Very informative and thorough video. Best of all, you seem like a very nice man who cares about what he does and how you relate to others. Thank you Mr. Tony!
I must be a supreme geek, I watched all five at once. A little background in electronics (enough for my general ham ticket) but a great refresher. Built a 100miliwatt AM transmitters (8 tuber) when I was 10. I saw a receiver on a local buy/sell site that I drooled over a broke teenager. Since that I have been trying to learn what to look out for. Thanks for producing your videos they are very informative and geek worthy entertainment.
Hi Tony. Thank you for this series. Always wondered what Marantz was all about, the hype. Had friends that ownered and cherish their look, sound and feel as you'd spin the tuneing wheel. Anyways thank you for the in-depth view from outside in and inside out. Hope you and family is well and soon to enjoy the upcoming spring.
Great troubleshooting and repair work -- and plenty of reasons *not* to buy massive, elaborate all-in-one "vintage" stereo gear, no matter how wonderful it sounds when it's working correctly. If you want that level of performance, it makes much more sense to invest in a separate tuner, preamp, and power amp -- trust me, your service technician will thank you when something goes wrong, as it inevitably does in equipment this old!
Great series restoring this Marantz! I don't have any in depth training in audio electronics or receivers at all. But, watching these videos I learned a lot about component/board aging and its effects on solder joints. It was very great to learn that a lot of audio equipment suffer heat related decaying. It's good to know that they can be restored with new components to bring the sound and tuning back up to excellent quality! This is fantastic! Thanks for this series! Have a great day!
I like your videos because you do not impose a specific solution that you fancy the most, you show all possible ways and let the viewer pick what make the sense for them the most.
Tengo en mi hogar un equipo muy similar a ese modelo. El mío, no dispone de ese visualizador en formato TRC tubo de rayos catódicos. Solo tiene dos voltímetros analógicos. Es una aparato increible, pero presenta unos ruidos y chasquidos muy molestos en sus potenciómetros y conmutadores rotativos. Gracias compañero por su gran labor de restauración y dedicación personal. Un abrazo desde Las Islas Canarias (España).
Hi Tony, Recently I've repaired a B&O cassette deck for myself. And I was surprised to find several faulty LF353 opamps in plastic cases. They did not burn, but they functioned very unusually, if it can be called "function". There is a suspicion that plastic degrades over time, or degrades for some other reason, which disrupts the functioning of the crystal or destroys the internal conductors. Therefore, ICs for the military, medical, and other highly responsible technology are enclosed in ceramic shells, and transistors in metal-glass ones.
I don't think it's as strange as it seems. All that has to happen is for the seal to fail and allow moisture to get to the chip and it will die. What can happen is if the chip overheats, it can crack the case. And when it's shut down, the moisture can work it's way in.
Always love watching your videos your kick ass I do learn some things from you some things I wish I knew like you do so I can fix my own stuff as good and I'll being 51 years old and just learning this stuff and learning it on my own without any background in math is kind of a tough thing but, Hands-On kind of person so I'll get there and 73 too you too
As soon as I heard the AM static, my first thought was "Silver Mica Disease", usually found on AA5 tube radios from the 60s. Looks like you found a modern version of that. Great video and I'm drooling over your super well equipped lab. Please keep up the good work. Jeff
This was a great series. As someone who designs and builds his own home audio equipment, you can always learn a lot by observing the inner workings and design of some of the vintage equipment. I also enjoyed the "capacitor" discussion. I just bought some 4.7uf met-poly's to replace tantalums's that I'm using in a vintage pre-amp.
Thank you for taking the time to do this video, quite a unique and rare item. You don't see many 2500's out there. Some lucky guy is going to get a nice receiver....
Maybe you would be interested in doing a video restoring my SX 1250. I bought it in 1991 from the original owner. The only thing I have done to it was replace the soft start speaker protection relay.
