I live in Leeds and have found it impossible to find a good repair shop ..i have various Amps ,Turntables, CD players and Tape decks that i would like looking at for one thing or another...is there anywhere in Yorkshire that i could contact to do some re-cap work and sort out some small issues...
You might be better off asking at Audiokarma, since there are more people fixing stuff over there, here there is more talk than actions.
I fix this stuff but lots of it is un-economical to fix, because it takes time and time = $.
I won't touch CD players, tape decks because most are mechanical problems, for which no spare parts exist. Some small powered amps are not worth it either. You have to ask what is it worth to replace vs what it costs to fix?
I fix this stuff but lots of it is un-economical to fix, because it takes time and time = $.
I won't touch CD players, tape decks because most are mechanical problems, for which no spare parts exist. Some small powered amps are not worth it either. You have to ask what is it worth to replace vs what it costs to fix?
You call them small isues but they definitely will NOT cost a couple Pounds ... will you pay for the related bench time?
Not sure about UK rates, but US bench time rate runs around U$60 an hour, or higher.
The amount of work you seem to need will easily add up to a few hundred.
Hi
Hifi is the last thing i can be obsessive about without causing myself harm...
I will gladly pay for someone to do the work, If i was not colour blind and dyslexic i would read up and do it myself, but i've always been steered away from electronics ....I understand the amount of time a re-cap would take , there are some people in the south of England but i live in the North and hate sending Amp's ect through the post.....
Hifi is the last thing i can be obsessive about without causing myself harm...
I will gladly pay for someone to do the work, If i was not colour blind and dyslexic i would read up and do it myself, but i've always been steered away from electronics ....I understand the amount of time a re-cap would take , there are some people in the south of England but i live in the North and hate sending Amp's ect through the post.....
Hello!
Most of my interest is in the speakers side of things, but I do have an oscilloscope, couple of multi-meters, soldering iron and a willingness to dismantle anything that comes my way.
I'm based just south of Sheffield. You can PM me here, or click the link in my signature and you can get in touch via email. I'd prefer email as the PM inbox can get full quite quickly here.
I can do things like replace capacitors just fine. Turntables are pretty straight-forward, too. Fault-finding on an amplifier with an unknown fault is more tricky, but it's something I plan on practicing anyway - I have a couple of dead amps here that need bringing back to life.
So yes, feel free to get in touch and I'd be happy to try to assist.
Chris
Most of my interest is in the speakers side of things, but I do have an oscilloscope, couple of multi-meters, soldering iron and a willingness to dismantle anything that comes my way.
I'm based just south of Sheffield. You can PM me here, or click the link in my signature and you can get in touch via email. I'd prefer email as the PM inbox can get full quite quickly here.
I can do things like replace capacitors just fine. Turntables are pretty straight-forward, too. Fault-finding on an amplifier with an unknown fault is more tricky, but it's something I plan on practicing anyway - I have a couple of dead amps here that need bringing back to life.
So yes, feel free to get in touch and I'd be happy to try to assist.
Chris
Some faults on amps can be straight forward to fix.
However, some end up getting in a loop of being fixed then break again as the fault is a little more subtle.
This means what might look like a simple fault is far from simple and ends up costing a fortune in time and postage or fuel from multiple attempts at a fix.
However, some end up getting in a loop of being fixed then break again as the fault is a little more subtle.
This means what might look like a simple fault is far from simple and ends up costing a fortune in time and postage or fuel from multiple attempts at a fix.
Don't expect a professional to have anything to do with your antiques. They have to make a living and that means they would have to charge more than your stuff is worth. You will notice that if you return a piece to a department store, they just give you a new one because that is cheaper than trying to repair the broken one. Anyone capable of servicing your stuff can make 4x as much at a factory or industry and without the drama. DIYA people like to tinker, and need something interesting to do. But odds are that they will destroy the things they play with, but it doesn't mater because they own it and their own time.
If my antiques are worth, say a thousand pounds +, as is my Pioneer PL70Lmk2.TT,and i pay £200-£300 on getting it fixed...it makes sense as you can not get a TT for that money in fact to get anything near the Pioneer you would have to spend many thousands , the things that i keep are NOT throw away....if a shop sells and repairs hifi then thats what they do....thats what i'm looking for...
Problem is that we now live in a throw away society, nobody really fixes consumer electronics anymore, well at least not beyond the warranty period and mostly ends up as landfil or dumped in a 3rd world country.
I personally wouldn't bother with repairing the CD players or Tape Decks. If possible you could rip the cd's using your computer and stream the audio to your amplifier. I have a marantz tape deck and cd player from the mid 1980's both still work perfectly but haven't used either in a very long time and I now rip all my cd's and stream the audio from a Rasberry Pi computer.
The TT looks impressive and probably worth repairing if you have a large vinyl collection.
I personally wouldn't bother with repairing the CD players or Tape Decks. If possible you could rip the cd's using your computer and stream the audio to your amplifier. I have a marantz tape deck and cd player from the mid 1980's both still work perfectly but haven't used either in a very long time and I now rip all my cd's and stream the audio from a Rasberry Pi computer.
