FWIW . . . don't strip your speaker wires over your receiver or amplifier as you don't want any stray speaker wire strands falling into your audio equipment. Be careful dusting your equipment with wood cases as it's too easy to snag a bit of loose veneer and make it much worse. If you haven't used a piece of equipment in a while, exercise the buttons a few times and move the receiver tuner across the full dial a few times in order to make sure the contacts are clean. Never attempt to service your own equipment unless you know what you are doing as there can be very high voltage involved. If you have LEDs in your gear, you can rotate them in their holders to get brighter or dimmer light showing depending on your taste. Always make sure your equipment has adequate ventilation. Cheers!
We used to have a kitten that would get on top of the turntable dust cover and paw at it, trying to get to the spinning record,. No amount of scolding or punishment would deter the behaviour. So, after taking the necessary precautions to protect the tonearm, I placed the kitten directly on the platter and started it at 45 rpm. It freaked out, took off like a shot and from that day on, never came near the turntable again.
Good advice! I find young children are drawn like magnets to dome tweeters and love pushing them in - I always put the grilles back on when the grandchildren are coming over
And adults too... Brand new speakers, and my mate comes around and promptly dents one of the metal domes! Nice bill for him... A few years later after a party he and another mate decided to prat around in the don't room, and knocked a heavy Epos ES14 off the stand and gouged the outer cabinet. Grrr. Filler, sanding and stain solved that one. He's not been to my house in ages lol.
@@domfjbrown75 Yeah, I used to have a couple of friends like that... they just had to handle and touch *everything* and usually with negative outcomes. Note the use of the past tense...
You can tell a man there are a billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him that bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch it to be sure. I’ve never understood the seemingly magnetic attraction between fingers and speaker dust covers, but to some people it’s simply irresistible. Doubly so if the dust cover in question is shiny metal.
I always turn the volume control down before turning off and check before turning on. When my kids were young they would turn knobs and somehow my Luxman L-430 ended up at full volume. When I turned it on one night it blew out the woofers on my Advents.
One newbie tip for Yamaha integrated amps and receivers with both "direct" modes and a variable loudness control: MAKE SURE that the loudness control hasn't been turned way down before you engage the direct mode. The direct mode bypasses the loudness control, so you go directly to whatever the gain is on your volume control, which can be EXTREMELY loud if you were using a lot of "loudness".
The same thing happens on the old 90s Sony receivers that had a muting button. (-20db at the press of a button.) If you have muting engaged and you don’t notice, then you may turn the volume knob way up, then if you accidentally disengage the muting button… you startle the entire household!!
2 things to note on turntables. One is proper Tone Arm Counter weight adjustment & the second is Cartridge Alignment using a Cartridge Alignment Protractor. These two adjustments are Critical for proper sound and Vinyl preservation.
I've done the "wrong phase" many times via lazy cabling .. My personal addition would be, Don't handle manual turntables drunk. I've created a ton of record scratches and lost a stylus tip while playing records drunk... nowadays I just turn the streamer on for drunk sentimental listening. Somebody posted about outer-platter removal / shims for transporting, which is another great one (among the others that commenters have pointed out). In the old days, one became aware of many of these things anecdotally through conversations with friends or at shops. . Thanks for another nice video.
That’s funny what you said about the Salsa Chip bowl. Last year I ordered an album from a band that does their own merchandising and the day it was delivered it was in the upper 90’s. The carrier left it leaning on my front door in the direct sunlight.and severely warped it. I met the drummer of that band a few months later and told him about it at the merch table. He offered to replace it and I said no way man, not your fault, anyway I put it to good use as a tortilla chip bowl.
Wow, what a great video! I have been into HiFi since the early 70s and I have made almost all of these mistakes. Thanks for putting out a video that can help so many people new to the Hobby please keep up the good work
Had a nice integrated amp with kt88 tubes. The tubes were due for a replacement. Over the years, I'd gradually augmented their ajustable bias. I put in the brand new tubes without bringing down the bias. Smoky smoky.
Great video again, very useful reminders to those of us who think we know everything! I would add 'don't rush to connect your latest audio purchase straight to your rig - get it checked first'. I experienced this one myself recently, when I connected a Linn pre / power combo, which I had just purchased, straight to a pair of my better speakers. I should have known better, I should have checked what the Linns were putting out in terms of DC etc, but I didn't and I smoked both woofers on my IMF ALS40s! They have been repaired by an awesome speaker tech, luckily, was I SO annoyed with myself for doing such a dumb thing.
I worked at a cut-out record warehouse for a few years of my misspent youth and one of the chores we would do would be to "rebag" records which consisted of stripping off the existing damaged shrinkwrap and then sending them thru a machine that would wrap the record in plastic, seal off the ends with a hot wire knife and then send it through an oven to shrink the wrap tightly around the record. Now and then an album would get stuck inside or the cutting wire would come down on the album cover, which causes a straight-line burn across an entire edge of the record cover and the record. When we were really bored we would take unloved records and make bowls out of them by putting it through the oven 3-4 times to soften it up. If you see old sealed records with a shrinkwrap seam down the center of the back, there's a chance they've been sent through a rebagging machine by a dude who partied way too hard the night before and hates his day job, his roommates, and his life. Buy with caution and open it right away.
My number one tip - If you buy a vintage amp or receiver without hearing it first, always check the speaker connectors with a multimeter set to read DC volts the first time you power it up. Don't connect speakers until you know there's less than 100mv of DC on the speaker outputs. If the unit has shorted output transistors and no protect circuit (more common than most people think) it can cook the voice coils of your woofers. Now if it's a tube amp or receiver, it's just the opposite - you need to have speakers (or a dummy load) connected. The output transformer blocks DC from reaching the speakers, so it's almost always safe. Playing tube gear with no load on the output transformers can be a very expensive mistake!
Another tip; If you remove the head shell for any reason, put the stylus guard on. I have a separate cartridge for 45s and when I switched out the headshell, I dropped it and screwed up the stylus of the expensive one. I was sick! The stylus was only a few months old. I haven't played any 45s since.
I dropped my Ortofon MC Bronze the other day when switching cartridges, fortunately it didn't get damaged. Yes, I should have put the stylus guard on before removing the cartridge from the head shell but have you ever tried to put an Ortofon MC stylus guard back on? I find it to be virtually impossible!
Great advice. Bought a 2270 on eBay with the power switch missing but described as tested fine and works great. Long story short seller hot wired the switch to work and a host of other issues from him working on it. Still in the shop being repaired but everything seems fixable. I believe it will turn out OK but call it luck not brilliance. Great advice being given.
Those beautiful gold Spade lug connectors look like a short circuit waiting to happen when you bump something and pull on a speaker, as you mentioned. That's a pretty sizable torque arm rotating around a speaker output screw not really designed to secure with a lot of torque itself. Bump that wire using those connectors and you would have a short more easily than just using stranded. I would forgo the fancy, pretty and expensive gold Lugz and just used standard, insulated lugs which you crimp and flow a little solder after its crimped.
