Tony and Mr. Carlson are the best. When Tony is tired he is still smarter than 99% of us. You are much more entertaining than any movie or TV. You sir have a great analytical mind.
Just amazing, only 8 parts, I could have watched the whole 100 series. Your work is so interesting to watch and you are a master craftsman. Thank you for sharing this awsome series. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
I always wanted to be an electronics technician and in fact I went to college to study to become one but life got in the way to achieving my dreams. Much respect and admiration for you, SIR MASTER .
Wow! Your electronics knowledge and adherence to the saying "If you don't do it right, don't do it at all", is awesome. I binge watched this entire series and love your presentation style!! You have motivated me to study electronics. It's always been an interest, I've built kits over the years including a Hafler 110 preamp and Hafler 220 amp. I hope to modify them one day with the Musical Concepts upgrade kits. I owned a Pioneer SX-727 in college my first album was the Allman Brothers Eat a Peach! Never an ounce of trouble from the SX-727 and after seeing this, I wish I kept it. Peace and Good Health, Sir, you are awesome, love your videos
Wow, superb job and thank you again for sharing all your knowledge and experience. We rarely see these monsters, and the extensive and costly job you do on these. Most ends up in a irreparable stage with expensive and difficult to get components to replace... It's a shame most prefer some more "modern" stuff with Bluetooth, digital indicators, remote control and so on. But quality is gone, the sound is gone, and that won't last more than 10 years. The 70's and 80's produced some jewels most would doubtly produce and sell today! So we keep on drooling every time you say ''hey, I've got another project on the bench, and it's a heavy kind of stuff!''
Imagine having an epic piece of gear that you want to have professionally restored. Now imagine sending it to Tony and watching him remaster it. Would waiting for each new episode wear out your keyboard's F5 refresh key?
Great job! I learn a lot with you. Thank you! I was wondering if you could suggest some literature or some guide of some sort to learn more about that details on repairing and restoring amps, some guide on how to test, what is important to test, what to watch while testing a repaired amp, and so forth. Thanx in advance. And thank you again for your videos, time, and willing to share knowledge. I never miss one of your videos. It's a whole class of electronics in detail.
There are so many good books out there, but a few of my favorites are The Art of Electronics by Horowitz, Valve Amplifiers by Morgan Jones and Designing Audio Power Amplifiers by Bob Cordell. I think I wore out my first copy of Valve Amplifiers by Morgan Jones! Although books are great for reference, nothing beats hands-on experience. I started out by buying old equipment at yard sales and flea markets. I went for the really low cost stuff and then did my best to fix it. If I fixed it, great! If I failed to fix it, I still always learned something and wasn't out much money. Above all, just get started and enjoy the hobby!
Congratulations!!! Amazing job Tony! Many thanks for sharing your knowledge, skills and patience! You motivate me with my electronics hobby too, but much less complicated than yours, by far.
WOW So hard to find someone like you that knows what they are doing,I'm really nervous about just letting anyone recap my SX-1050, Love your work and vids 👍🔊💯💯💯💯 Keep them coming 😁
You're right! You can't let "just anybody" work on these vintage units. I see some very "sloppy" work done by some so-called "techs". It makes me shudder every time I get something on the bench that was previously "serviced".. That's how some of these things end up on my bench I guess, so I should be somewhat grateful for the work. lol! Yes, Tony does *excellent* work! Some of the best I have ever seen.
@@JeffCounsil-rp4qv Exactly because when you leave the receiver with a tech it's all in their hands and you have to have the patience and know how,I don't mind paying good money but as long as they do a good job job , Because they don't make these receivers like this anymore and I know for a fact good techs are hard to come by, Thanks for your reply Jeff Tony is a good tech, Seems you know your stuff also,👍 THANKS AGAIN
I just found an old Keithley 197 for $50 on eBay. Only issue I had to put some conductive paint on the 4 softkeys. Works perfect and dead on accurate. Been lucky on used gear lately, found an old Tektronix 485 for $50 that works great, channel 2 attenuation board needs a little work but functional. Than I picked up a Tektronix 2430A for $45 and it works perfect, passed all self calibration tests. One mans trash is another mans treasure. Love the channel and all the repair videos. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
LOVE the work you did here but I'm super bummed you didn't cover those output transistors! Those are abtainable but at HUGE expense and I understand there are much cheaper alternatives.......
I think there is a pretty good thread that covers this on the AudioKarma website. Sanken makes some good alternatives, but you will need to modify the mounting hardware because they use a different case style. Just go to AudioKarma and search for Pioneer SX-1980 transistor replacements.