Regarding the "sound" differences of capacitors. I admit to having no ear for these things and I'm sure that some are better than others. Having said that, human nature is ubiquitous and I believe that, given that some will strive for perfection, when searching for better sound there may come a point where the listener will convince themself that they have found what they just paid for.
I wonder if it would be possible to build a replacement board as the FM/AM receiver board is no longer made using a Texas Instruments Blackfin DSP processing chip and using High school math to do the signal processing and recover the signal from either the FM or the AM.
Nasty fault on the AM tuner... bet it took you a while to hunt that one down. It's one of those problems that randomly pop up once in a blue moon on the far end of the bathtub curve.
Great Series on a classic piece of gear. I almost bought one these (or a similar model) back in the day, but decided to with seperates since I felt they crammed too much circuitry into a single unit. I wish I kept that vintage kt7000 Kenwood tuner and my old (original) Dynaco 120 power amp. Well, at least I still have (and use) the Sony TA-2000f pre-amp. (recapped and upgraded). Even though I design and build most of my audio equipment today (except speakers) I know very little about the radio-end of things. So I'm always fascinated with those procedures and theory and how you home-in on the defective component(s). I noticed you didn't mention anything about the use of tantalum caps. in audio equipment. Do you avoid them or just use them for bypass ? I used them (4.7uf 50 v) in the build of my pre-amp's line stage back in 2006. They tested and still sound great, but now I'm thinking of replacing them with new film caps. (At the time I could not find films caps small enough to fit on the board)
Regarding the coffee cup: The water was weightless while the cup was falling (the water and cup were falling at the same rate), so the cap could stay in place.
overpriced capacitors are just a snake oil scam. You are paying more for diminishing returns. I rebuilt stuff using only Nichicon FG Gold series and the sound is incredible. Those FG's are only 30 to 40 cents each
@@markanderson350 I have used Nichicon (electrolytic), and KEMET, TDK and WIMA (film or ceramic) in all my vintage audio equipment restoration. Always great results.
I bet the Cincinnati AM radio station was 700-WLW. They have a 50,000 watt transmitter, they used to have a 500,000 watt transmitter. The building and part of the old transmitter are still there. They used to let the public in to see it, but It's been awhile since I've been there so not sure if they still do that.
this needs trigger warning Capacitors and flat earth denial! Many moons ago I worked for a small component distributor in the UK we had loads of OEM audio customers as the brand of electrolytics we were franchised for just sounded good to them these were not Audio grade stuff some were speced into the old IBM PC's of the mid 80s. I would like to have a play and see if there is anything in the audio grade stuff being sold in these modern times but no space to play electronics without causing issues with she who must be obeyed.
Does anyone still broadcast in Dolby B any more? I noticed the Dolby light on all the time! If Dolby is switched on with no Dolby transmission encoding, the sound will lack HF detail and range because Dolby is a two way process. Boosting a variable HF on transmission and the opposite on the receiver.
Funny point. The AM section is usually an afterthought, Usually poor sound quality. This one has a nice ferrite rod to save it a rather ordinary tuner. The IF section can make a good sound, but with ceramic filters, you are lucky to go past 3.5K All the money goes to FM. My brother tried to tell me AM was awful music and FM was fine music in the 60's LOL
The frequency range on them was up to 10k on AM. Their rotatable bar antennas were something else. They are very rare, we soon might see more about them.
Coffe cup. As it fell the cup, its contents and the cap were all suject to the basic law of gravity whereby they had equal acceleration. By chance it landed perfectly flat on the cap and its vent and the weight of liquid prevented air from entering thereby preventing leaks. As you picked it up the same weight pushed the unsupported lid off. Cat 1 coffee 0
Just for curiousity - what is that Dolby module doing? I could not find any informations on that module functionality - is it kind of pseudo stereo-wide, or is it kicking in when FM static comes up?