Newbie problem but I had a starter audio technica table with a built in pre amp run into a receiver without a phono stage to start. I eventually upgraded my table and receiver. I was selling the old at and the buyer wanted a demo. I hooked the at with preamp on into the phono input on the receiver and dropped the needle, my Jbl’s made the most horrific sound I’d ever heard. Luckily the everything survived my mistake.
Here’s one: after a move and year storage I took my Sansui 9090 out a couple days ago. A screw that holds the grill in the wood case came out and landed on the fuses on the power supply board. It took out a channel in the driver board. It took out a driver board fuse, so I hope replacing it is all it takes. So perhaps open up the case after a move or shipping is wise.
I had left the dustcover up when I was playing a record on my Pioneer PL-L800 S and my very excitable 95 lb boxer mix swiped the tonearm so hard that it hit the spindle and destroyed the stylus. Close your dustcover when playing records! Another, much dumber move: testing a vintage amp with your pristine ADS L810s. Blew a tweeter. Always use tester speakers for any amp that is new to you...
I would like to add one.. I was once listening to a record and wasn't thinking. While my turntable was amply isolated from the Subwoofer vibration, it was not isolated from the sound pressure waves. Rear port of the sub was hitting the back wall and reflecting onto my turntable. Record had some extra bass that day.
Some common mistakes I always see are people that stack components. I will see a turn table on top of amplifier vents. A common rule of thumb is to ALWAYS have at least 12 inches of space around any vents. With Marantz receivers, I almost always see circular socket scratches around the small faceplate screws because people are too lazy or careless when removing the faceplate with a rachet. Oh yeah, when removing a faceplate, people also use a screw driver to pry off the knobs, leaving horrible dings and scratches on the faceplate. Another one I always see is using WD-40 to clean pots. People also misuse deoxit when cleaning pots. If you use the wrong chemicals, you can completely destroy the traces. I recommend having a skylabs tech or Kevin make a video on what chemicals can be used on pots and which ones to avoid.
Spoon is good as a lever to remove knobs, with the convex side against the faceplate. "Contact cleaner" for pots?? Never!! Only if you want to scratch the carbon off completely with the wiper. Potentiometers need to be *_lubricated_* as well as being de-oxidized and cleaned.
WD-40 will ruin the pots, people used to do that before and I've repaired countless of devices with ruined volume knobs or other control because of this.
@@MarvinHartmann452 Very true. A mil-spec material such as *_ACF-50_* which is designed for electronics is the right way to go. We have been using it for about 30 years.
What temperatures is ok for the equipment? I have it stacked in Rack, but have ventilators inside with temp sensor. Also - back is open, Amp is bigger than the rest and turntable is outside of that rack. I have a little kid and I don’t want my equipment to by scratched or painted etc.
Also some turntables (Dual comes to mind) have cam screws that lock the table to base for transport. Don't be lazy, use them. And release them at the other end of the trip.
Re stylus protection from cleaning people, done that with a $2K Soundsmith Zephyr cartridge, no stylus protector on that; fortunately the SS carts can be re-tipped but takes a few months. There are some third party dust covers for entire TT (VPI super prime scout in my case). Put the dust cover on before cleaning folks come. -- Also, do not put the TT in any corner, as corners (vertical as well as horizontal = on floor against wall) are areas for bass build-up. -- Re the spade connectors, they look about as dangerous as the wires, because the screw block is all metal, is not insulated. So maybe the wire strands to not touch when you move speaker cables, but the metal blocks touch! Put at least electrical tape over those blocks.
If you have separates, especially tube amps turn the volume all the way down and power up the amplifier last and power off the amplifier first to avoid the loud pop.
If the vintage gear you buy has a two prong, non-polarized plug, change it out, with a polarized plug. Just be sure that the hot and nuetral are in correct positioning. If you have never done this, and are not sure of the procedure, take it to a repair facility and maybe consider a three prong grounded plug. This is a SAFETY THING!!
Thank you very much for the great advice. Another tip. Do not keep your tt within reach of children. Many years ago I had a very expensive Shure cartridge that got destroyed when a friend's child lifted the dust cover, stuck his hand underneath it and broke the stylus off. To add insult to injury the parent's of this child did not offer to replace it.
Turn the amp volume all the way down before turning the amp on. With the volume up, the protect relay will arc when it kicks off and over time the contacts will carbon over and degrade leading to failure.
I love it when a newbie (who acts like he's the first to discover classic audio) puts the turntable on top of a speaker, or puts speakers on top of a cabinet with receiver and turntable in the middle. Speakers are 3 feet apart, no separation, and the bass vibrations go right into the turntable.
3:48 if you can't figure out the polarity using the speaker wire then face the two speakers towards each other about 1" apart. Turn on the music. If the polarity is wrong then the loss of bass gives it away. The two speakers are cancelling each other out and it is most noticeable in the lower ranges. Separate them and face them both forward to see the difference in bass output from when they were facing each other. The bass will come back which further signals that the polarity was wrong. Switch one of the wires and try again.
Removing the turntable platter reminds me every one I have bought has the plater unmounted in the box for shipping purposes. There's a reason they do that!
Lightning arc's over everything, no protection. But when power gets knocked out, it's usually the surge when it comes back on that fries things. Also, I've lost more equipment from lighting strikes to the the network (DSL lines) than power lines.
Easy way to phase speakers. even with unmarked wires ... put them face to face in the middle of the room ... hook them up the way that gives you the best bass ... Now mark the wires at both ends with bits of red and black tape. For future just follow the color codes. Yep ... spade connectors for screw down terminals ... hardware store, 10 for $1.00. No excuses.
I’ve done a couple of these things. Ebay gear I should have sent back but didn’t. Also be careful where you walk when you clean. I kicked a speaker cable and cause one of the cable pins to break and it touched the other terminal. Lost the right channel on my Marantz 1060. It’s in the shop now. I could have kicked myself!
I have a vintage Shure V15 Type 3 cartridge that I've owned for over 40 years. One cool safety feature it has is a built-in stylus protector that I just pull down when I'm cleaning, then put it back up when I am ready to play. Sadly, Shure is out of the cartridge business and focusing on pro audio gear (which I use for gigs).
My top piece of advice is to trust your own ears. One person's bright is another person's dull, etc., etc.. We all have different components making up our hifi systems and no two listening rooms are alike. A piece of gear that others aren't happy with might work perfectly for you in your system in your home. On top of that, we all have different levels of hearing ability, the older we get the more our own hearing is likely to roll off at the top. Ever see a hifi reviewer publish the results of a recent hearing test? (I haven't). The sound as heard through your ears is what matters most.
In addition to removing the "outer" platter like on a Linn or Thorens, put some cardboard "shims" to just barely elevate the inner platter and keep it from bouncing up and down within the spindle shaft.
i learned the hard way that almost every company uses a different pin-out for their xlr to rj45 adapters (also tend to be referred to as cat boxes). i know that's more of a professional audio problem, but i use them for home audio to use the cat5e in my walls to carry the audio to whatever room i want from the A/V closet
A word of caution to all the cord cutters out there. I lost all my electronics to a lightning strike. Everything right down to the water meter. I believe it came in through the ungrounded TV antenna and went through the entire home. I now have the antenna grounded with 2 eight foot copper rods embedded in the ground along with a lightning arrester.