This is the "Energizer Bunny" project...keeps going and going. Nevertheless its loaded with good stuff. That Chinese spec sheet it showed a beta value range of 250-1200. (2:00 min) Thats quite a range ! Better match those bad boys. Blues for Allah / GD -- one of my favorites !
That may be, but they have hFE (Beta) "groups" which are designated by a suffix letter. Each "group" has it's own range. Then you match within whatever group you use.
Great work my friend. you mentioned wiring the transformer for 110v. the schematic mentions this is 50/60 htz. So I suspect it can be wired for 220v . I live in the middle east and would be awesome if it works on 220v. I bought it from a guy who brought it to the middle east from the US.
It probably only looks like it in the camera, but the selector LED's are incredibly bright. Some people figure a LED needs to run at the full 20mA. This is wrong. A modern LED at full power will emit far too much light for an indicator. Sometimes 0.2mA is appropriate - it depends, and you need to experiment.
The camera is more sensitive to the spectrum so they will appear over bright in the camera. However you are somewhat correct about selector/indicator lamps. Most bulbs are mounted straight-in, and LEDs in general are "front-firing". Incandescent bulbs are 360° and spread the light more or less evenly. In the Pioneer SX-980 however, the indicator lamps are mounted vertically and LEDs do not work as well. And in some other units, the lamps are too closely mounted and you get a "spotlight" effect without fully illuminating the indicator, dial, or meter. Fortunately for certain units, incandescent lamps are available, but you must look for the quality long-life types of the proper voltage and wattage.
What I would have liked to see is how the output changes with bias change. I mean, how did they arrive at 30mV? Do they pick that so there is enough margin across the entire power range and temperature so that you don’t get crossover distortion? At what bias level do you get crossover distortion? Maybe 10mV?
The 30 mV is a compromise between keeping the amp cool at idle while insuring that all of the output transistors are turned on enough to avoid crossover distortion, even if there are slight differences between the outputs. In many cases, if the transistors are closely matched, you can turn the bias down below the recommended level and still avoid crossover distortion. I set it as the instructions recommend (30 mv), but the amp still performed without crossover distortion when I had it down to about 12mv!
Thanks for the response Robot (Tony). They never seem to provide a tolerance on that value, like +- 1mV, so you don’t know how critical that setting is. But isn’t it also true if you have the bias too high, that it will clip the top of the waveform before the bottom and lower the potential clean output power?
@@jimomertz That condition would be more from the DC balance (offset) being off. Running the bias too high will cause the amp to run abnormally hot, even at idle.
Extensive rebuild,you are watching,PARD ,periodic & random drift,there is actually a standard to this; 8 hour; relating to warm up on electronic gear..,in your case- dc BIAS. I could be wrong on that exact number.yes I went to college for electronics, did you calibrate that probe,before your capacitivly coupled that output, to see your amplitude ? I could be wrong on that exact number.Let's here some music...[ PS: I know your going to crank that unit loud, and listen to that Grateful dead & go to that place & admire your work....rock it !!!! Nice rebuild enjoy
Always in absolute awe of your work, and what an excellent series of videos this has been! The attention to detail..even down to that last little capacitor change simply because of a tiny bit of oscillation before clipping! Now, perhaps our attention should turn to preserving YOU for future generations to learn from ..along with perhaps, Mr. Carlson! ;D
Very nice job . I am danny from the Netherlands . I have an sx -1080 . My transformer is humming . Do you have any tips ? Also am I asking myself is there a way to get the scratches out of the front silver aluminum ? Much greets danny
Great series of videos, x-ray but, if I might, I need to ask one question about this particular in the series. Is it really very good to to set a turntable on top of the receiver like this (near the end)? I know the 1980 has heat sinks as big as some receivers, but, heat rises. Won't the table block the heat dissipation upward? I don't mean to be disrespectful, just wondering. We always believed (going back almost 50 years) that this was taboo.
I had limited space to get everything in the shot. It was OK for the few minutes I was making the video. Normally, you would never place a turntable on other components, but on a level and dense surface to minimize rumble and distortion. (Of course, radiotvphononut proved that you can place a Crosley turntable on a toilet, but that's another story...) ;) Thanks for watching!
Any chance I would be able to ask your opinion on an issue not related to the SX1980? It's in reference to a Realistic STA-2000, specifically about an issue with the loudness button
I enjoy your videos very much, lots of detail to make things clear. I am having trouble using the above mentioned email address. Every time I try to send you an email it says the address is not valid. I know about 7-8 months ago I was able to contact you with a different email address but apparently I have lost that one. What am I doing wrong? Thanks Bob
Hi Tony, great work ! I watch your vids from Italy and every time I learn something more....BRAVO ! thanks ! Only a question, the 2sa733 is still available, why to put an equivalent ?bye...
