I recently bought a used Sherwood 9030R 110W @ 8Ω integrated amp which I intend to give to my son as a christmas gift. Under the cover and a lot of dust was a big and heavy 1993 integrated amp apparantly built by Korean OEM Inkel 😛
The amp appears robustly built with big Samwha 27,000 μF filter caps for the ±57V powered dual Sanken 2SC3519A/2SA1386A based output stage, separate ±72V supply for the voltage amplification stage, M5220 opamps in the preamp stages (±24V supply), two EI-transformers (each supplying a half wave; no dual-mono) and OFC audio cabling between the PCBs.
There's a lot of Samwha capacitors in the signal path so I have unsoldered a few check capacitances. They measured perfectly, still in spec.
Comparing the sound with my Audiolab 8000S, there's nothing to point to in terms of sound. It is perhaps a bit more "toned" (even in "direct" mode), probably due the many electrolytes and signal-switching FETs in the signal path .
The remaining dust, a few scratches on the aluminum knobs and front, a scratchy balance-potentiometer, a lost remote control, and output speaker relays buried deep down where I can't figure out how to take them out to check or replace them easily are the only small negatives I can find with this amp 😀
But I wondered if anyone has experience tinkering with one of these or am I the first in here? The 9030 seemlingly was the bigger brother of the probably more popular and reasonably priced model 7030. There's a german guy offering a pair of original, unused 9030's with acrylic covers made for a display, and it makes sense if this model was a branding item rather than one destined to gain popularity. That may explain why I haven't been able to find much about them. Also, given it's solid build, good quality components and absence of problems, perhaps they just never reach the bench?
If there's someone out there who has worked on one of these, it would be interesting to hear other peoples' experiences.
The amp appears robustly built with big Samwha 27,000 μF filter caps for the ±57V powered dual Sanken 2SC3519A/2SA1386A based output stage, separate ±72V supply for the voltage amplification stage, M5220 opamps in the preamp stages (±24V supply), two EI-transformers (each supplying a half wave; no dual-mono) and OFC audio cabling between the PCBs.
There's a lot of Samwha capacitors in the signal path so I have unsoldered a few check capacitances. They measured perfectly, still in spec.
Comparing the sound with my Audiolab 8000S, there's nothing to point to in terms of sound. It is perhaps a bit more "toned" (even in "direct" mode), probably due the many electrolytes and signal-switching FETs in the signal path .
The remaining dust, a few scratches on the aluminum knobs and front, a scratchy balance-potentiometer, a lost remote control, and output speaker relays buried deep down where I can't figure out how to take them out to check or replace them easily are the only small negatives I can find with this amp 😀
But I wondered if anyone has experience tinkering with one of these or am I the first in here? The 9030 seemlingly was the bigger brother of the probably more popular and reasonably priced model 7030. There's a german guy offering a pair of original, unused 9030's with acrylic covers made for a display, and it makes sense if this model was a branding item rather than one destined to gain popularity. That may explain why I haven't been able to find much about them. Also, given it's solid build, good quality components and absence of problems, perhaps they just never reach the bench?
If there's someone out there who has worked on one of these, it would be interesting to hear other peoples' experiences.