Ouch. I had a Soundsmith fixed coil cartridge which (like many moving coil cartridge) has a non-removable stylus. I don't even know how I did it, but one day after removing it from the box in which I'd carefully stored it while I wasn't using it, I noticed the whole cantilever was gone. Never did find it. Fortunately, Soundsmith will rebuild their cartridges for about 20 percent of the original cost, but that took weeks and it's money I no longer have to spend on records!
My turntable hangs from the rafters: sure does isolate it from the speakers, which are mounted on a C section girder attached to the brick walls, again, to isolate them from floorboards etc. Yes, I am 🤪
Hi Keven, love your videos, I think they and you are amazing. I have to apologize for being petty but speaker wire is stranded wire not braided. If it were braided it likely would not have the issue described in the video. An example of braided wire would be like solder wick.
Great videos. Loved the one on common misconceptions. A great analogy for the production chain of recording, mastering and manufacture would be cooking. If you make a so called fancy dish with the wrong or poor ingredients it's not gonna come out well. Whereas a good old Mac n Cheese which is cheap to make tastes great. It's all in the choice of ingredients.
Don't sneeze, cough, or hack, over your equipment!! Keep farts away also (just kidding on this one!). Slime on the turntable or record... not good! Water on tubes can explode! No slobbering over equipment... carry on! Bet you haven't heard these but seriously!!
Your comments on removing platters for transport was excellent. You then showed a Thorens TD turntable and missed the opportunity to point out that a TT like the Thorens has a suspension that allows the platter to bounce around, sometimes violently, in transport. The TD you showed had the MOTOR PROTECTION ROD, this can be added for ~$20. It is supposed to keep the platter from destroying the motor (for transport you'd still want to remove the platter or screw down the transport screws if present). Motors for these TTs have become very difficult and expensive to find.
My biggest pet peeve, is people leaving headphone jacks plugged in for a long time, it stretches the springs in side your receiver or amp and over time causes the head phone plug to be lose making a poor connection.
Back in 1979 or maybe 1980, I was listening to my first pressing copy of "Some Girls" by the Rolling Stones. It was playing on a JVC JLA-20 which was in my opinion, a decent first turntable. I don't exactly remember the string of events that took me away from my listening pleasure but since the JVC had auto-return and the record was nearly over, I didn't think much about it. I wish I had thought about it because when I returned to my home, several hours later, I found that the auto return hadn't worked and my record warped from the heat coming up from the turntable. Now, I don't know why the belt didn't melt or why the rubber mat didn't melt or why the motor didn't blow up but my Stones record was totally screwed! So, don't ever leave a record playing, even if it's automatic.
Here are two things that DESTROY records, but apparently, few people know about. 1) NEVER play a cut on an LP over & over, without pause! Time must elapse between playings. The reason is this. The stylus zooming back & forth in the groove exerts considerable force on the vinyl walls. The vinyl stretches and becomes brittle. Time must pass before it regains its resiliency. If a cut is played several times, without being allowed to recover, the groove walls crack. This results in that harsh, raspy distortion which "hurts" the ears! How much time should elapse between playings? A day is definitely sufficient, and is what I read was recommended, back in the 70s. I think 8 hrs or so would be OK, but that's just a guess. Maybe someone has conducted some serious research on this topic? 2) NEVER track a cartridge at the lowest possible force! It should be set at or near the allowable maximum, recommended by the manufacturer. That's because, if it's too low, on an intense passage, the stylus can lose contact with the groove wall, and careen about, gouging out chunks of vinyl. While normal wear does increase a little, at higher tracking force, tracking too low can destroy a record, in a single playing. The distortion that results is the same as that described above, from playing, over & over, without rest. If these rules are followed, a record should last almost forever. Sure, it may acquire some scratches & pops, but those are far less objectionable than the ear-torturing distortion that results from ignoring the above rules.
Hello Kevin, i live in Sacramento, CA. I am into vintage and modern. I really dig the channel. Great work, thank you. I am planning next summer to take a road trip on my Harley. Making stops at Harley and stereo shops. My vacation. Your shop is a stretch for me, but i want to see your shop. Planning this is there other shops in the midwest that I can visit. Please, if you could let me know. Thank you again and great work.
Experienced old head tips: Store lp's vertically and make sure they are not leaning left or right. Check and tighten speaker spikes and stands time to time as they really can impair speaker performance. Pull all connections (speaker wires, source cables, etc.) in and out periodically to keep contact surfaces clean for maximum signal transfer. Get a power conditioner!!!, I don't care what skeptics say the good ones really do improve the sound and will protect your equipment from catastrophic damage.(I KNOW BECAUSE TWO OF THEM SAVED ME FROM OVER $15,000 WORTH OF EQUIPMENT REPLACEMENT COSTS!!!). Seek out more tips from other experienced fellow audiophiles and periodicals,( STEREOPHILE, THE ABSOLUTE SOUND, etc).
@@ericschulze5641LOL but seriously, these power conditioner offer some protection, but that's pretty much all that they do, it's only a bunch of caps for static. That's all they do. But in case of a power surge, they don't do anything. Edit: audiophiles buy a lot of snake oil overpriced equipment, of course they will swear it makes a huge difference, because as the saying goes "it's easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled"
Appreciate the videos, but I'm not even that deep into the hobby and most of this just comes off as common sense. Would very much like to see more tear-down/repair videos or walk through of vintage electronic theory/design! Ex. "In 197xx pioneer was using these types of transistors on these amps etc. and they're unobtanium so stay away." Or "Kenwoods are harder to service because they don't make discrete component PCBs so it makes it difficult to isolate failure areas." However a flavor of the Kenwood advice was talked about in the amp quality comparison video. Thanks for the continued videos!!
Technically, there is no positive or negative polarity with speakers. They're driven by an AC signal of varying frequency and amplitude, a signal that alternates above and below the zero crossing every half-cycle. Therefore, it's not really critical that the positive and negative connections on the speaker match the ones on the amp. It'll work just as well if they're reversed. What DOES make a huge difference is if one or more speakers are wired backwards with respect to the others. That's when you get a phase problem. If, on a stereo setup for example, one speaker is wired positive-positive & negative-negative, while the other is wired positive-negative and negative-positive, then what you get is one speaker that moves opposite to the other one; one speaker cone pulls in while the other pushes out & vice versa. That creates two audio waveforms that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other, and when they meet in your listening area, they cancel each other out. That's what creates the 'hollow' sound you hear when you miswire a speaker. Modern receivers, the ones equipped to automatically tune their levels to match the room, can check for miswired speakers and alert you if one or more need to be fixed. BTW, nothing bad will happen to a miswired speaker, (or amp) it just won't sound very good until it's fixed.
Great video ! Other than that, the headgear is not a hat, it's a cap ! 😁 Hats have brims and shaped crowns, whereas caps don't have a brim, but a peak or visor. 👍
Kevin, what is the purpose/advantage of leaving the receiver/amp powered up at all times? Oh, and great advice on the speaker connections. I’ve been fighting that issue for years. Subscribed! Thanks
There is also debate about it being better for larger electrolytic capacitors such as power supply filters to keep them charged, instead of 'shocking' them with charge / discharge cycles.