I've had to locate some 6-lead dual transistors (supermatched pairs) for some preamp builds I'm doing. They're a little unobtanium, but still out there if you look carefully. LN394 and MAT02.
Here is a link: ua-cam.com/video/XBqjobrlLpo/v-deo.html If that does not work, click on his name and it takes you to his channel and then click videos. It does not have a number 7 in the title.
Tony and Mr. Carlson are the best. When Tony is tired he is still smarter than 99% of us. You are much more entertaining than any movie or TV. You sir have a great analytical mind.
So great. You are an artist. Well done.
Just amazing, only 8 parts, I could have watched the whole 100 series.
Your work is so interesting to watch and you are a master craftsman.
Thank you for sharing this awsome series.
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
What a mission, well done. I really learned a lot Tony, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, trials and tribulations 🙏.
Excellent restoration Tony. Really enjoyed this series.
I always wanted to be an electronics technician and in fact I went to college to study to become one but life got in the way to achieving my dreams. Much respect and admiration for you, SIR MASTER .
Wow! Your electronics knowledge and adherence to the saying "If you don't do it right, don't do it at all", is awesome. I binge watched this entire series and love your presentation style!! You have motivated me to study electronics. It's always been an interest, I've built kits over the years including a Hafler 110 preamp and Hafler 220 amp. I hope to modify them one day with the Musical Concepts upgrade kits.
I owned a Pioneer SX-727 in college my first album was the Allman Brothers Eat a Peach! Never an ounce of trouble from the SX-727 and after seeing this, I wish I kept it.
Peace and Good Health, Sir, you are awesome, love your videos
I really enjoyed this series of videos on the SX 1980. Superior knowledge and craftsmanship. I wish that unit was in my living room.
Nice series, best educational one yet, and man lucky owner whoever buys that.
Wow, superb job and thank you again for sharing all your knowledge and experience.
We rarely see these monsters, and the extensive and costly job you do on these. Most ends up in a irreparable stage with expensive and difficult to get components to replace... It's a shame most prefer some more "modern" stuff with Bluetooth, digital indicators, remote control and so on. But quality is gone, the sound is gone, and that won't last more than 10 years. The 70's and 80's produced some jewels most would doubtly produce and sell today!
So we keep on drooling every time you say ''hey, I've got another project on the bench, and it's a heavy kind of stuff!''
Amazing work! I love seeing these old amps get a new lease on life rather than ending up in a landfill.
Great series, Tony! Thanks!
Inspiring work as always man!!
Just one thing left to do... run some speaker leads over to my house. yukyukyuk Fantastic series Tony. Thank you very much.
EXCELLENT series Tony!
Imagine having an epic piece of gear that you want to have professionally restored. Now imagine sending it to Tony and watching him remaster it. Would waiting for each new episode wear out your keyboard's F5 refresh key?
It turned out lovely!
Excellent work Tony - very interesting.
Congratulations for the work. It was a spectacle this Pioneer. Greetings from Brazil.
Great job! I learn a lot with you. Thank you! I was wondering if you could suggest some literature or some guide of some sort to learn more about that details on repairing and restoring amps, some guide on how to test, what is important to test, what to watch while testing a repaired amp, and so forth. Thanx in advance. And thank you again for your videos, time, and willing to share knowledge. I never miss one of your videos. It's a whole class of electronics in detail.
There are so many good books out there, but a few of my favorites are The Art of Electronics by Horowitz, Valve Amplifiers by Morgan Jones and Designing Audio Power Amplifiers by Bob Cordell. I think I wore out my first copy of Valve Amplifiers by Morgan Jones! Although books are great for reference, nothing beats hands-on experience. I started out by buying old equipment at yard sales and flea markets. I went for the really low cost stuff and then did my best to fix it. If I fixed it, great! If I failed to fix it, I still always learned something and wasn't out much money. Above all, just get started and enjoy the hobby!
Thank you for this tips and suggestions! Cheers from Brazil! Have a great day!
Congratulations!!! Amazing job Tony! Many thanks for sharing your knowledge, skills and patience! You motivate me with my electronics hobby too, but much less complicated than yours, by far.
Great stuff Tony...I have learned a lot from your videos. Appreciate you taking the time to put these out.
Awesome job awesome wish I had it
Watched from start to finish excellent job, learnt so much watching your videos, keep em coming.
