves full of books, records, CDs and tapes.

Can I see which Fibonacci numbers you used? And show me the matrix and the eigenvectors used for the eigenvalues.

(3) Who could buy the best equipment? I was a college student during the original quad era. There were many pieces of equipment I wanted and could not afford.

I made my own quad equipment, including matrix decoders and encoders and Dynaco kits. I also scrounged at auctions and pawnshops.

(4) When the right component appeared, I didn't have the money or any way to get it. I passed up the Sherwood SEL-100, a Tate SQ decoder, and a Scheiber surround decoder.

(5) I have had to rebuild after a tree fell on the house.

60 years? Heck, do they make High End hearing aids? ( Just kidding... ). But yeah, I don't crank up my stereo much, preferring to preserve my hearing and listen to music at a natural level (OK, 96 db is not natural for Black Sabbath, but it works for me and I can hear the mix better).

Sorry about the tree. We planned on our house rebuild... so it was a heck of three years but definitely worth it as we added things like home runs to the audio and video systems, 1600 feet of Cat 5e, distributed wiring both for AC, networks and coax...etc... I can imagine that a tree falling into your house would be an absolute PITA. Hopefully no one got hurt.

As close as Fibonnacci as I could... the only "acoustic treatment is a floor rug (not wall to wall ) and a couple of couches.) Ideally the numbers would be 8, 13, 21, 34.... I think in my next house, I'll have some rooms at 12,21,34... that would be awesome.

8 by 14 by 21, den
8 by 14 by 22, living room

Both rooms, den and living room, have openings into adjacent rooms, with higher ceilings too, so that allows resonances to spread out as well..

The den has a 7.0 system so it's the least affected as the speakers are all distributed. A 10 foot opening on one side to the kitchen, which is about 11x10x12 with a cathedral ceiling and kitchen cabinets ( so it's not really 10 feet wide... ).

The living room is stereo with both Maggies (no side reflections) and a pair of old ADS L810s (vintage). Both away from the wall and sides. I do have a four foot wide, seven foot tall, CURVED, glass curio cabinet about six feet behind my listening couch. It actually works really well at diffusing without making the room dead sounding. It's actually one of the best things I ever did to address the sound quality of the room without making it... ugly. I do have bass traps but those are in the closed corners behind the speakers... on "my" side of the room. Not very obvious.

Here's a calculator for the resonances. ( I have a bookmark for the eigenvalues, eigenmodes and graphical resonances but I can't find it - it's cool because it also shows you the geometry of the standing waves over the volume of the room ).

https://vikash.info/audio/standing_...tor=0&height=8&width=13&depth=22&threshold=20
OK...

I found one of my bookmarks... not the fancy one, but it still a start..

https://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/index.html
Oh.. "Buying the best"... please note what I wrote: ... "Buying the best you can afford".... I too have been (are) in the same boat you are. So I will buy the Mark I version instead of the Mark II.... and heck, right now I want to buy the Harbeth 30.1 speakers because lucky me, the 30.2's are not better..... Just like a Nakamichi PA7 MkI is better... But, you get the drift. Buying used is a lot cheaper ( assuming you're not fighting with the current crop of hipsters and flippers selling a 7w Superscope receiver for $300 because it "was made by Marantz"...)

Oh, further... lately I've gone into the DIY market. Extremely good deals in there. I don't know I can go back to the "commercial products" except for stuff like AD/DACs and stuff for my turntable. And, yes, I miss the old Dynaco and Heathkit kits. I too built a couple of those: a preamp and a few power supplies. Nowadays, though, I'm out of practice. My soldering is so-so.

 

[Soundfield]

Both rooms (den and living room have openings so allow resonances out as well..

I love the idea of releasing resonances out into the wild!
Reminds me of a saying of my first boss who always warned young apprentices to be careful when handling large CRTs because any damage 'would cause the vacuum to rush out'!

 

[Soundfield]

And time for the patent to expire. Then they can make them with no legal penalty.

I cant imagine the original manufacturing dies survived (no-one wanted them 50 years ago!), or even if they did that anyone would go to the vast expense of setting up a manufacturing plant to produce them again. That's not what happens in the murky world of fake IC's, they are not even intended to be functional - they are just an outright con. The bad guys get a load of random scrap chips, scrub the tops off them and reprint whatever numbers and logos they want on them. Easy money.