I had all my LPs on the floor in crates.. The apartment flooded, ruining ALL the LP jackets. I threw them all away because they were rotten and moldy. Spent hours washing the LPs in the sink with soap n water and air drying them. Now, they're in new clear sleeves that I found online. It SUCKS. Any suggestions for storage of them now?
Yep, guilty as charged...i have done a few of these also, I will add for those that are running low impedance speakers< check to be sure your amp will handle the ACTUAL impedance of your speakers not just the nominal impedance. I have a set of early mid 80'S Infinity speakers with a nominal rating of 4 ohms...the actual low impedance rating is more like 2.6. My NAD amp is very forgiving but it still will shut down if i get too crazy with the volume. They aren't called amp killers for nothing!
Okay, but at 1:40 I want a white, or light coloured hat! If a very dark coloured hat is worn outside on a very hot, sunny day; you are going to get fried. Are you sure at 12:25+ about the Surge Protector topic? Only thing you missed, and it is simple, and obvious to us vinyl folk who are at least 40+, and that is to put, and store a record in a vertical position.
In the receiver owners manual, it says "UNPLUG" the receiver in order to connect or disconnect speakers, cd players, turntables, etc. Failure to do so can result in damage to the equipment!!!!
I blew an expensive Onkyo amplifier because the speaker wires was touching. When I turned it on it started making clicking sounds then it started smoking. I had another amp before that one. I turned it on it would come on but soon as the music started playing it went out. I would like scratching my head and couldn't figure out what what's wrong. So I turned it off and turned it back on. Then I turned my balance to the left speaker and it played, but when I turn to the right, it went out again. I found out that the right side speaker wires were touching. I had extended two wires together and didn't have no tape wrapped around so they wouldn't touch. I had to learn the hard way especially when I blew my expensive Onkyo amplifier. I was so distraught.
Well ... i didnt pay full price but i do need new power cord as it was lost. Not easily found however... the system is worth 500.00 paid... 25. Ill chance it.
I love the sellers who try to hawk non-working gear with the “all it needs is a fuse” BS. If all it needs is a 50 cent fuse, then why don’t YOU put one in? Then you could sell it as working, and get more $$ for it. Oh, yeah, it’s because it needs a bit more than that, huh…. I was born at night, but it wasn’t _last_ night.
I am on a 1978 Onkyo TX-4500. (I have 500 CD's and only 17 albums)I have an excellent sounding CD player (more on that later) Hadn't had my big Onk very long and once in a while I was getting a little crackling here and there. Took it in , spent a hundo to have it cleaned and checked out. Got it back. Cool. A little down the road...that slight crackling came back. Aaaargh. But, waitaminute. I took the CD out and put it in the car CD player. The same crackle. It's the dam CD ! Blew a hundred bucks fer nothing. A lot of my CD's are 20 yrs old at least,plus I drove over the road....some have just decayed a bit.(one even slightly crackles just like an old album) Part II. Every one assumes all CD players are going to do pretty much the same thing and all sound the same. I did. Wrong. Way wrong. DVD players are CD players also, and there are millions of them laying around for cheap. Got a bunch and sampled them. All different. We were all shocked. But I have two of the winners. With remote. Somebody must know what I know, because they've doubled in price(from 20 to 40) but I have to stay mum, cuz I need to buy a couple more. If they throw a certain code they can lose their minds and never come back,so I need spares to last me. P.S. Been listening to the radio since the late sixties, and coloradosound.org has got to be one of, if not the finest radio station I have ever heard. They stream. They are NOT corporate b.s., and they play from all the decades of our lives, all the way up til now....the quality stuff. (and of course there's KEXP) (and for jazz ,it's 88.3 in Jersey) And I discovered a dub jazz band in the Netherlands by freakish luck. They are called FLiNK. You can check them out on You Tube.(sound is not too bad for YT.) I have them on wave .Phenomenal. Cheers.
I have a whole bunch of stereo gear so much so that it has me intimidated some of it works and some doesn't . Is there a way to set up a quick testing station or do I have to test everything separately?(4 receivers one amp with a separate receiver four sets of speakers two dule cassette players three cd DVD players a couple of VHS players)any help would be greatly appreciated thanks K
You need to establish one source, one amp or receiver and one set of speakers that work. Then test each group, source, amp/receiver, speaker until you have gone trough all devices. The amount of equipment you have does not justify building a test bench or so. You will need to buy or build all cables to test it all. That is where I would start.
@@hugobloemers4425 Hugo thanks very much for your help I feel much less intimidated now . As I was texting my question ,my wife was cleaning out a cupboard and handed me a group of papers and asked are these yours ,yes ! All the paper work pertaining to my Sansui 5000x receiver ,owners manual service Manuel purchase documents, and such.
@@kennethhill3054 I am happy this is helpful to you. Then I would start to hook up a set of speakers and a source to the Sansui. Hopefully that works so you can use that receiver to test everything that is not a receiver. Try the radio first, if that works, you can go trough all speakers and have that done :)
Here's one for ya. Don't let your girlfriend's sisters three year old pull the wire out of the back of a speaker and stick it in the wall socket. The warranty on you brand new NEC AUA6000E will be voided and the shop will ask you some interesting questions.
FWIW . . . don't strip your speaker wires over your receiver or amplifier as you don't want any stray speaker wire strands falling into your audio equipment. Be careful dusting your equipment with wood cases as it's too easy to snag a bit of loose veneer and make it much worse. If you haven't used a piece of equipment in a while, exercise the buttons a few times and move the receiver tuner across the full dial a few times in order to make sure the contacts are clean. Never attempt to service your own equipment unless you know what you are doing as there can be very high voltage involved. If you have LEDs in your gear, you can rotate them in their holders to get brighter or dimmer light showing depending on your taste. Always make sure your equipment has adequate ventilation. Cheers!
I'm guilty of trimming speaker wires over vents! Forgot though- that's a good one!
I watch for that too!
Was qa pre
I made custom covers for my KEF LS50 Meta speakers, those exposed drivers draw people (kids and adults alike!) like moths to a flame!
Hat
We used to have a kitten that would get on top of the turntable dust cover and paw at it, trying to get to the spinning record,. No amount of scolding or punishment would deter the behaviour. So, after taking the necessary precautions to protect the tonearm, I placed the kitten directly on the platter and started it at 45 rpm. It freaked out, took off like a shot and from that day on, never came near the turntable again.
Kittens and vintage electronics
Don't mix .
Good advice! I find young children are drawn like magnets to dome tweeters and love pushing them in - I always put the grilles back on when the grandchildren are coming over
Get the vacuum cleaner out and have the kids correct their mistake...
... Not :)
You can use the wire fan guards like you see on your PC fans to over your tweeters to keep pokey little fingers out.
And adults too... Brand new speakers, and my mate comes around and promptly dents one of the metal domes! Nice bill for him...
A few years later after a party he and another mate decided to prat around in the don't room, and knocked a heavy Epos ES14 off the stand and gouged the outer cabinet. Grrr. Filler, sanding and stain solved that one. He's not been to my house in ages lol.
@@domfjbrown75
Yeah, I used to have a couple of friends like that... they just had to handle and touch *everything* and usually with negative outcomes.
