Sony, Yamaha, and Insomnia

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One of those nights, rush to get ready for xmas. Thought I would write something about my recent adventures to help put me to sleep.

So I am pretty old so my gf is appropriately old too so she is taking care of her 86 year old father. He's was something of a musician, banjo and guitar, and still likes listening to music but hearing is mostly gone. *SO* a while back I picked up a broken Sony receiver ~30 Watt/channel. Really easy fix, just a broken on/off switch. Set it up in gf's computer room with some fairly nice book shelf speakers. Few runs on youtube and he seems happy. A 30 Watt receiver compensates well even for profound hearing loss.

Now the fanatic part. I probably have 8 or 10 sources for music. Several DIY kits, commercial receivers, turntables, 5 sets of speakers, mp3 players, takes up more space then my bed! Soon as I gave away the Sony receiver it was like I had an empty spot in my life I had to fill. So I wandered though a couple of Goodwill/Salvation Army type places and came across a Yamaha DSP A970 for $20 so I thought I would bite. Of course it was broken! I think what they do is plug it in and if the displays light up they put a $40 tag on it. If the display doesn't light, $20. Makes me wonder if there is $20 worth of copper in the transformer.

Oddly tough fix not because of anything other then took quite a while to find the service manual and I probably had to read though it 3-4 times before I got it. Turned out to just be ~$.79 LM7805 regulator that had gone south and I had a replacement on hand. Of course I managed to blow a couple of fuses on the power supply with my DVM probe. I had to get 7.5 amp replacements from an auto supply store as the hardware store electrical department didn't have them that high. That raised my fix-it budget to maybe $2 which is still pretty good.

About the A970: IMHO it is one crazy beast. It is intended for home theater or hifi use to simulate classical/rock music concerts in everything from Austrian concert halls to the Roxy in Los Angles. The user manual, and coincidentally the switches, recommend a minimum of 5 speakers with the preferred set up using 7 speakers. The two standard stereo speakers and the center(s) <Dolby 5.1?> are fed by 65 Watts each. In addition to the 3-4 speakers in a standard format they expect you to put a speaker in each corner of the room. I think those speakers are only fed by about 20 Watts from looking at the amp. There is also a sub woofer output that puts out 200 Hz or less if you want to cap off your 7 speaker system with a powered sub woofer.

I think the street price on the Yamaha was around $1000 when new back in the early 90s. Shelf life on audio equipment is about the same as warm milk. I think you can pick up one now for ~$140 and it will even include the remote control.

First thing I did was see how loud it would play of course. Soon as I smelled that burning insulation smells I decided that was enough of a test! :) Seems pretty robust.

I am only running it with 3 speakers at the moment and as a regular stereo it functions just fine. The thing is rife with DIN connectors because of the home theater thing but I haven't tried them out yet. Supposed to have features like gen lock overlays of amp status to video signal.

I will get it going with 7 speakers to see if I have an epiphany. So far I am a little underwhelmed with the DSP effects. The effects are just too odd for words. I tried the amp with headphones and you know how you can tell the sound is coming from either side of your head when listening to stereo? When you turn the effects on with headphones, you suddenly lose that sensation. It is almost like the headphones are removed and you are listening to the music in a room with reverberation like a tile bathroom. Of course you still feel the weight and pressure of the headphones and that is one thing that makes it so odd.

The speakers have a similar phenomena. You are listening to them thinking 'right, left, center' then you turn on the effects and if you had your eyes closed, you couldn't find them! I'm not sure I will be able to get used to the DSP modes but the fallback is always just turning the effects off and using it as a normal stereo.

Well, tomorrow it gets hooked up to my 15" Fishers and 10" Pioneers up front with a bunch of book shelf speakers in the corners. I think I am ready to rest my eyes now.
 
Just an belated update.

OK, I am sold on the Yamaha now. There is no comparison between the bookshelf speakers I was testing the system with and full sized speakers. The Fisher speakers hadn't been used in at least 5 years that I know of, took about 20 minutes to shake loose the dust. Both the Fishers and Pioneer speakers at >90 SPL so load w/o distortion is no problem.

Kind of funny, because I was short on space I put the Pioneers on top of the Fishers. At high volume the vibrations sent the Pioneers walking off the top of the Fishers and crashing into the wall. 65 Watts ~1/10 of a horsepower and it shows.

The Fisher speakers don't have a good reputation. It could be the Pioneers make up for them or it could just be someone put out a bum review for reasons unknown. Everything from bass line to snare/rim shots is incredible! Favorite album so far is Talking Heads 'Stop Making Sense' with effects set for TV/DVD music video. Synthesized music like Yaz 'Upstairs at Eric's' is to die for.

If I ever run across another Yamaha I'm going to buy it. Only problem is none of the programmable remotes I have work right for anything other then on/off and fleaBay sellers are asking more then I paid for the amp for anything close to Yamaha.
 
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