I own a Dolby receiver. Back in the 70's. they had a few Dolby stations. All of them abandoned it by the 80's just like quad. It did reduce noise but too expensive to really catch on for a few and made the sound bright for the rest of us. The only one I knew was Rock 102.5 in Buffalo NY. That station also went fully automated at that time, no DJ. My receiver was over 500 bucks and a fee has to be paid to use Dolby from the manufacturer..
Excelente trabajo felicidades lo mejor que visto de todo lo que nos comparten saludos desde Mexico Dr Victor Jurado FELICIDADES
Very informative and thorough video. Best of all, you seem like a very nice man who cares about what he does and how you relate to others. Thank you Mr. Tony!
It was a detailed restoration. Thank you. Everyone should do their job like this !!!
7minutes in and im still rolling around on the floor. I love this channel.
I must be a supreme geek, I watched all five at once. A little background in electronics (enough for my general ham ticket) but a great refresher. Built a 100miliwatt AM transmitters (8 tuber) when I was 10. I saw a receiver on a local buy/sell site that I drooled over a broke teenager. Since that I have been trying to learn what to look out for. Thanks for producing your videos they are very informative and geek worthy entertainment.
Beautiful!
This is a piece of history.
Masterpiece!
Great series! Thanks for sharing.
One of the most beautiful pieces of audio gear ever. Almost a legend.
A very informative series on this restoration. I am just getting back into this hobby after years away from it and picked up a lot of good tips.
Hi Tony. Thank you for this series. Always wondered what Marantz was all about, the hype. Had friends that ownered and cherish their look, sound and feel as you'd spin the tuneing wheel. Anyways thank you for the in-depth view from outside in and inside out. Hope you and family is well and soon to enjoy the upcoming spring.
Great troubleshooting and repair work -- and plenty of reasons *not* to buy massive, elaborate all-in-one "vintage" stereo gear, no matter how wonderful it sounds when it's working correctly. If you want that level of performance, it makes much more sense to invest in a separate tuner, preamp, and power amp -- trust me, your service technician will thank you when something goes wrong, as it inevitably does in equipment this old!
Great series restoring this Marantz! I don't have any in depth training in audio electronics or receivers at all. But, watching these videos I learned a lot about component/board aging and its effects on solder joints. It was very great to learn that a lot of audio equipment suffer heat related decaying. It's good to know that they can be restored with new components to bring the sound and tuning back up to excellent quality! This is fantastic! Thanks for this series! Have a great day!
I like your videos because you do not impose a specific solution that you fancy the most, you show all possible ways and let the viewer pick what make the sense for them the most.
Tengo en mi hogar un equipo muy similar a ese modelo. El mío, no dispone de ese visualizador en formato TRC tubo de rayos catódicos. Solo tiene dos voltímetros analógicos. Es una aparato increible, pero presenta unos ruidos y chasquidos muy molestos en sus potenciómetros y conmutadores rotativos. Gracias compañero por su gran labor de restauración y dedicación personal. Un abrazo desde Las Islas Canarias (España).
Hi Tony,
Recently I've repaired a B&O cassette deck for myself. And I was surprised to find several faulty LF353 opamps in plastic cases. They did not burn, but they functioned very unusually, if it can be called "function". There is a suspicion that plastic degrades over time, or degrades for some other reason, which disrupts the functioning of the crystal or destroys the internal conductors. Therefore, ICs for the military, medical, and other highly responsible technology are enclosed in ceramic shells, and transistors in metal-glass ones.
I don't think it's as strange as it seems. All that has to happen is for the seal to fail and allow moisture to get to the chip and it will die. What can happen is if the chip overheats, it can crack the case. And when it's shut down, the moisture can work it's way in.
Always love watching your videos your kick ass I do learn some things from you some things I wish I knew like you do so I can fix my own stuff as good and I'll being 51 years old and just learning this stuff and learning it on my own without any background in math is kind of a tough thing but, Hands-On kind of person so I'll get there and 73 too you too
Tony thank you very much for wanting to share this resoration journey with us.
Enthralling!