Note the use of the past tense...
You can tell a man there are a billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him that bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch it to be sure.
I’ve never understood the seemingly magnetic attraction between fingers and speaker dust covers, but to some people it’s simply irresistible. Doubly so if the dust cover in question is shiny metal.
I always turn the volume control down before turning off and check before turning on. When my kids were young they would turn knobs and somehow my Luxman L-430 ended up at full volume. When I turned it on one night it blew out the woofers on my Advents.
One newbie tip for Yamaha integrated amps and receivers with both "direct" modes and a variable loudness control: MAKE SURE that the loudness control hasn't been turned way down before you engage the direct mode. The direct mode bypasses the loudness control, so you go directly to whatever the gain is on your volume control, which can be EXTREMELY loud if you were using a lot of "loudness".
The same thing happens on the old 90s Sony receivers that had a muting button. (-20db at the press of a button.) If you have muting engaged and you don’t notice, then you may turn the volume knob way up, then if you accidentally disengage the muting button… you startle the entire household!!
2 things to note on turntables. One is proper Tone Arm Counter weight adjustment & the second is Cartridge Alignment using a Cartridge Alignment Protractor. These two adjustments are Critical for proper sound and Vinyl preservation.
I've done the "wrong phase" many times via lazy cabling .. My personal addition would be, Don't handle manual turntables drunk. I've created a ton of record scratches and lost a stylus tip while playing records drunk... nowadays I just turn the streamer on for drunk sentimental listening. Somebody posted about outer-platter removal / shims for transporting, which is another great one (among the others that commenters have pointed out). In the old days, one became aware of many of these things anecdotally through conversations with friends or at shops. . Thanks for another nice video.
I seem to be safer with vinyl when half cut! Not totally drunk, but merry... Don't ask me why!!?
I use 1970's separates in my systems. I always have to remember to shut off the amp first, and then the pre-amp.
That’s funny what you said about the Salsa Chip bowl. Last year I ordered an album from a band that does their own merchandising and the day it was delivered it was in the upper 90’s. The carrier left it leaning on my front door in the direct sunlight.and severely warped it. I met the drummer of that band a few months later and told him about it at the merch table. He offered to replace it and I said no way man, not your fault, anyway I put it to good use as a tortilla chip bowl.
Wow, what a great video! I have been into HiFi since the early 70s and I have made almost all of these mistakes. Thanks for putting out a video that can help so many people new to the Hobby please keep up the good work
Had a nice integrated amp with kt88 tubes. The tubes were due for a replacement. Over the years, I'd gradually augmented their ajustable bias. I put in the brand new tubes without bringing down the bias. Smoky smoky.
Great video again, very useful reminders to those of us who think we know everything! I would add 'don't rush to connect your latest audio purchase straight to your rig - get it checked first'. I experienced this one myself recently, when I connected a Linn pre / power combo, which I had just purchased, straight to a pair of my better speakers. I should have known better, I should have checked what the Linns were putting out in terms of DC etc, but I didn't and I smoked both woofers on my IMF ALS40s! They have been repaired by an awesome speaker tech, luckily, was I SO annoyed with myself for doing such a dumb thing.
I would like you to do a video about the handling of the vinyl records and their cleaning. This was a great video as always. Thanks.
I worked at a cut-out record warehouse for a few years of my misspent youth and one of the chores we would do would be to "rebag" records which consisted of stripping off the existing damaged shrinkwrap and then sending them thru a machine that would wrap the record in plastic, seal off the ends with a hot wire knife and then send it through an oven to shrink the wrap tightly around the record. Now and then an album would get stuck inside or the cutting wire would come down on the album cover, which causes a straight-line burn across an entire edge of the record cover and the record. When we were really bored we would take unloved records and make bowls out of them by putting it through the oven 3-4 times to soften it up.
If you see old sealed records with a shrinkwrap seam down the center of the back, there's a chance they've been sent through a rebagging machine by a dude who partied way too hard the night before and hates his day job, his roommates, and his life. Buy with caution and open it right away.
lol- Thanks!
My number one tip - If you buy a vintage amp or receiver without hearing it first, always check the speaker connectors with a multimeter set to read DC volts the first time you power it up. Don't connect speakers until you know there's less than 100mv of DC on the speaker outputs. If the unit has shorted output transistors and no protect circuit (more common than most people think) it can cook the voice coils of your woofers. Now if it's a tube amp or receiver, it's just the opposite - you need to have speakers (or a dummy load) connected. The output transformer blocks DC from reaching the speakers, so it's almost always safe. Playing tube gear with no load on the output transformers can be a very expensive mistake!
....cats sure do love the warm spots ontop of amps and the hair sure loves goin in venting...
Another tip; If you remove the head shell for any reason, put the stylus guard on. I have a separate cartridge for 45s and when I switched out the headshell, I dropped it and screwed up the stylus of the expensive one. I was sick! The stylus was only a few months old. I haven't played any 45s since.
Oh I would have been livid if it happened to me. I understand that for sure.
I dropped my Ortofon MC Bronze the other day when switching cartridges, fortunately it didn't get damaged. Yes, I should have put the stylus guard on before removing the cartridge from the head shell but have you ever tried to put an Ortofon MC stylus guard back on? I find it to be virtually impossible!
So far I have been very fortunate in receiving my vintaged stereo gear in good working order per delivery!
Great advice. Bought a 2270 on eBay with the power switch missing but described as tested fine and works great. Long story short seller hot wired the switch to work and a host of other issues from him working on it. Still in the shop being repaired but everything seems fixable. I believe it will turn out OK but call it luck not brilliance. Great advice being given.
Those beautiful gold Spade lug connectors look like a short circuit waiting to happen when you bump something and pull on a speaker, as you mentioned. That's a pretty sizable torque arm rotating around a speaker output screw not really designed to secure with a lot of torque itself. Bump that wire using those connectors and you would have a short more easily than just using stranded. I would forgo the fancy, pretty and expensive gold Lugz and just used standard, insulated lugs which you crimp and flow a little solder after its crimped.
Newbie problem but I had a starter audio technica table with a built in pre amp run into a receiver without a phono stage to start. I eventually upgraded my table and receiver. I was selling the old at and the buyer wanted a demo. I hooked the at with preamp on into the phono input on the receiver and dropped the needle, my Jbl’s made the most horrific sound I’d ever heard. Luckily the everything survived my mistake.
Here’s one: after a move and year storage I took my Sansui 9090 out a couple days ago. A screw that holds the grill in the wood case came out and landed on the fuses on the power supply board. It took out a channel in the driver board. It took out a driver board fuse, so I hope replacing it is all it takes. So perhaps open up the case after a move or shipping is wise.
Owing vintaged stereo components are really cool!
I had left the dustcover up when I was playing a record on my Pioneer PL-L800 S and my very excitable 95 lb boxer mix swiped the tonearm so hard that it hit the spindle and destroyed the stylus. Close your dustcover when playing records!
Another, much dumber move: testing a vintage amp with your pristine ADS L810s. Blew a tweeter. Always use tester speakers for any amp that is new to you...
