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Don Dongington
Sep 27, 2005

#ideasboom
College Slice
My dad replaced the tweeters in his thrift store find Sonab OD-11s the other day with something closer to the originals than whatever they had before, and I have never heard such amazing imaging and stereo separation before.

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Discernibly Turgid
Mar 30, 2010

This was not the improvement I was asking for!

VladimirLeninpest posted:

It’s a neat effect and after using them for 3ish hours I’ve really warmed up to the sound. They just require such specific positioning and it doesn’t really fit in with my life right now (see baby toys).

The one thing i regret is that they revealed motor hum in my turntable that isn’t as forward on my other speakers. Now i feel like i gotta fix it...

Check to see if your motor’s bottom bearing needs a drop of light machine oil. If the bearing isn’t shot/in the process of failing, that usually stops noise from the actual motor.

If the hum in question is making it’s way from the table to your speakers, that’s a matter of grounding (assuming it’s not a new USB/contains an active preamp type,) as the cartridge has no electrical connection to any of the table electronics.

Nostalgia4Dogges
Jun 18, 2004

Only emojis can express my pure, simple stupidity.

I figured out the humming in my speakers was because my turntable was too close to my receiver, or the RCA or speaker cables were too close to a power cable or surge protector.

I know that might seem obvious to some, but yeah.

Don Dongington
Sep 27, 2005

#ideasboom
College Slice
An in-law was clearing out their mother's storage unit and found these, decided I might want them.




Yeah ok then. Fair bit of corrosion on the knobs, and the tuner is missing a foot, but a 35W Marantz is still a 35W Marantz.

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug

TooLShack posted:

Sold my Minidisc player awhile back and regretted it, I was lucky last week and found a Sony MZ-RH1 for 75 bucks. Now to make mix discs again!

Anyone else play with Minidisc?

Very much so



Edit: Might as well throw in my new home office setup after I tidied up a bit. I have a Chromecast Audio connected to the optical in on the Minidisc player, so it acts like a DAC, which until I hook up my speakers makes this an extremely unnecessarily complicated streaming/headphone amplifier setup.

Also, the tape deck needs new belts, and they are not easy to swap on this one :(

evobatman fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Apr 26, 2021

Nostalgia4Dogges
Jun 18, 2004

Only emojis can express my pure, simple stupidity.

:eyepop:

Don Dongington
Sep 27, 2005

#ideasboom
College Slice

Don Dongington posted:

An in-law was clearing out their mother's storage unit and found these, decided I might want them.




Yeah ok then. Fair bit of corrosion on the knobs, and the tuner is missing a foot, but a 35W Marantz is still a 35W Marantz.

Managed to clean this up a bit - turns out the knobs are plastic and a lot of the "corrosion" was just filth. some remains, but most of it came off.

Seems to be missing a channel though. When I balance the amp all the way to the left, there's no signal on any of the 3 inputs - phono, tuner or aux - but when I rotate the volume control, I can hear the signature crackle of a 40 year old potentiometer through the left speaker - so I believe both channels are working on the power amp, and that the issue is in the input/preamp stage, somewhere between the input selector switch and the power stage. I have opened her up, and there is a fair bit of corrosion on some of the interconnects, but nothing heinous or obviously blown components. It did smell a bit when it warmed up, so I blew some dust out. I have a can of servisol contact cleaner, so I've had all the knobs off and hit the pots and switches, but have no deoxit handy.

Here's an interior shot - note the funky mechanical linkage between the selector control and the actual switch - never seen that before. If anyone has any ideas where to start troubleshooting this, I'd be really appreciative :)



edit: oh, there's only one channel on the headphone output too, which further points to an issue on the preamp stage I guess?

Don Dongington fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Apr 27, 2021

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

Don Dongington posted:

Managed to clean this up a bit - turns out the knobs are plastic and a lot of the "corrosion" was just filth. some remains, but most of it came off.

Seems to be missing a channel though. When I balance the amp all the way to the left, there's no signal on any of the 3 inputs - phono, tuner or aux - but when I rotate the volume control, I can hear the signature crackle of a 40 year old potentiometer through the left speaker - so I believe both channels are working on the power amp, and that the issue is in the input/preamp stage, somewhere between the input selector switch and the power stage. I have opened her up, and there is a fair bit of corrosion on some of the interconnects, but nothing heinous or obviously blown components. It did smell a bit when it warmed up, so I blew some dust out. I have a can of servisol contact cleaner, so I've had all the knobs off and hit the pots and switches, but have no deoxit handy.

Here's an interior shot - note the funky mechanical linkage between the selector control and the actual switch - never seen that before. If anyone has any ideas where to start troubleshooting this, I'd be really appreciative :)



edit: oh, there's only one channel on the headphone output too, which further points to an issue on the preamp stage I guess?

