Warning: no EE or electronics skills to speak of.
10 years ago, in college, I bought my first decent set of speakers: Maggie MMG's. I still have them and still love them. It was obvious that my sony receiver would be horribly inadequate, so I bought a modified Acurus A250 and a RL-11 preamp. I don't remember the story anymore, but the seller did not do the mods and was not fully knowledgeable about them. Whatever, the amp was beefy and in my mind that = greatness.
The obvious (to me) mods include: defeated power switch, hardwired 10awg power cable, and lots of extra capacitors.
This amp has been collecting dust for many years, since getting married and catching the home theater bug. Before retiring it, it had developed two problems:
1) hum/vibration. I assume this is transformer-related. The loudness of the hum depends on what other electrical devices are running around the house. I remember hearing it really ripping away one morning while my wife was using a hair dryer. Of course, since the power switch was defeated, I can't turn the damn thing off.
2) different channel output level. I forget which one started getting quiet, but at that point I replaced it with a HDMI switching receiver as part of the whole HT sickness.
Anyway, I would love to revive it. But I don't know where to begin. I found a few other threads with A200 and A250 schematics, as well as an un-altered A250 photo for comparison. I lack skills and tools to refurb this amp.
Questions: is it worth it? any recommendation on who/where to send it? I am in the southeast WI area.
10 years ago, in college, I bought my first decent set of speakers: Maggie MMG's. I still have them and still love them. It was obvious that my sony receiver would be horribly inadequate, so I bought a modified Acurus A250 and a RL-11 preamp. I don't remember the story anymore, but the seller did not do the mods and was not fully knowledgeable about them. Whatever, the amp was beefy and in my mind that = greatness.
The obvious (to me) mods include: defeated power switch, hardwired 10awg power cable, and lots of extra capacitors.
This amp has been collecting dust for many years, since getting married and catching the home theater bug. Before retiring it, it had developed two problems:
1) hum/vibration. I assume this is transformer-related. The loudness of the hum depends on what other electrical devices are running around the house. I remember hearing it really ripping away one morning while my wife was using a hair dryer. Of course, since the power switch was defeated, I can't turn the damn thing off.
2) different channel output level. I forget which one started getting quiet, but at that point I replaced it with a HDMI switching receiver as part of the whole HT sickness.
Anyway, I would love to revive it. But I don't know where to begin. I found a few other threads with A200 and A250 schematics, as well as an un-altered A250 photo for comparison. I lack skills and tools to refurb this amp.
Questions: is it worth it? any recommendation on who/where to send it? I am in the southeast WI area.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