I would like to add one.. I was once listening to a record and wasn't thinking. While my turntable was amply isolated from the Subwoofer vibration, it was not isolated from the sound pressure waves. Rear port of the sub was hitting the back wall and reflecting onto my turntable.
Record had some extra bass that day.
Regarding pets and audio equipment: Cats are well known for wanting to sit on receivers - especially if it has been on for a long period of time.
Cat: "Wow. The longer I lie here, the warmer it gets... and the stranger it smells.".
Fur balls cats like the warmth
I had a 20 year old that was a heat pad thief .
Some common mistakes I always see are people that stack components. I will see a turn table on top of amplifier vents. A common rule of thumb is to ALWAYS have at least 12 inches of space around any vents. With Marantz receivers, I almost always see circular socket scratches around the small faceplate screws because people are too lazy or careless when removing the faceplate with a rachet. Oh yeah, when removing a faceplate, people also use a screw driver to pry off the knobs, leaving horrible dings and scratches on the faceplate. Another one I always see is using WD-40 to clean pots. People also misuse deoxit when cleaning pots. If you use the wrong chemicals, you can completely destroy the traces. I recommend having a skylabs tech or Kevin make a video on what chemicals can be used on pots and which ones to avoid.
Spoon is good as a lever to remove knobs, with the convex side against the faceplate.
"Contact cleaner" for pots?? Never!! Only if you want to scratch the carbon off completely with the wiper. Potentiometers need to be *_lubricated_* as well as being de-oxidized and cleaned.
WD-40 will ruin the pots, people used to do that before and I've repaired countless of devices with ruined volume knobs or other control because of this.
@@MarvinHartmann452 Very true. A mil-spec material such as *_ACF-50_* which is designed for electronics is the right way to go. We have been using it for about 30 years.
What temperatures is ok for the equipment? I have it stacked in Rack, but have ventilators inside with temp sensor. Also - back is open, Amp is bigger than the rest and turntable is outside of that rack. I have a little kid and I don’t want my equipment to by scratched or painted etc.
Also some turntables (Dual comes to mind) have cam screws that lock the table to base for transport. Don't be lazy, use them. And release them at the other end of the trip.
Re stylus protection from cleaning people, done that with a $2K Soundsmith Zephyr cartridge, no stylus protector on that; fortunately the SS carts can be re-tipped but takes a few months. There are some third party dust covers for entire TT (VPI super prime scout in my case). Put the dust cover on before cleaning folks come. -- Also, do not put the TT in any corner, as corners (vertical as well as horizontal = on floor against wall) are areas for bass build-up. -- Re the spade connectors, they look about as dangerous as the wires, because the screw block is all metal, is not insulated. So maybe the wire strands to not touch when you move speaker cables, but the metal blocks touch! Put at least electrical tape over those blocks.
If you have separates, especially tube amps turn the volume all the way down and power up the amplifier last and power off the amplifier first to avoid the loud pop.
If the vintage gear you buy has a two prong, non-polarized plug, change it out, with a polarized plug.
Just be sure that the hot and nuetral are in correct positioning.
If you have never done this, and are not sure of the procedure, take it to a repair facility and maybe consider a three prong grounded plug.
This is a SAFETY THING!!
Thank you very much for the great advice.
Another tip. Do not keep your tt within reach of children. Many years ago I had a very expensive Shure cartridge that got destroyed when a friend's child lifted the dust cover, stuck his hand underneath it and broke the stylus off. To add insult to injury the parent's of this child did not offer to replace it.
Yep in my first year definitely crossed positives and negatives twice, great point!
Excellent. Many of your points remind me why I sold my record collection (in 1988). I sometimes wish I hadn't , but sometimes I am glad I did.
Turn the amp volume all the way down before turning the amp on. With the volume up, the protect relay will arc when it kicks off and over time the contacts will carbon over and degrade leading to failure.
Great video I did a couple of those myself expecting some thunderstorms tonight I will be unplugging my Peachtree thanks!
Great advice Kevin I've learned so much coming into you're store this will help people who can't stop in !!!
I love it when a newbie (who acts like he's the first to discover classic audio) puts the turntable on top of a speaker, or puts speakers on top of a cabinet with receiver and turntable in the middle. Speakers are 3 feet apart, no separation, and the bass vibrations go right into the turntable.
3:48 if you can't figure out the polarity using the speaker wire then face the two speakers towards each other about 1" apart. Turn on the music. If the polarity is wrong then the loss of bass gives it away. The two speakers are cancelling each other out and it is most noticeable in the lower ranges. Separate them and face them both forward to see the difference in bass output from when they were facing each other. The bass will come back which further signals that the polarity was wrong. Switch one of the wires and try again.
Removing the turntable platter reminds me every one I have bought has the plater unmounted in the box for shipping purposes. There's a reason they do that!
Lightning arc's over everything, no protection. But when power gets knocked out, it's usually the surge when it comes back on that fries things. Also, I've lost more equipment from lighting strikes to the the network (DSL lines) than power lines.
Easy way to phase speakers. even with unmarked wires ... put them face to face in the middle of the room ... hook them up the way that gives you the best bass ... Now mark the wires at both ends with bits of red and black tape. For future just follow the color codes.
Yep ... spade connectors for screw down terminals ... hardware store, 10 for $1.00. No excuses.
I’ve done a couple of these things. Ebay gear I should have sent back but didn’t. Also be careful where you walk when you clean. I kicked a speaker cable and cause one of the cable pins to break and it touched the other terminal. Lost the right channel on my Marantz 1060. It’s in the shop now. I could have kicked myself!
I have a vintage Shure V15 Type 3 cartridge that I've owned for over 40 years. One cool safety feature it has is a built-in stylus protector that I just pull down when I'm cleaning, then put it back up when I am ready to play. Sadly, Shure is out of the cartridge business and focusing on pro audio gear (which I use for gigs).
@12:40 probably the most important thing on this list and I have been guilty of too many times. Audio virgins take note definitely of this one.
My top piece of advice is to trust your own ears. One person's bright is another person's dull, etc., etc.. We all have different components making up our hifi systems and no two listening rooms are alike. A piece of gear that others aren't happy with might work perfectly for you in your system in your home. On top of that, we all have different levels of hearing ability, the older we get the more our own hearing is likely to roll off at the top. Ever see a hifi reviewer publish the results of a recent hearing test? (I haven't). The sound as heard through your ears is what matters most.
In addition to removing the "outer" platter like on a Linn or Thorens, put some cardboard "shims" to just barely elevate the inner platter and keep it from bouncing up and down within the spindle shaft.
Yup, works like a champ!
I have done the mistake with the cleaning cloth, never again, I take the headshell off now.
i learned the hard way that almost every company uses a different pin-out for their xlr to rj45 adapters (also tend to be referred to as cat boxes). i know that's more of a professional audio problem, but i use them for home audio to use the cat5e in my walls to carry the audio to whatever room i want from the A/V closet
A word of caution to all the cord cutters out there. I lost all my electronics to a lightning strike. Everything right down to the water meter. I believe it came in through the ungrounded TV antenna and went through the entire home. I now have the antenna grounded with 2 eight foot copper rods embedded in the ground along with a lightning arrester.
