Marantz Model 112 Tuner - LED wow

Gotta start purging some posts I've got stockpiled.

Here's a boring how-to mini-project 

I just finished.

Portland craigslist is addicting.

There are some great deals,

that would be scooped up in seconds in San Diego.

Here they linger for days,

and it's still possible to lowball a better deal.

This seller was interesting.

Willing to give up a Harley restoration shop,

in trade for a life busking a$$,

singing on the streets for money.

Really!!

He was gonna start taking voice lessons even.

We had an interesting conversation,

paralleling shop stories of projects done for chump change.

I went to a life as an indentured government servant,

he was looking for freedom.

Ahh getting old...

Well we needed a tuner,

as the sansui au-717 is just an amp,

and recently I've been hooked 

on the local jazz station KMHD 89.1fm.

It's a great backdrop to life.

Stream it sometime 7-10am and 3-6pm.

Good chit.

This is the first Marantz piece I've scored.

Many love the brand,

but they're a rare bird in SD.

This Model 112 tuner had good reviews,

even though it's a bit simple.

The little machine pulled in radio stations

with the shortest of antennas.

The only issue being some burnt "fuse" bulbs.

LED upgrades were found on eBay,

and the install was about 3 long songs,

with one shot of whiskey.

Wow what a difference!

I'll definitely stick with the hi-tech upgrade

for future projects.

They use less energy,

don't create melting heat,

and supposedly last forever.

Way more rambling audio fixes in store.

Our new place has the perfect repair bar,

and I've been hunting craigslist like a madman.

Now time to crank some tunes...

TP

Portland Tranny

Portland Tranny.

The not so perfect nickname for a spring car show. 

Months ago I'd met a guy named Carl

at the local flea market,

who was eyeballing the old hot rod.

He happened to have just bought

that blue roadster pickup model,

said "here take it".

Come to find out,

He's had dozens of old hot rods, drag cars etc.

Fast forward to last week,

and he hinted of a local car show,

down at Portland Tranny.

"Get there early it's over by 11,

hundreds of cool cars!!"

I researched it online,

which was about as surprising as you'd expect

if you were going to research "Portland Tranny".

WTF people these days...

Refined to Portland Transmission...car show.

Much better for my interests...

Whew.

Saturday arrives.

I woke up "get to work" early,

but peering outside...

Rain, rain go away!

I'd rather play my tank game.

Yea this is my crutch,

or my weakness.

Hey I don't have a TV up here!!

No movies or tv shows in 6 months!

To me it's a super fun and challenging game,

driving a realistic slowish tank around,

shooting other real-time players doing the same thing.

Look it up,

it's a free game for iPads!

"World of Tanks Blitz"

The huge positive,

is it keeps me from drinking late at night.

I kinda suck at winning with a buzz,

and it's very statistic based.

By 930,

the rain wasn't letting up.

Gotta make or break here.

Driving in the rain is a blast,

with the proper gear.

That could be a nice jacket,

or a garbage bag with poncho holes in it.

You pick...

I passed a few hot rods that had left.

Uh oh...

Driving by the address,

the show wasn't as big as Carl had predicted,

and I passed right by the building.

It was close to 10 and raining steadily,

what'd I expect.

5 blocks away I thought F-it gotta double back.

The second run i spied the closed off side street,

and snuck up to an open spot,

on the edge of the main parking lot.

"Sneaking" late into a car show parking lot,

full of hot rodders quietly standing in the rain..

with an uncorked flathead exhaust...

Well that's like a dog squeezing out

a majestic steamy poop on a hot windless summer day.

Like flies...

A quick back story.

Remember the Portland Roadster Show article?

Well I had concurrently posted an Instagram shot,

of one of the coolest cars there,

along with a not so glowing caption,

about a 3rd brake light.

If the caption was a 34 watt light bulb.

it would have a sharp stream of water shooting at it,

and I'd be standing in the puddle underneath barefoot...