 

[DuncanS]

I cant imagine the original manufacturing dies survived (no-one wanted them 50 years ago!), or even if they did that anyone would go to the vast expense of setting up a manufacturing plant to produce them again. That's not what happens in the murky world of fake IC's, they are not even intended to be functional - they are just an outright con. The bad guys get a load of random scrap chips, scrub the tops off them and reprint whatever numbers and logos they want on them. Easy money.

I'd say 99.99% certain they are fakes. Some years back when memory was in short supply the grey market was flooded with fake memories, no chips in there just a package with legs! There are a few companies that purchase the mask sets and will manufacture new chips from them, if there is a suitable market. Rochester is one, but you pay, its not cheap even if there is a suitable fab. Then there is costs of the test set-ups etc. I worked for quite a few years for a semiconductor company (hundreds of DSPs on the die) and as a souvenir I have one of the old masks from our first chip, if I remember correctly its one of the cheapest masks, so only around $50000 circa 2001.

With the current component shortage its the Wild West out there, we've been quoted 72 week lead-time on some bog standard power supply chips, so we can't build our first offs. A friend who runs his own company needed a microprocessor to build a few hundred boards, couldn't get any. Found a grey market seller, when they turned up, different 'flavours' of the processor, plus all had been removed from boards, so no good for a pick-and-place soldering machine. He had his money refunded, but the seller didn't want the chips back!

 

[Pontoneer]

AOQ,
DON'T LET IT BRING YOU DOWN!!!!
I was watching a space program series "Why we left Earth" in which one of the astronauts stated the main philosophy about being an astronaut..."You don't become an astronaut to play it SAFE!"... ¡olé!

We all know vintage equipment is going to be problematic... and we forge on!
I have my beloved Technics linear tracking TT which I ADORE..
It has given me headaches but I don't care cause the thing is 40 years old!

I had a few linear ( or tangental ) tracking turntables through my hands when I worked in the trade - long time ago .

The simplest one was the Bang and Olufsen one , sold a few , not my thing , but it worked . We had Rabco and Dynavector arms on a few decks , mainly Gerrard 401s with custom plinths . Then there was the Revox turntable , we had one on demo but never sold it ; it was amazing and had its party trick that it could play in any position - even upside down !

For myself , I started out with a Pioneer PL12D , great budget deck , then picked up a Transcriptor Hydraulic Reference which a colleague was selling ; eventually upgrading to my Michell Gyrodec which I still have today , must now be 30 years on ! The Transcriptor came with their unipivot fluid arm and ADC 10E Mk IV , which I never really got on with , then I replaced it with the SME series III in which i mounted many different cartridges , ranging from said ADC , through Shure V15 , Stanton 681EEE , Ortofon MC10 , Ultimo DV10 , AKG P9ES , and latterly the AT-OC9 . That arm went onto my Gyrodec when I got it and I gave the Hydraulic ref away with the Fluid Arm . I had tried numerous other arms along the way , including Hadcock GH228 and Mayware Formula 4 , as well as SME II . After a while , having settled on MC cartridges , I wanted something more rigid and bought a Rega RB700 , which I still have today , with an AT-OC9 .

The seventies were a great time for budget turntables , one of my favourites for people who wanted a great deck for little outlay was the Acoustic Research turntable ; this little gem sold for around £20 and was basically the poor man's Linn ( there were many Linn knock offs such as Fons CQ30 and STD ( Strathclyde Transducer Developments ) all made in close proximity to Glasgow ! For the DIY capable , there were the Connoisseur BD1 and another in the range ( one came with an arm and one was just a deck - some people partnered it with an SME , not as daft as it seemed ) ; then there was the garrard 401 , and also Dual made some well engineered decks . Of course we had all the direct drive turntables ; Technics seemed to bring a new one out every month , and most japanese makes had their own , be it Sony , Yamaha or whoever . We mainly sold British and European kit .

 

[Pontoneer]

View attachment 76036

A New Yorker Cartoon

I still have my Sony MDP 850 and a few hundred laserdiscs ; I hate to think what i paid for a lot of these discs : £20 , £30 , £40 per disc was commonplace , CAV discs were more expensive , and certain titles like Top Gun , Terminator 2 Judgement Day , or the Cameron Titanic carried a premium at the time , sometimes up to £100 for a sought after title . Then there were the box sets : Star wars trilogy , back to The Future , Star Trek ( 6 or 7 movies when I bought it ) and many others were well into 3 figures .

My player has died , suspect power supply caps , but i will either fix it or get another , won't part with my discs .