If I know storms are in the area, I unplug my Marantz and Technics TT, as well as my iMac and synths. Paranoid but smart lol
Ouch. I had a Soundsmith fixed coil cartridge which (like many moving coil cartridge) has a non-removable stylus. I don't even know how I did it, but one day after removing it from the box in which I'd carefully stored it while I wasn't using it, I noticed the whole cantilever was gone. Never did find it. Fortunately, Soundsmith will rebuild their cartridges for about 20 percent of the original cost, but that took weeks and it's money I no longer have to spend on records!
My Motörhead vinyl met a similar fate on the back ledge of a ‘67 Buick.
Another great video Kevin. Looking forward to the last instalment of the turntable top 5
My turntable hangs from the rafters: sure does isolate it from the speakers, which are mounted on a C section girder attached to the brick walls, again, to isolate them from floorboards etc. Yes, I am 🤪
Hi Keven, love your videos, I think they and you are amazing. I have to apologize for being petty but speaker wire is stranded wire not braided. If it were braided it likely would not have the issue described in the video. An example of braided wire would be like solder wick.
Great videos. Loved the one on common misconceptions.
A great analogy for the production chain of recording, mastering and manufacture would be cooking.
If you make a so called fancy dish with the wrong or poor ingredients it's not gonna come out well. Whereas a good old Mac n Cheese which is cheap to make tastes great. It's all in the choice of ingredients.
outstanding info... THX!!
Don't sneeze, cough, or hack, over your equipment!! Keep farts away also (just kidding on this one!). Slime on the turntable or record... not good! Water on tubes can explode! No slobbering over equipment... carry on! Bet you haven't heard these but seriously!!
Your comments on removing platters for transport was excellent.
You then showed a Thorens TD turntable and missed the opportunity to point out that a TT like the Thorens has a suspension that allows the platter to bounce around, sometimes violently, in transport. The TD you showed had the MOTOR PROTECTION ROD, this can be added for ~$20. It is supposed to keep the platter from destroying the motor (for transport you'd still want to remove the platter or screw down the transport screws if present). Motors for these TTs have become very difficult and expensive to find.
My biggest pet peeve, is people leaving headphone jacks plugged in for a long time, it stretches the springs in side your receiver or amp and over time causes the head phone plug to be lose making a poor connection.
Back in 1979 or maybe 1980, I was listening to my first pressing copy of "Some Girls" by the Rolling Stones. It was playing on a JVC JLA-20 which was in my opinion, a decent first turntable. I don't exactly remember the string of events that took me away from my listening pleasure but since the JVC had auto-return and the record was nearly over, I didn't think much about it. I wish I had thought about it because when I returned to my home, several hours later, I found that the auto return hadn't worked and my record warped from the heat coming up from the turntable. Now, I don't know why the belt didn't melt or why the rubber mat didn't melt or why the motor didn't blow up but my Stones record was totally screwed! So, don't ever leave a record playing, even if it's automatic.
Here are two things that DESTROY records, but apparently, few people know about. 1) NEVER play a cut on an LP over & over, without pause! Time must elapse between playings. The reason is this. The stylus zooming back & forth in the groove exerts considerable force on the vinyl walls. The vinyl stretches and becomes brittle. Time must pass before it regains its resiliency. If a cut is played several times, without being allowed to recover, the groove walls crack. This results in that harsh, raspy distortion which "hurts" the ears! How much time should elapse between playings? A day is definitely sufficient, and is what I read was recommended, back in the 70s. I think 8 hrs or so would be OK, but that's just a guess. Maybe someone has conducted some serious research on this topic? 2) NEVER track a cartridge at the lowest possible force! It should be set at or near the allowable maximum, recommended by the manufacturer. That's because, if it's too low, on an intense passage, the stylus can lose contact with the groove wall, and careen about, gouging out chunks of vinyl. While normal wear does increase a little, at higher tracking force, tracking too low can destroy a record, in a single playing. The distortion that results is the same as that described above, from playing, over & over, without rest. If these rules are followed, a record should last almost forever. Sure, it may acquire some scratches & pops, but those are far less objectionable than the ear-torturing distortion that results from ignoring the above rules.
Hello Kevin, i live in Sacramento, CA. I am into vintage and modern. I really dig the channel. Great work, thank you. I am planning next summer to take a road trip on my Harley. Making stops at Harley and stereo shops. My vacation. Your shop is a stretch for me, but i want to see your shop. Planning this is there other shops in the midwest that I can visit. Please, if you could let me know. Thank you again and great work.
If you are blasting a record then turn down the volume before putting another record on. Dropping the stylus can pop a tweeter. Happened to me.
Experienced old head tips: Store lp's vertically and make sure they are not leaning left or right. Check and tighten speaker spikes and stands time to time as they really can impair speaker performance. Pull all connections (speaker wires, source cables, etc.) in and out periodically to keep contact surfaces clean for maximum signal transfer. Get a power conditioner!!!, I don't care what skeptics say the good ones really do improve the sound and will protect your equipment from catastrophic damage.(I KNOW BECAUSE TWO OF THEM SAVED ME FROM OVER $15,000 WORTH OF EQUIPMENT REPLACEMENT COSTS!!!). Seek out more tips from other experienced fellow audiophiles and periodicals,( STEREOPHILE, THE ABSOLUTE SOUND, etc).
Nonsense, careful with that gluten, msg & roundup
@@ericschulze5641LOL but seriously, these power conditioner offer some protection, but that's pretty much all that they do, it's only a bunch of caps for static. That's all they do. But in case of a power surge, they don't do anything.
Edit: audiophiles buy a lot of snake oil overpriced equipment, of course they will swear it makes a huge difference, because as the saying goes "it's easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled"
on occasions the polarity of speakers is reversed not often but it does occure from time to time
Easy test for out of phase speakers : turn balance knob to the left (less bass) - turn it back to center (more bass)
Can also make an interesting quartz clock out of that Kiss record!
Excellent advices, thank you very much!🇨🇦
Appreciate the videos, but I'm not even that deep into the hobby and most of this just comes off as common sense.
Would very much like to see more tear-down/repair videos or walk through of vintage electronic theory/design! Ex. "In 197xx pioneer was using these types of transistors on these amps etc. and they're unobtanium so stay away." Or "Kenwoods are harder to service because they don't make discrete component PCBs so it makes it difficult to isolate failure areas." However a flavor of the Kenwood advice was talked about in the amp quality comparison video.
Thanks for the continued videos!!
Definitely gonna be a fun one 😊
Technically, there is no positive or negative polarity with speakers. They're driven by an AC signal of varying frequency and amplitude, a signal that alternates above and below the zero crossing every half-cycle. Therefore, it's not really critical that the positive and negative connections on the speaker match the ones on the amp. It'll work just as well if they're reversed.
What DOES make a huge difference is if one or more speakers are wired backwards with respect to the others. That's when you get a phase problem. If, on a stereo setup for example, one speaker is wired positive-positive & negative-negative, while the other is wired positive-negative and negative-positive, then what you get is one speaker that moves opposite to the other one; one speaker cone pulls in while the other pushes out & vice versa. That creates two audio waveforms that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other, and when they meet in your listening area, they cancel each other out. That's what creates the 'hollow' sound you hear when you miswire a speaker. Modern receivers, the ones equipped to automatically tune their levels to match the room, can check for miswired speakers and alert you if one or more need to be fixed.