The problem with writing online chit,

is that puddle continues to grow.

The chances for doom increase.

Months later I had gotten caught,

and the owner gave up an explanation.

What was I to say.

Whoops?

At the show,

I had the chance to say something in person,

as the owner,  his son and car club (slo-poks)

were all there for my roasting.

But guess what?

We all ended up having a great time!

When I finally whipped out the camera-phone,

we were the last cars there!

Great meeting you Neil, Neil Jr, Mark, Mitch and others!

TP

Pioneer sx-800 - happy distraction

Being stuck up in Portland away from my family

has been and still is the ongoing test of sanity,

especially after almost 17 years 

of supersaturated marriage and parenthood.

Fortunately the cellphone opens up a world of communication,

texting, calls and FaceTime really soften the blows on both sides.

The kids and wife really stepped it up for this adventure.

The work week is busy enough and scoots by.

The weekends are the killers,

especially 3 day weekends.

Compound that with a rare PDX snow,

and a bit of a cold or fever,

and mang now what do I do!?

Well some would wrap themselves in front of the boob tube.

Nah...

I'd already trapped myself with a few Craigslist projects,

this was a chance to chill and tinker.

It only took 2 weeks here for my first CL score,

a Pioneer SX-800 tube receiver.

(The top one - I brought up the bottom)

Original owner said it worked great!

Yea right...

The dust would have started a house fire!

When I got the room,

one of the first things I did was vacuum it out.

This is when ya don't realize that hook is getting lodged in the throat.

The trap doesn't seem like a trap.

Typically an unused machine should have a slow start,

using a variac or a dim bulb tester.

Nah this was cheap enough to try it out.

Surprisingly the sound was clear and crisp,

that warm tubey sound people love.

Yea I was hooked.

Unsurprisingly there was major controller/pot static,

and definite popping from certain switches.

Spray cleaning helped,

but a deeper fix was long overdue.

Hours of online studying ensued.

A workshop was needed.

Building hot rods, boats, bikes...

fixing stereo equipment,

sometimes it feels like things happen,

and I'm just a conduit for those parts to come together.

I'd been searching craigslist for the two important house pieces,

a sturdy table and a bulb holder.

After work one day these were outside an old vacating house,

in an area I was only in by accident.

Yes!

Way better than anything I'd seen on CL,

and I was prepared to spend some $$.

Now we've got a workbench and light,

and that $$ could go somewhere fun!

My weekend CL hunting grew.

These Polk Monitor 10 speakers were a score,

although there was a half hour drive to get them.

This was the best way to learn Portland,

driving to places I didn't need to be.

The woofer domes were punched in.

Using a small hose taped to a vacuum,

they popped right back out.

Still a little creased but better than before.

These babies sound great,

especially in a smaller room.

I can see why they've got a cult following.

The lower woofer is passive,

basically a valve for the air movement.

It's amazing how much bass is made

with the 2-6.5" speaks.

Than these Technics SB-L300's appeared.

I couldn't resist.

Good ole 3-way blasters.

They're a great higher range speaker,

coupled with the Klipsch Fortes they really fill the room.

I like them more than JBL 4311's!

Most importantly,

what perfect double shelf space!

Keys, wallet, knife, all have a home...

I was going to bring this pair to the shop.

In the meantime I'd studied tube amps online

and found potential problems in the Pioneer.

Early capacitors,

specifically the Suzuki brand,

were known to not last 10 years let alone 50.

Here's one that basically exploded.

Was that the crackly noise?

The best thing was to recap everything.

Ok the best thing would be to Ebay it and double the $$ while I could!

Not yet...

Get out the reading glasses!

Each capacitor was marked and sourced,

either from drug dealer type websites that cater to tube addicts

or straight from oversees mainliners.

There's basic $.50 caps and Gucci bouquet $16 caps.  

How trapped was I?

I did get tricked with the yellow "Dijon" caps,

which looked like Mallory caps with a sticker.