 

[Pontoneer]

Ditto, LMQ.

i tend not to use EQ , rather I treat the room to get the acoustic I want : drapes , carpets , bookshelves to break up reflections , careful placement of loudspeakers and seating . A much more natural solution .

 

[Pontoneer]

Yeah, I've often wondered why fans aren't included. I guess they make the whole box larger and are just something else to wear out. I got these a while ago MULTIFAN S7, Quiet USB Cooling Fan, Dual 120mm to sit on top of my receiver and they do an awesome job of quietly keeping it cool. Probably the cheapest cooling solution around my neck of the woods.

I've never had great problems with upkeep : had a Quad 405 go down a while back , but a couple of 2N-3055s sorted it , and it was an issue with a load it didn't like .

Have had a few VCRs with age related issues , power supply caps failing , easy to spot and replace , and my LD player is the same .

Some mechanical issues ; replaced heads on my high speed B77 , but it did have high hours , similarly things like belts and pinch rollers which are consumable items ; did lots of head drums on U-matic , VHS , Beta ; started to baulk at doing Video-8/Hi-8 and certainly Mini DV ; things getting smaller and my eyesight declining were not a happy combination .

Recently replaced a surface mont cap on the motherboard of my MacBook Pro : the technology is simple enough but my eyes are no longer up to it !

 

[Pontoneer]

I love the idea of releasing resonances out into the wild!
Reminds me of a saying of my first boss who always warned young apprentices to be careful when handling large CRTs because any damage 'would cause the vacuum to rush out'!

Used to be a popular thing to mount a sub into the fireplace , using the chimney as an open ended Transmission Line .

When I worked in the service department of an AV hire company , we often replaced 27" & 28" CRTs in things like Barco and Hantarex monitors ; always used to snap the little bulb off the neck to let air in and reduce the risk of implosion when chucked in the skip .

Unless they were badly burnt , I always kept the CRTs out of projectors as a few of us had things like Sony VPH 1042s and VPH 1270s and we had our own internal black market for used tubes ; going rate between mates was usually a bottle of Scotch or whatever was preferred , for a used tube !

 

[tonyE]

i tend not to use EQ , rather I treat the room to get the acoustic I want : drapes , carpets , bookshelves to break up reflections , careful placement of loudspeakers and seating . A much more natural solution .

Have a drink, or two, or three...

After five drinks it all goes to mono... because I usually fall sideways onto the couch and I can't (don't want to) sit back up.

Consequently, one ear gets buried in the pillow... Ergo... mono.

Five drinks saves me a lot of money on audio equipment upgrades.

 

[tonyE]

I still have my Sony MDP 850 and a few hundred laserdiscs ; I hate to think what i paid for a lot of these discs : £20 , £30 , £40 per disc was commonplace , CAV discs were more expensive , and certain titles like Top Gun , Terminator 2 Judgement Day , or the Cameron Titanic carried a premium at the time , sometimes up to £100 for a sought after title . Then there were the box sets : Star wars trilogy , back to The Future , Star Trek ( 6 or 7 movies when I bought it ) and many others were well into 3 figures .

My player has died , suspect power supply caps , but i will either fix it or get another , won't part with my discs .

Pioneer CLD-D504, plays both sides.

Sony MDP-700, top of the line, digital frame, will play both CAV and CLV frame by frame, jog shuttle wheel. And excellent companion with the SL-1000HF SuperBeta deck. Supports the Sony editing surface.

I dunno if the work. They've been on the shelf for eons now.

LD's.... lots of them. Some of those ran 100 bucks.

 

[Sal1950]

I seem to just be unhappy with just about every piece of audio equipment that has passed through here, everything has their flaws, and it's always quite maddening to me when it's like - with a little thought and a little common sense, these devices could have been oh so much better.

Let it go some brother.
Your getting so anal over minor tech details it is spoiling the fun and satisfied passion of just listening to music. Do you subject every detail of each recording to the same scrutiny? I hope not as then you're really doomed.

 

[tonyE]

Let it go some brother.
Your getting so anal over minor tech details it is spoiling the fun and satisfied passion of just listening to music. Do you subject every detail of each recording to the same scrutiny? I hope not as then you're really doomed.

I agree.... I mean, it's not like you're spending all of your time listening to Sonny and Cher and Peaches and Cream... I think playing some Cream on a vintage system is awesome... except Traffic is better in a modern, more accurate, system.

And Clapton's Unplugged requires a modern, high resolution High End system!

I suppose it could be worse... imagine trying to make sense out of Ozzie's lyrics.