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.

Pioneer SX-980

A beautiful Pioneer SX-980, in near mint shape. Got this in a trade, easily one of the best looking SX-980's I've ever seen.

ADS speaker score!

I have been insanely busy as of late, got a new car that needed minor work to get running again, I have three receivers in shop that I'm making parts lists for, which I'm close to done with (finally!), plus family stuff. It's been crazy in short! But, I am getting it done, it's just going slower than I'd like due to everything else going on.

I did manage to find the first score I've had in awhile, a pair of ADS L880's for $100! They are in very nice shape, the usual wear marks and a few nicks, but excellent cosmetics overall. They work flawlessly, all the drivers are in nice shape and they sound fantastic. I'll let the pics do the talking.

Yamaha CR-620 photos!

I got this CR-620 in a deal with some other receivers, got it as "not working" but as it turned out the thing worked very well! Other than the controls, faceplate and knobs needing cleaned, it's in excellent shape. Turned out very nice after the cleaning and sounds great, the Yamaha sound and the variable loudness control is very nice. 35 watts per channel at 8 ohms, all discrete, sensitive 1.8uV tuner, it's got some nice specs for being a low MOTL receiver. Next post will be the AU-555A restore!

 

 

I've got my first BIG speakers!

An opportunity came up to purchase some speakers at a price I couldn't resist. And, this is what I got:

(Please excuse the horrid carpet, it's been here since we moved in awhile back and I haven't had a chance to get in and remove it)

A pair of Polk SDA-1C's in original boxes for $450! They are about as mint as used speakers can get, they spent most of their life in boxes as the original owner worked for the Pentagon and they moved him around a lot. Boxes are a little beat up from all the moves, but the speakers themselves look like they just came from the factory. Their sound will make tears of joy come to your eyes, the transparency, clarity, soundstage and imaging of these things is something that has to be heard to believe it. I'll let the pics tell the rest:

Grilles on

Close up of the speaker

 Top of one of the boxes (they both look like this)

Bottom of the box

Seal label, pretty darn neat!

I'll be doing a recap of the crossovers soon, stay tuned!

Info update (New project coming soon!)

Hey all, I have added my contact email address to the blog, it's under the "about me" section to the right of this post. I have had more people than I can count asking for contact info on here, so I have added it. 

Info on me: I have been very, very busy over the past 5-6 months and had some very hard family changes happen that took me away from this for awhile, so I have not had a lot of time to post on here, or anywhere for that matter. Things are pretty much normal finally (or as normal as they can be now), so I will be having more restorations coming up in the near future, stay tuned!

Update 05/14/13: Next project: a Sansui AU-555A, a little tiny amp that sounds much bigger then its size implies.