Friday, December 6, 2013

Sherwood S-8800 recap


I got a Sherwood S-8800 to go over and recap, and here are the results! Cosmetic condition of the receiver was excellent for its age, but the caps needed help, most of them were wayyy out of tolerance, some by as much as 80%! Yikes.

Before shots,

Tone amp:


Preamp (phono amp) :


Left power amp board, this one has a cracked cap on it:


Right power amp board, note the axial cap on the right; it has been replaced with the wrong kind, it was replaced with a 15uF cap rather than the proper 20uF.


Main filter cap:


And after!

Tone amp:


Preamp (phono amp):


Left power amp:


The right amp board is identical to the left, so I didn't take an after shot of it.

Filter cap after:


I fired it up on a DBT (Dim-Bulb Tester) after finishing it up, everything checked out okay so I took it off and hooked it up to full line power, set the DC-offset and bias and then started playing it. Very sweet sounding amp, much like a tube amp but with transistors instead of tubes. For those of you into warm tube sound from solid-state gear, I would definitely look this one up.

3 comments:

  1. I just got one, obvious hum that gets louder with volume increase. I'm thinking i should re-cap the main filter cap.

    I can't figure out which of the two trim pots are for the bias on the driver boards. Do you know?

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  2. Also wondering if you replaced the capacitor cans.

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