As soon as I heard the AM static, my first thought was "Silver Mica Disease", usually found on AA5 tube radios from the 60s. Looks like you found a modern version of that. Great video and I'm drooling over your super well equipped lab. Please keep up the good work.
Jeff
Yep that's it silver mica at its worse
Very interesting series, both entertaining and enlightening. Well done Tony.
This was a great series. As someone who designs and builds his own home audio equipment, you can always learn a lot by observing the inner workings and design of some of the vintage equipment. I also enjoyed the "capacitor" discussion. I just bought some 4.7uf met-poly's to replace tantalums's that I'm using in a vintage pre-amp.
Loved this series. Learning all the time from your videos. Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to do this video, quite a unique and rare item. You don't see many 2500's out there. Some lucky guy is going to get a nice receiver....
Yes a really good looking receiver!
Your video's teach me knowledge keep the video's coming they are amzing🙂😃🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷
You have just "Debunked" the whole flat earth argument in a single blow ...….well done !
Nice work Tony! As for the cup and water problem... use the Bernoulli's principle.
Find the repair video's very educationally thank you for posting,
Thanks for showing every little problem I hope if I ever come across that I remember your video
Enjoyed this series Tony! Thanks!
That was a nice series, Tony. Thanks!
That coffee cup on top of that toroidal transformer is making me REALLY nervous.
Great video tony
The patience is mind bending
Sometimes I wonder if its patience or stubbornness ;)
That's a hell of a lesson, thank you very much for share.
Maybe you would be interested in doing a video restoring my SX 1250. I bought it in 1991 from the original owner. The only thing I have done to it was replace the soft start speaker protection relay.
Tony,
That camera mount has to go! May I suggest a PanaVise-like device mounted on a steady tripod?
Hahaaha, if the world was flat, cats would have knocked everything off it by now, hahaaaha
Regarding the "sound" differences of capacitors. I admit to having no ear for these things and I'm sure that some are better than others. Having said that, human nature is ubiquitous and I believe that, given that some will strive for perfection, when searching for better sound there may come a point where the listener will convince themself that they have found what they just paid for.
I wonder if it would be possible to build a replacement board as the FM/AM receiver board is no longer made using a Texas Instruments Blackfin DSP processing chip and using High school math to do the signal processing and recover the signal from either the FM or the AM.
Nasty fault on the AM tuner... bet it took you a while to hunt that one down. It's one of those problems that randomly pop up once in a blue moon on the far end of the bathtub curve.
34:42 - I assume the resonant frequency of that tuned circuit is 455 KHz?
Great Series on a classic piece of gear. I almost bought one these (or a similar model) back in the day, but decided to with seperates since I felt they crammed too much circuitry into a single unit. I wish I kept that vintage kt7000 Kenwood tuner and my old (original) Dynaco 120 power amp. Well, at least I still have (and use) the Sony TA-2000f pre-amp. (recapped and upgraded). Even though I design and build most of my audio equipment today (except speakers) I know very little about the radio-end of things. So I'm always fascinated with those procedures and theory and how you home-in on the defective component(s). I noticed you didn't mention anything about the use of tantalum caps. in audio equipment. Do you avoid them or just use them for bypass ? I used them (4.7uf 50 v) in the build of my pre-amp's line stage back in 2006. They tested and still sound great, but now I'm thinking of replacing them with new film caps. (At the time I could not find films caps small enough to fit on the board)
Wish I had kept mine.
Regarding the coffee cup: The water was weightless while the cup was falling (the water and cup were falling at the same rate), so the cap could stay in place.
overpriced capacitors are just a snake oil scam. You are paying more for diminishing returns. I rebuilt stuff using only Nichicon FG Gold series and the sound is incredible. Those FG's are only 30 to 40 cents each
Agreed. Don't buy the cheapest and don't fall for the overprices. Think OEM
@@markanderson350 I have used Nichicon (electrolytic), and KEMET, TDK and WIMA (film or ceramic) in all my vintage audio equipment restoration. Always great results.
