If you work on repairing tube amps that have odd intermittent issues, you know that one of the most valuable diagnostic tools on your bench is not a multimeter, oscilloscope, signal generator, signal tracer, distortion analyzer, or even a soldering iron. It’s a chopstick. Not a fancy expensive chopstick, either…
A Pioneer SX-680 Rebuild In Part 1 of this series, we repaired a dead Pioneer SX-680 that had no audio output. In Part 2, we’ll embark on a complete Pioneer SX-680 rebuild. The rebuild will consist of: Replacing all electrolytic capacitors with high-performance modern equivalents. Replacing failure-prone or problematic components…
On the Bench: A Pioneer SX-680 Today we’ll cover a Pioneer SX-680 repair – including troubleshooting. Please note that there are high voltages present in this unit and if you are following along to repair your own unit, you are doing so at your own risk. The Pioneer SX-680 is…
If you are looking to repair or restore a vintage radio, turntable, preamplifier, amplifier, stereo receiver, or piece of test equipment, you’ll very likely need to replace many of the capacitors in the circuit. But where to buy capacitors for vintage electronics projects online? Where to Buy Capacitors Online Here’s…
Recently in a discussion on a Facebook tube radio group, it was debated whether the electrolytic multi-section “can” capacitors in old tube electronic gear could be safely replaced by anything but electrolytic capacitors. Some posited that electrolytics were the only type of capacitor that could “handle” HV power supply filtering chores.…
[This post continues from Part 1 of the repair of a vintage Airline 9005 guitar amplifier] After restoration, the Airline 9005 guitar amplifier sounded good – but was subject to unduly long warm-up times and intermittent shorting out due to the unique design of the biasing arrangement of the power…
The Airline 9005 guitar amp was sold by Montgomery Ward’s in the early 60s. I’ve seen examples with two 12″ speakers and one 12″ speaker. The original case for the amp looked super sweet. I recently got one on the bench – however, it had been re-cased into an ill-fitting,…
Sellers – whether you are selling vintage electronic test gear, vacuum tubes, 78 rpm records, tube amplifiers, old radios, or vintage germanium transistors – you have two responsibilities to fulfill before you can truly call yourself a seller. Just two. Your first job: Describe the item for sale as accurately…
Replacing electrolytic capacitors is one of the most common ways to repair (and maintain) vintage electronic gear. This article will explain what these capacitors do and discuss a few different approaches for replacing them. What are Electrolytic Filter Capacitors? When a new piece of vintage gear shows up in my…
In part 1 of this repair of an Airline GA 2940, I rebuilt the power supply and attempted to track down the source of a hum in the signal – which I traced to the output transistors. In this post, I’ll learn more about the output stage and replace the…