Great job as always. Love it.
WOW So hard to find someone like you that knows what they are doing,I'm really nervous about just letting anyone recap my SX-1050, Love your work and vids 👍🔊💯💯💯💯 Keep them coming 😁
You're right! You can't let "just anybody" work on these vintage units. I see some very "sloppy" work done by some so-called "techs". It makes me shudder every time I get something on the bench that was previously "serviced".. That's how some of these things end up on my bench I guess, so I should be somewhat grateful for the work. lol! Yes, Tony does *excellent* work! Some of the best I have ever seen.
@@JeffCounsil-rp4qv Exactly because when you leave the receiver with a tech it's all in their hands and you have to have the patience and know how,I don't mind paying good money but as long as they do a good job job , Because they don't make these receivers like this anymore and I know for a fact good techs are hard to come by, Thanks for your reply Jeff Tony is a good tech, Seems you know your stuff also,👍 THANKS AGAIN
I just found an old Keithley 197 for $50 on eBay. Only issue I had to put some conductive paint on the 4 softkeys. Works perfect and dead on accurate. Been lucky on used gear lately, found an old Tektronix 485 for $50 that works great, channel 2 attenuation board needs a little work but functional. Than I picked up a Tektronix 2430A for $45 and it works perfect, passed all self calibration tests. One mans trash is another mans treasure. Love the channel and all the repair videos. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Did we get a shot of those series diode/stabistor things installed?
Nice work. I learn a lot
You the MAN Tony B. I use to fix things don't have the time now. I fix my first TV at the age of 11 yrs old. LOL
you got balls man Im tired just watching came out awesome!!
That was a monster series for THE monster receiver. Hoping you restore a Yamaha CR-2020 some day.
grate job watched all of it and more of your videos like to get that pioneer sx-1980 how much I know it will work a long time thanks wc
It's not going to be cheap I've seen 1980s going for over 3000!!!...you better save your pennys!!!
Great job, Tony. Can't wait for the next project.
What a battle first class work thanks for awesome video
Salutations Tony! Respect from India 🍻
You are a master class and humble man at that too..... great stuff 👍
That's what I about your channel is you don't stop until it's doing right
Real nice job Tony as always. Turned out really well.
That was lovely to watch, thankyou :)
Great series!!
LOVE the work you did here but I'm super bummed you didn't cover those output transistors! Those are abtainable but at HUGE expense and I understand there are much cheaper alternatives.......
I think there is a pretty good thread that covers this on the AudioKarma website. Sanken makes some good alternatives, but you will need to modify the mounting hardware because they use a different case style. Just go to AudioKarma and search for Pioneer SX-1980 transistor replacements.
Great Job Tony. Well done! Cheers.
This is the "Energizer Bunny" project...keeps going and going. Nevertheless its loaded with good stuff. That Chinese spec sheet it showed a beta value range of 250-1200. (2:00 min) Thats quite a range ! Better match those bad boys. Blues for Allah / GD -- one of my favorites !
That may be, but they have hFE (Beta) "groups" which are designated by a suffix letter. Each "group" has it's own range. Then you match within whatever group you use.
Great work my friend. you mentioned wiring the transformer for 110v. the schematic mentions this is 50/60 htz. So I suspect it can be wired for 220v . I live in the middle east and would be awesome if it works on 220v. I bought it from a guy who brought it to the middle east from the US.
It probably only looks like it in the camera, but the selector LED's are incredibly bright. Some people figure a LED needs to run at the full 20mA. This is wrong. A modern LED at full power will emit far too much light for an indicator. Sometimes 0.2mA is appropriate - it depends, and you need to experiment.
The camera is more sensitive to the spectrum so they will appear over bright in the camera. However you are somewhat correct about selector/indicator lamps. Most bulbs are mounted straight-in, and LEDs in general are "front-firing". Incandescent bulbs are 360° and spread the light more or less evenly. In the Pioneer SX-980 however, the indicator lamps are mounted vertically and LEDs do not work as well. And in some other units, the lamps are too closely mounted and you get a "spotlight" effect without fully illuminating the indicator, dial, or meter. Fortunately for certain units, incandescent lamps are available, but you must look for the quality long-life types of the proper voltage and wattage.
What I would have liked to see is how the output changes with bias change. I mean, how did they arrive at 30mV? Do they pick that so there is enough margin across the entire power range and temperature so that you don’t get crossover distortion? At what bias level do you get crossover distortion? Maybe 10mV?