At only a few dollars total more a cheap lesson.

Fast forward to this snow weekend...

Thankfully half the caps showed up before.

I was able to solder in a handful.

Sucked being in a closed room!

Some repair guys swap one then test,

either to pinpoint exact issues,

or to doublecheck their soldering connection.

I kinda blew through the whole bag of yellows,

then seconded back for the big and little ones.

Wow these actually made a difference!

Turning the bass knobs before would make a flubbing sound,

now they controlled smooth like they were supposed too.

Many switches lost there violent pop,

and the tuner pulled in stations much smoother.

Bummer not all the caps had arrived,

it's obvious the old electrolytics were fried.

During the preliminary repair,

I did uncover a few mystery caps,

which now are ordered up.

By researching a little I learned to hold off replacing tubes,

at least until a full recap,

or each tube could actually be tested.

Working on this is kinda like moving here.

First I didn't have any idea where I was,

and through familiarity I know my way around.

So yea thanks for bearing with the ramble.

I'm trying to hold back more buying,

unless I do some selling to compensate!

It's tough cause there are some great deals,

and PDX craigslisters are waaay slower than in San Diego.

Next time I'll show the bike scores!!

TP

stereo junky summer - v.ii

The summer I went a little crazy with stereo equipment.

It was a roller coaster ride,

that's returned almost full circle.

It started with these huge 300 watt amps,

mono-block Adcom gfa-565's.

They're were a steal,

but there was a catch.

This series was known to have a bad run of leaky capacitors,

and they needed attention.

What looks like a 4 step process online,

is much more daunting under the knife.

I ended up trading them for a working amp,

a 200 wpc Adcom gfa-555,

and a sweet Sansui CA-2000 preamp.

This setup delving into the budget high-end realm.

The Sansui preamp was trick 

in that it could control two separate amos,

basically a front and rear.

The sound was better than the theater we watched Star Wars 7 in!

After some studying,

I found Adcom started by making these little-huge amps,

GFA-1's that were actually 200 wpc.

The reviews online were sketchy,

which resulted in scoring these for $50/75!

I liked the sound better than the gfa-555,

and the full time fans didn't bother me.

Bye 555!

By luck a clean Sansui TU-719 tuner was found,

sadly short lived as it didn't match the pre.

Although it worked perfectly,

the vanity of not matching won out.

The TU-9900 is 5X the price and most likely the same.

I'd regret this decision.

Meanwhile these huge Klipsch Chorus speakers

were on ebay for a steal.

That's what happens with local pickup only.

The wood was a little rough,

and I'm not a fan of oak,

so we tried to darken them with stain.

Yeah I'm picky...

but what about the sound?

These babies are flat out awesome.

I really liked the forte series with 12" woofers.

Remember them on the van?

They thumped in the open air.

The choruses are louder,

deeper and almost cleaner with the same power.

I'm hooked.

Online their reviews are love/hate,

stemming from the use of ports 

vs a passive radiator in the second series,

and an overly simple crossover.

Some people like technology more than sound!

I knew they were keepers 

when Jaxon set up the stool time listening seat.

They're hooked up as garage speakers for now.

Even Jaxon got into it,

we found some RSL 3300's for their room.

A JBL 4311 knock off that sounds darned good.

Jaxon also practiced the de-oxit cleaning,

enough to do on his own.

Definitely a great help!

Ultimately we downsized to a Sansui AU-717,

supposedly an 85 wpc monster that sounds twice that,

even powering the front Klipsch cornwalls

and rear La Scalas.

See how I should have kept the matching tuner!

To keep the cream I offed a ton of good chit, 

basically breaking even while upgrading.

The altec 811b's and 416 project...

Bye...

The sansui 9090 havin issues,

the qrx-8001 sitting too long,

the ca-2000 too scratchy even after 3 cleanings...

Bye...

other unused receivers were ditched,

and it feels good.

Sounds even better!

TP