BTW, nothing bad will happen to a miswired speaker, (or amp) it just won't sound very good until it's fixed.
I never leave anything plugged in and I check WeatherBug lightning strikes before I listen to music.
Great video ! Other than that, the headgear is not a hat, it's a cap ! 😁 Hats have brims and shaped crowns, whereas caps don't have a brim, but a peak or visor. 👍
A cap is a type of hat. So yeah…still a hat. Hope that helps! 😊
@@erichermann2692 A cap is a type of headgear. So no...not a hat. A mitten is not a glove, yet you wear both on your hands. Hope that helps! 🙂
Great video. By the way I’d love to see a video on your favorite direct drive turntables
Words to live by .
Love this channel
Kevin, what is the purpose/advantage of leaving the receiver/amp powered up at all times?
Oh, and great advice on the speaker connections. I’ve been fighting that issue for years. Subscribed!
Thanks
There is also debate about it being better for larger electrolytic capacitors such as power supply filters to keep them charged, instead of 'shocking' them with charge / discharge cycles.
What if the + and - are not marked on your amp (an old 60s integrated tube amp)? Any idea how to tell which is which?
Great common sense advice keep up the great information love the channel
Thanks, will do!
Def guilty of the cleaning the turntable and almost making a big mistake!
I had all my LPs on the floor in crates.. The apartment flooded, ruining ALL the LP jackets. I threw them all away because they were rotten and moldy. Spent hours washing the LPs in the sink with soap n water and air drying them. Now, they're in new clear sleeves that I found online. It SUCKS.
Any suggestions for storage of them now?
Can you recommend spade connectors for my Sherwood S7200? It has thumb screws.
Always great advice
Thanks!
Great content.
Yep, guilty as charged...i have done a few of these also, I will add for those that are running low impedance speakers< check to be sure your amp will handle the ACTUAL impedance of your speakers not just the nominal impedance. I have a set of early mid 80'S Infinity speakers with a nominal rating of 4 ohms...the actual low impedance rating is more like 2.6. My NAD amp is very forgiving but it still will shut down if i get too crazy with the volume. They aren't called amp killers for nothing!
Okay, but at 1:40 I want a white, or light coloured hat! If a very dark coloured hat is worn outside on a very hot, sunny day; you are going to get fried. Are you sure at 12:25+ about the Surge Protector topic? Only thing you missed, and it is simple, and obvious to us vinyl folk who are at least 40+, and that is to put, and store a record in a vertical position.
In the receiver owners manual, it says "UNPLUG" the receiver in order to connect or disconnect speakers, cd players, turntables, etc.
Failure to do so can result in damage to the equipment!!!!
Excellent Information !!
Thanks for watching!
I blew an expensive Onkyo amplifier because the speaker wires was touching. When I turned it on it started making clicking sounds then it started smoking. I had another amp before that one. I turned it on it would come on but soon as the music started playing it went out. I would like scratching my head and couldn't figure out what what's wrong. So I turned it off and turned it back on. Then I turned my balance to the left speaker and it played, but when I turn to the right, it went out again. I found out that the right side speaker wires were touching. I had extended two wires together and didn't have no tape wrapped around so they wouldn't touch. I had to learn the hard way especially when I blew my expensive Onkyo amplifier. I was so distraught.
Any recommendation for space connectors? There are so many options. Have a Sansui 210 with screw connections.
Well ... i didnt pay full price but i do need new power cord as it was lost. Not easily found however... the system is worth 500.00 paid... 25. Ill chance it.
Update new needle. Made my own powercord and.. only thing not checked is the 8track..
I wanna pat the kitty! And then gently.remobe her from the expensive vintage receiver, lol.
ha ha ha ha, i've yanked off 2 needles. frick, it's the worst feeling
I love the sellers who try to hawk non-working gear with the “all it needs is a fuse” BS. If all it needs is a 50 cent fuse, then why don’t YOU put one in? Then you could sell it as working, and get more $$ for it. Oh, yeah, it’s because it needs a bit more than that, huh…. I was born at night, but it wasn’t _last_ night.
I don’t think you should recommend tining wires that are connected to speakers. This reduces the contact surface.
I am on a 1978 Onkyo TX-4500. (I have 500 CD's and only 17 albums)I have an excellent sounding CD player (more on that later) Hadn't had my big Onk very long and once in a while I was getting a little crackling here and there. Took it in , spent a hundo to have it cleaned and checked out. Got it back. Cool. A little down the road...that slight crackling came back. Aaaargh. But, waitaminute. I took the CD out and put it in the car CD player. The same crackle. It's the dam CD ! Blew a hundred bucks fer nothing. A lot of my CD's are 20 yrs old at least,plus I drove over the road....some have just decayed a bit.(one even slightly crackles just like an old album) Part II. Every one assumes all CD players are going to do pretty much the same thing and all sound the same. I did. Wrong. Way wrong. DVD players are CD players also, and there are millions of them laying around for cheap. Got a bunch and sampled them. All different. We were all shocked. But I have two of the winners. With remote. Somebody must know what I know, because they've doubled in price(from 20 to 40) but I have to stay mum, cuz I need to buy a couple more. If they throw a certain code they can lose their minds and never come back,so I need spares to last me. P.S. Been listening to the radio since the late sixties, and coloradosound.org has got to be one of, if not the finest radio station I have ever heard. They stream. They are NOT corporate b.s., and they play from all the decades of our lives, all the way up til now....the quality stuff. (and of course there's KEXP) (and for jazz ,it's 88.3 in Jersey) And I discovered a dub jazz band in the Netherlands by freakish luck. They are called FLiNK. You can check them out on You Tube.(sound is not too bad for YT.) I have them on wave .Phenomenal. Cheers.
It was my CD's....some have some miles on them.
I have a whole bunch of stereo gear so much so that it has me intimidated some of it works and some doesn't . Is there a way to set up a quick testing station or do I have to test everything separately?(4 receivers one amp with a separate receiver four sets of speakers two dule cassette players three cd DVD players a couple of VHS players)any help would be greatly appreciated thanks K
You need to establish one source, one amp or receiver and one set of speakers that work. Then test each group, source, amp/receiver, speaker until you have gone trough all devices. The amount of equipment you have does not justify building a test bench or so. You will need to buy or build all cables to test it all. That is where I would start.
@@hugobloemers4425 Hugo thanks very much for your help I feel much less intimidated now . As I was texting my question ,my wife was cleaning out a cupboard and handed me a group of papers and asked are these yours ,yes ! All the paper work pertaining to my Sansui 5000x receiver ,owners manual service Manuel purchase documents, and such.
@@kennethhill3054 I am happy this is helpful to you. Then I would start to hook up a set of speakers and a source to the Sansui. Hopefully that works so you can use that receiver to test everything that is not a receiver. Try the radio first, if that works, you can go trough all speakers and have that done :)
Here's one for ya. Don't let your girlfriend's sisters three year old pull the wire out of the back of a speaker and stick it in the wall socket. The warranty on you brand new NEC AUA6000E will be voided and the shop will ask you some interesting questions.