The 30 mV is a compromise between keeping the amp cool at idle while insuring that all of the output transistors are turned on enough to avoid crossover distortion, even if there are slight differences between the outputs. In many cases, if the transistors are closely matched, you can turn the bias down below the recommended level and still avoid crossover distortion. I set it as the instructions recommend (30 mv), but the amp still performed without crossover distortion when I had it down to about 12mv!
Thanks for the response Robot (Tony). They never seem to provide a tolerance on that value, like +- 1mV, so you don’t know how critical that setting is. But isn’t it also true if you have the bias too high, that it will clip the top of the waveform before the bottom and lower the potential clean output power?
@@jimomertz That condition would be more from the DC balance (offset) being off. Running the bias too high will cause the amp to run abnormally hot, even at idle.
Extensive rebuild,you are watching,PARD ,periodic & random drift,there is actually a standard to this; 8 hour; relating to warm up on electronic gear..,in your case- dc BIAS. I could be wrong on that exact number.yes I went to college for electronics, did you calibrate that probe,before your capacitivly coupled that output, to see your amplitude ? I could be wrong on that exact number.Let's here some music...[ PS: I know your going to crank that unit loud, and listen to that Grateful dead & go to that place & admire your work....rock it !!!! Nice rebuild enjoy
Beautiful job, Tony!
Bravo! Your are a pro
Always in absolute awe of your work, and what an excellent series of videos this has been! The attention to detail..even down to that last little capacitor change simply because of a tiny bit of oscillation before clipping!
Now, perhaps our attention should turn to preserving YOU for future generations to learn from ..along with perhaps, Mr. Carlson! ;D
I could use some preservatives! :)
Great Job
Bravo! Masterful!
What a gem! That came out beautiful. Blues for Allah too, can't go wrong there! 😎
Very nice job .
I am danny from the Netherlands .
I have an sx -1080 . My transformer is humming . Do you have any tips ?
Also am I asking myself is there a way to get the scratches out of the front silver aluminum ?
Much greets danny
Great series of videos, x-ray but, if I might, I need to ask one question about this particular in the series.
Is it really very good to to set a turntable on top of the receiver like this (near the end)? I know the 1980 has heat sinks as big as some receivers, but, heat rises. Won't the table block the heat dissipation upward? I don't mean to be disrespectful, just wondering. We always believed (going back almost 50 years) that this was taboo.
I had limited space to get everything in the shot. It was OK for the few minutes I was making the video. Normally, you would never place a turntable on other components, but on a level and dense surface to minimize rumble and distortion. (Of course, radiotvphononut proved that you can place a Crosley turntable on a toilet, but that's another story...) ;) Thanks for watching!
@@xraytonyb And thanks for your pithy reply, x-ray. Yeah, a Crosley on a John, I luv it...lol
they sell on ebay for $4,500 to $6,000 and i seen them sell for more Beautiful Reciever.
May I ask you; Are you a professor on a University of technology? 1000 thumbs up!
Ztx matched transistors do a much better job to replace those 2sa979’s Great work
Any chance I would be able to ask your opinion on an issue not related to the SX1980? It's in reference to a Realistic STA-2000, specifically about an issue with the loudness button
Send me an e-mail and I'll try to answer as best I can. Thanks for watching!
@@xraytonyb how do I get to your email thru UA-cam?
@@gregcarnine5052 Look underneath the video by the "Show More" Section. It is listed there
@@xraytonyb email sent
Great work Tony !
So when your friend sells it on Ebay for 5K will he give you half for ALL the hard work ??
BRAVO!!
A real wonder, how I envy you!
VERY COOL!
👍👍👍😊
I enjoy your videos very much, lots of detail to make things clear. I am having trouble using the above mentioned email address. Every time I try to send you an email it says the address is not valid. I know about 7-8 months ago I was able to contact you with a different email address but apparently I have lost that one. What am I doing wrong? Thanks Bob
HAINBECH demonstrated that UA-cam could not get a match when music is played at half speed or a quarter speed.
Hi Tony, great work ! I watch your vids from Italy and every time I learn something more....BRAVO ! thanks ! Only a question, the 2sa733 is still available, why to put an equivalent ?bye...
I've had to locate some 6-lead dual transistors (supermatched pairs) for some preamp builds I'm doing. They're a little unobtanium, but still out there if you look carefully.
LN394 and MAT02.
No part 7 for the S-1980?
Here is a link: ua-cam.com/video/XBqjobrlLpo/v-deo.html
If that does not work, click on his name and it takes you to his channel and then click videos. It does not have a number 7 in the title.
BUY 2SA979
.