@@kylesmithiii6150 yes all good reputable names. I bought a cheap cap kit and had one fail in a few months.
I bet the Cincinnati AM radio station was 700-WLW. They have a 50,000 watt transmitter, they used to have a 500,000 watt transmitter. The building and part of the old transmitter are still there. They used to let the public in to see it, but It's been awhile since I've been there so not sure if they still do that.
Yep they blast u in Akron and I got them in Toronto. At 500KW, well I read it knocked out a station in Quebec, maybe 800 miles.
this needs trigger warning Capacitors and flat earth denial! Many moons ago I worked for a small component distributor in the UK we had loads of OEM audio customers as the brand of electrolytics we were franchised for just sounded good to them these were not Audio grade stuff some were speced into the old IBM PC's of the mid 80s. I would like to have a play and see if there is anything in the audio grade stuff being sold in these modern times but no space to play electronics without causing issues with she who must be obeyed.
Im only 5mins in and im rolling on the floor laughing. Capacitor myths and flat earther myths debunked. Time to keep watching.
Great videos, It took me 7+ hrs to watch the 5 vids on the Marantz 2500 restoration. How do I contact you with some specific questions on this model?
Hahahaha poking the hornets nest strait out the gate
Does anyone still broadcast in Dolby B any more? I noticed the Dolby light on all the time! If Dolby is switched on with no Dolby transmission encoding, the sound will lack HF detail and range because Dolby is a two way process. Boosting a variable HF on transmission and the opposite on the receiver.
There's nothing wrong with it. You have the rare version that came with the geiger counter option instead of a AM receiver. :-)
Funny point. The AM section is usually an afterthought, Usually poor sound quality. This one has a nice ferrite rod to save it a rather ordinary tuner. The IF section can make a good sound, but with ceramic filters, you are lucky to go past 3.5K All the money goes to FM. My brother tried to tell me AM was awful music and FM was fine music in the 60's LOL
Mike, ever hear of dymek? They made some great antennas and one special tuner the am5
The frequency range on them was up to 10k on AM. Their rotatable bar antennas were something else. They are very rare, we soon might see more about them.
Really that good on a plain jane tuner? If its that wide, usually you have either selectable selectivity or a whistle filter.
Mark Anderson This am tuner was reviewed by the legendary hirsh-houck laboratories in August of 1976
Coffe cup.
As it fell the cup, its contents and the cap were all suject to the basic law of gravity whereby they had equal acceleration. By chance it landed perfectly flat on the cap and its vent and the weight of liquid prevented air from entering thereby preventing leaks. As you picked it up the same weight pushed the unsupported lid off.
Cat 1 coffee 0
34:50 - Sounds like 'evening skip' to me!
Dang......just dang!!!! :)
Congrats Tony, you have a cat, alright. ;-)
Just for curiousity - what is that Dolby module doing? I could not find any informations on that module functionality - is it kind of pseudo stereo-wide, or is it kicking in when FM static comes up?
I own a Dolby receiver. Back in the 70's. they had a few Dolby stations. All of them abandoned it by the 80's just like quad. It did reduce noise but too expensive to really catch on for a few and made the sound bright for the rest of us. The only one I knew was Rock 102.5 in Buffalo NY. That station also went fully automated at that time, no DJ. My receiver was over 500 bucks and a fee has to be paid to use Dolby from the manufacturer..
7:22 - Just a bit of radiation. :)
Why don't you have F.M and a A.M Aerial fitted on to your roof for your workshop only ; save all your interference problems.
I can take it apart. Putting it back together is another thing.
That's the challenge we all face ;)
xraytonyb How do I contact you?
"Leave it!"
Now Let's Hear this Puppy Sing..?
i like orange drops
show us you cat tony
.
How much is the AMPLIFIER selling for
You're camera mount is awful, You need to make it stop wobbling, very bad for viewing, nearly unviewable.