The TT looks impressive and probably worth repairing if you have a large vinyl collection.
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The thing is since the 80's more and more things were made
not to be fixed...like you say just throw away and get a new one...more money to big corp's and no work for the electrical engineer...
but the amps ect i have were made in a time of quality and made to be (in the main ) fixable ....like the time you could go out a give your car a tune up by messing with the timing and putting add-ons.....you just can NOT get amps and TT's like this anymore....if you have not heard these machines then you can not judge the cost of fixing them...They WILL be Done by hook or by krook.....Even if i have to lie about my colour blindness and go to a electronics course and learn it myself (very unlikely) 🙂
Generally, the audio repairer community has always been a small one and most operators with experience will be doing other work as well or will have retired by now. However, they will be aware of others in the area who specialise or at are at least interested in vintage gear - enough to advise you what to do, who to contact etc.
Have you tried asking the major service centres if they know of anyone around your region who is capable of working on your items or at least giving advice? I suspect you'll need to contact more than one tech to cover your needs and you'll need to do a bit of driving to reach them as I'm well aware of the damage UK couriers and postal services do to fragile and heavy items. Perhaps a lesson is being taught to senders about their packing being inadequate? Anyway, it seems odd that this continues to be the problem it is.
I've driven the length of England in less than a day at legal speeds, and several times myself, so travelling to service providers is not impossibly difficult, even if you need a friend to assist you. Here in Oz, I need to drive 400 or 500km to reach a major city which is occasionally necessary. That's where I shop around for goods and services that I can't find where I live.
As a matter of interest, member Nigel Pearson is ex-Garrard and knows quite a bit about turntable engineering and operation, including that of other manufacturers. Maybe you could send him a PM via the forum.
Have you tried asking the major service centres if they know of anyone around your region who is capable of working on your items or at least giving advice? I suspect you'll need to contact more than one tech to cover your needs and you'll need to do a bit of driving to reach them as I'm well aware of the damage UK couriers and postal services do to fragile and heavy items. Perhaps a lesson is being taught to senders about their packing being inadequate? Anyway, it seems odd that this continues to be the problem it is.
I've driven the length of England in less than a day at legal speeds, and several times myself, so travelling to service providers is not impossibly difficult, even if you need a friend to assist you. Here in Oz, I need to drive 400 or 500km to reach a major city which is occasionally necessary. That's where I shop around for goods and services that I can't find where I live.
As a matter of interest, member Nigel Pearson is ex-Garrard and knows quite a bit about turntable engineering and operation, including that of other manufacturers. Maybe you could send him a PM via the forum.
I've been a tech for 23 years...and still busy fixing hifi gear but have to charge $$ to be economically viable...not many left in the industry..am busier on tape decks then ever before
I recently had some training at a major manufacturer average age was at least 60 years old...im 43...if I disappear so will my skills
I recently had some training at a major manufacturer average age was at least 60 years old...im 43...if I disappear so will my skills
I have been in electronics about 40 years and still get the occasional "hard to fix" fault on amplifiers. Its an ongoing exercise to keep up.
Bought in amp that was faulty.
It was distorting badly. I checked every component on the pcb and they were fine. It wasn't until after some time I kept going back to the same transistor with a wrong voltage on it. So I removed it and it checked ok on my meter. I then suddenly realised it was a pnp and not an npn.
Someone earlier must have tried to fix it and put in the wrong transistor.
Just to help the number had been worn off.
We are an odd breed Their are not many people who would struggle with Amplifiers etc put so much effort in for so little gain ' I was in the audio trade for 30 years When you take in the cost of maintaining a workshop / shop and the required equipment paying taxes etc My customer would not -could not pay me a living rate
My main time was through the seventies and eighties in some ways a brilliant time for electronic development but here in the UK economically a disaster
Came out of audio and into commercial power systems my money tripled in a flash
So why would you bother I do so I must be nuts
Trev
My main time was through the seventies and eighties in some ways a brilliant time for electronic development but here in the UK economically a disaster
Came out of audio and into commercial power systems my money tripled in a flash
So why would you bother I do so I must be nuts
Trev
Lack of qualified repair personel is a problem even for the commercial test equipment labs. Previous to last job as broadcast engineer I was senior repair tech in a calibration lab. While there we were constantly trying to find hot repair techs. It was so bad that a division they had in Kansas was shipping hard problems to Salt Lake for ME to fix, because I could. Every so often boss would hand me a stack of resumes to look over. Lots of ITT tech level grads, but very few with hard repair to component level skills. I trained many techs along the way, but hot trouble shooters are a rare bird. Even though I was repairing equipment from all over US I wasn't getting paid much. I got chance at broadcast engineer STARTING at about $15k more a year and gave notice to cal lab.
After I left they stopped accepting repairs because they couldn't find a replacement for me.. but the idea of paying more never occured to them. (I gave them option of matching offer... yeah right!)
Doc
After I left they stopped accepting repairs because they couldn't find a replacement for me.. but the idea of paying more never occured to them. (I gave them option of matching offer... yeah right!)
Doc
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