The past week I've had a fling with that little 17 watt Sherwood receiver.
The 40 year old underpowered design had slowly grown with the garage,
I had left it running for almost a week and the sound had seemed to mature,
burning in those new electrolytics someone had soldered in.
The once overly heavy bass
had toned down to the warm sound most Sherwood owners had described.
It was one of those sweet relationships that sadly was doomed to failure.
Hadn't I done this countless times?
Powered up the Dynasty welder and tigged away,
while listening to the radio?
Yeah I said radio I'm not totally pigeonholed in my musical interests!
The first couple tacks - no problem.
Than the filler beads.
Press down on the pedal and !!!!
...ZZT....ZZZIPPPKK.... ......
What the heck?
Only silence.
Ahh poop rocks.
Some urgent flips of the dials and switches,
hooked up the IPOD,
checked the fuse,
still nothing.
Grrrr.
The poor box was pulled down and torn apart.
I was expecting some sign of smoke or bloody residue,
but the insides were just as clean as can be.
Dang it.
Fortunately the big Onkyo was laying in wait on the back table,
and was more than willing to get hooked back up.
The wife more than happy to see it leave the kitchen!
**********************************************
Peter Tosh - Burial - 16JUL79 - switzerland
bitchin version of a great song
**********************************************
For an unplanned review here it goes.
There's definitely a big sound difference between 110 and 17 wpc.
The Sherwood was perfect for mid-level background music,
just clean, sweet, almost blended sounding in a way.
The sound seemed a bit uncontrolled at the higher levels,
the bass getting a little rumbly at times.
Of course this was pushing 2 pairs of speakers!
The best thing about the S-7100a was the bulletproof tuner.
The Onkyo on the other hand cranks out clear uncolored sound.
Each range has good definition and the bass is sharp and deep.
At barely a quarter throttle it's almost too loud for a garage system.
The midrange does get a little shouty at the higher levels,
but that could be the horn speakers.
Fortunately there's a midrange dial in the 3 knob tone control.
The tuner has this locking feature and does seem to wander at times.
I'd love to hear this thing after a full blown recap.
So what happened?
One idea is the electrical isn't fully grounded for a large draw.
I'll have to study that as it's not difficult to modify.
Most likely it was the high frequency tig start from the Miller Dynasty.
I never thought that as a problem until I read some stories online.
My old droid phone did get glitchy possibly from sitting on the machine.
I'm thinking the tuner had crossed the radio signals and shorted a circuit board out.
If the IPOD was playing instead it may not have been affected.
Don't really want to test that theory at this point!
I guess I'll be tig welding in silence from now on,
however there is an option to do the scratch-start method.
Anyway maybe it was better to kill the sacrificial $30 receiver instead of the others,
even though it was a sweetheart.
RIP little sherwood!
TP
The 40 year old underpowered design had slowly grown with the garage,
I had left it running for almost a week and the sound had seemed to mature,
burning in those new electrolytics someone had soldered in.
The once overly heavy bass
had toned down to the warm sound most Sherwood owners had described.
It was one of those sweet relationships that sadly was doomed to failure.
 |
| Sherwood S-7100a killer |
Hadn't I done this countless times?
Powered up the Dynasty welder and tigged away,
while listening to the radio?
Yeah I said radio I'm not totally pigeonholed in my musical interests!
The first couple tacks - no problem.
Than the filler beads.
Press down on the pedal and !!!!
...ZZT....ZZZIPPPKK.... ......
What the heck?
Only silence.
Ahh poop rocks.
Some urgent flips of the dials and switches,
hooked up the IPOD,
checked the fuse,
still nothing.
Grrrr.
The poor box was pulled down and torn apart.
I was expecting some sign of smoke or bloody residue,
but the insides were just as clean as can be.
Dang it.
 |
| powerhouse onkyo tx-8500 |
Fortunately the big Onkyo was laying in wait on the back table,
and was more than willing to get hooked back up.
The wife more than happy to see it leave the kitchen!
**********************************************
Peter Tosh - Burial - 16JUL79 - switzerland
bitchin version of a great song
**********************************************
For an unplanned review here it goes.
There's definitely a big sound difference between 110 and 17 wpc.
The Sherwood was perfect for mid-level background music,
just clean, sweet, almost blended sounding in a way.
The sound seemed a bit uncontrolled at the higher levels,
the bass getting a little rumbly at times.
Of course this was pushing 2 pairs of speakers!
The best thing about the S-7100a was the bulletproof tuner.
The Onkyo on the other hand cranks out clear uncolored sound.
Each range has good definition and the bass is sharp and deep.
At barely a quarter throttle it's almost too loud for a garage system.
The midrange does get a little shouty at the higher levels,
but that could be the horn speakers.
Fortunately there's a midrange dial in the 3 knob tone control.
The tuner has this locking feature and does seem to wander at times.
I'd love to hear this thing after a full blown recap.
 |
| vintage receiver killer |
So what happened?
One idea is the electrical isn't fully grounded for a large draw.
I'll have to study that as it's not difficult to modify.
Most likely it was the high frequency tig start from the Miller Dynasty.
I never thought that as a problem until I read some stories online.
My old droid phone did get glitchy possibly from sitting on the machine.
I'm thinking the tuner had crossed the radio signals and shorted a circuit board out.
If the IPOD was playing instead it may not have been affected.
Don't really want to test that theory at this point!
I guess I'll be tig welding in silence from now on,
however there is an option to do the scratch-start method.
Anyway maybe it was better to kill the sacrificial $30 receiver instead of the others,
even though it was a sweetheart.
RIP little sherwood!
TP
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