Yes, this is a DYI forum. Have had a lot of fun, built, repaired, learned. But here is what I have concluded:
My main stereo was made of at the time excellent equipment. I modified it over the years, maintained etc. But I decided on a good end-to-end evaluation one last time.
My own MOSFER power amp. PS ripple creped up way too high. Distortion increasing. Can't get the special low ESR caps any more so tried an array. Actually a mV worse! Money spent, more needed. Not worth it. I got 10 years of my own design in the chassis of a 20 year old Hafler.
Old Z3 amp. Re-caping the PS brought it god enough. Good investment for 4 caps. My "spare" amp I use for speaker testing, so it is a keeper.
Hafler preamp. PS gone south. Could rebuild, but the circuits need modifications. Switches, pots and rear plugs all shot. Not worth the effort.
Nakamichi preamp. PS noise coming up. Recapped. No change. Vol pot needs replacing. Well, I don't really need a phono amp anymore anyway. Sure, I could swamp the old regs for new technology, pot is only $18 but what next? If there had been room to put my crossover boards inside, might have been viable. Boards fit but not the power supply.
Muse DAC. 15 years old. PS noise was terrible, so added a pre-regulator. Dropped 30 dB to -90 dB so good enough, but terrible LF distortion. Replaced the output caps and better, but not up to modern spec by an order of magnitude. Nice box to put a head amp in.
Rolls crossover. It was a quick fix and works fine, within it's spec. Needs better chips, better PS, caps...
Nak tuner weak performance. Like hell if I think I can fix that. Already gone.
Pulled out my Creek integrated. Somehow it went south. Must be 50% distortion. Not going to bother. Maybe a case for my crossovers.
Barely used NAD CD. Sell. Old Rotel CD, best ever made. Obsolete as all my CDs are on an SSD. Sure worked nice tough.
Kenwood tuner. Second best ever made. Don't use it. Poor reception here and just stream a couple of channels.
Extra DVD player, not worth shipping to sell. Record player, same.
So I have already wasted enough money in trying to fix this stuff that could have bought a new DAC and some to spare. What to do?
BUY NEW and go back to listening to music and building speakers, furniture, and old British sports cars. Looks like Schiit is going to get some of my money. DAC, Amp and maybe their pre/phones amp. Thinking about their tone control box. Add in my new XKitz crossovers ( That is semi-DIY as I have to but them in a chassis, PS etc. ). It leaves only my O-Audio BASH plate as old. I plan to maintain it as it's performance is an order of magnitude better than the new ones. Only further step is to see if it is possible to convert my all-in-one Windows music server to Linux.
PS, Not a sales pitch, I will do that over on the for sale forums, but if anyone is in NC and wants old stuff to work on cheap, no shipping, PM me. I would rather not toss any of it, but trying to be straight with economics. If brought back to life, really good stuff, but not going to miss-represent on e-bay as 90% of it is. I may be a jerk sometimes, but not a crook.
My main stereo was made of at the time excellent equipment. I modified it over the years, maintained etc. But I decided on a good end-to-end evaluation one last time.
My own MOSFER power amp. PS ripple creped up way too high. Distortion increasing. Can't get the special low ESR caps any more so tried an array. Actually a mV worse! Money spent, more needed. Not worth it. I got 10 years of my own design in the chassis of a 20 year old Hafler.
Old Z3 amp. Re-caping the PS brought it god enough. Good investment for 4 caps. My "spare" amp I use for speaker testing, so it is a keeper.
Hafler preamp. PS gone south. Could rebuild, but the circuits need modifications. Switches, pots and rear plugs all shot. Not worth the effort.
Nakamichi preamp. PS noise coming up. Recapped. No change. Vol pot needs replacing. Well, I don't really need a phono amp anymore anyway. Sure, I could swamp the old regs for new technology, pot is only $18 but what next? If there had been room to put my crossover boards inside, might have been viable. Boards fit but not the power supply.
Muse DAC. 15 years old. PS noise was terrible, so added a pre-regulator. Dropped 30 dB to -90 dB so good enough, but terrible LF distortion. Replaced the output caps and better, but not up to modern spec by an order of magnitude. Nice box to put a head amp in.
Rolls crossover. It was a quick fix and works fine, within it's spec. Needs better chips, better PS, caps...
Nak tuner weak performance. Like hell if I think I can fix that. Already gone.
Pulled out my Creek integrated. Somehow it went south. Must be 50% distortion. Not going to bother. Maybe a case for my crossovers.
Barely used NAD CD. Sell. Old Rotel CD, best ever made. Obsolete as all my CDs are on an SSD. Sure worked nice tough.
Kenwood tuner. Second best ever made. Don't use it. Poor reception here and just stream a couple of channels.
Extra DVD player, not worth shipping to sell. Record player, same.
So I have already wasted enough money in trying to fix this stuff that could have bought a new DAC and some to spare. What to do?
BUY NEW and go back to listening to music and building speakers, furniture, and old British sports cars. Looks like Schiit is going to get some of my money. DAC, Amp and maybe their pre/phones amp. Thinking about their tone control box. Add in my new XKitz crossovers ( That is semi-DIY as I have to but them in a chassis, PS etc. ). It leaves only my O-Audio BASH plate as old. I plan to maintain it as it's performance is an order of magnitude better than the new ones. Only further step is to see if it is possible to convert my all-in-one Windows music server to Linux.
PS, Not a sales pitch, I will do that over on the for sale forums, but if anyone is in NC and wants old stuff to work on cheap, no shipping, PM me. I would rather not toss any of it, but trying to be straight with economics. If brought back to life, really good stuff, but not going to miss-represent on e-bay as 90% of it is. I may be a jerk sometimes, but not a crook.
Too bad I'm not in Greensboro anymore.
Wasn't that a line from a movie?
"You're not in Kansas anymore"
Oh wait, you don't own any Ruby Slippers...
Sometimes you can find a buyer on ebay for "for parts or repair only". I usually am more thorough in my descriptions than "[what it is] - Shipped with USPS priority mail" and I think my buyers appreciate that. Yes, sometimes no one - world wide - is interested, sometimes people pay good money for something and I cant believe it.
I've seen guys strip all the way down to chassis and rebuild stuff I've sold that *I* would have considered a lost cause. Different perceptions for somebody else!
I've seen guys strip all the way down to chassis and rebuild stuff I've sold that *I* would have considered a lost cause. Different perceptions for somebody else!
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