I would deoxit everything, but especially the input selector pot and volume pot. Maybe balance too. Just do everything. Something is crunchy and you should be able to fix it.

If that doesn’t work, check your source before you get too frustrated. Swap R&L on your input and make sure it isn’t a bad rca jack. It’s probably a dirty pot though.

VladimirLeninpest
Jun 23, 2005

gn gorilla
Fallen Rib

Discernibly Turgid posted:

Check to see if your motor’s bottom bearing needs a drop of light machine oil. If the bearing isn’t shot/in the process of failing, that usually stops noise from the actual motor.

If the hum in question is making it’s way from the table to your speakers, that’s a matter of grounding (assuming it’s not a new USB/contains an active preamp type,) as the cartridge has no electrical connection to any of the table electronics.

Ding ding, it was the motor bearing.

I have a Bic 960 and the motor bearing is a thin sliver of metal that wedges in below the rotor. I used to have issues with it making a loud scraping noise, so I actually replaced it with a firm piece of plastic. This fixed the noise, but after a few years the plastic must’ve gotten worn down because it was sagging enough for the rotor to misalign to the magnets, causing the entire deck to vibrate. The vibrations were then coming through the speakers as a rumbling noise.

Back when I was originally getting the scraping noise, folks recommended a bit of sewing machine oil on the bearing to lubricate. I didn’t have sewing machine oil at the time and none of the other oils I had (generic “hobby oil” and white lithium grease) both didn’t work. I’ve since bought sewing machine oil for my tape decks, so I put a drop on the original bearing, put it back, and everything is working and sounding perfectly. I’ll be interested to see if the sewing machine oil lasts or if the noise will come back, but for now it is nice, silent, and not rumbling.

Don Dongington
Sep 27, 2005

#ideasboom
College Slice

BigFactory posted:

I would deoxit everything, but especially the input selector pot and volume pot. Maybe balance too. Just do everything. Something is crunchy and you should be able to fix it.

If that doesn’t work, check your source before you get too frustrated. Swap R&L on your input and make sure it isn’t a bad rca jack. It’s probably a dirty pot though.

Yeah I'd cleaned all the pots before posting! I have my powered bookshelf speakers connected to the tape out, which is passthrough direct from the input selector switch to verify the integrity of the input source. Good news is the phono stage works fine and sounds pretty good!

I've been talking voltage readings at likely points that should be carrying a line level signal, with mixed results. I just tried cranking the volume to max and balancing all the way to the left, and I'm actually getting very low volume sound through that speaker, which seems to indicate a dry joint or a bad contact somewhere, rather than a total loss of continuity which is good I guess?

trilobite terror
Oct 20, 2007
BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!
I love those mechanical linkages, my Yamaha CR-2040 is full of them

TooLShack
Jun 3, 2001

SMILE, BIRTHDAY BOY!
Is there a protection relay in it? If so tap on it and see if sound bounces in and out. I've had dirty relay contacts or broken solder joints on protection relays. Another thing I do is tap the circuit board with a wooden dowel all over and see if I can get audio to cut in, I've found broken solder joints that way as well.

TooLShack fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Apr 27, 2021

Don Dongington
Sep 27, 2005

#ideasboom
College Slice
Not sure on the protection relay.
Service manual is apparently the same as the PM310 - looking at it, they share the same PCB, the 310 seems functionally similar except for the LED power meter on the front. This explains the traces that seem to go nowhere on the board and empty pinout holes I was wondering about. It's likely there was a higher wattage version available also that shared the same board.

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/marantz/pm310.shtml

I got a wooden handled paintbrush and tapped, prodded and flexed the PCB in a wide array of places, and I'm afraid nothing improved. I'm thinking component failure.

At max volume, the left channel sounds about the same as the right one at about -60dB on the volume control. No audible distortion, but it's hard to tell if there's any frequency loss because at that volume it naturally sounds like a mobile phone speaker. Based on the block diagram, I'm now thinking the problem may be in the power amp section, as the headphone out comes from there via an attenuator.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

I know this isn't what's really usually going on ITT but I just scavenged a GE T-150A and it is actually picking up channels. I bought it thinking it might make a nice DIY amplifier or something but now that I've established it actually works that is out. Not mine, but the model:



https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/general_el_t150a.html

Anybody have a good lead on where I can obtain some of this tinselly tweed they always seemed to use back then? The tweed on mine isn't looking quite this good.

petit choux fucked around with this message at 21:01 on May 15, 2021

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002

petit choux posted:

I know this isn't what's really usually going on ITT but I just scavenged a GE T-150A and it is actually picking up channels. I bought it thinking it might make a nice DIY amplifier or something but now that I've established it actually works that is out. Not mine, but the model:



https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/general_el_t150a.html

Anybody have a good lead on where I can obtain some of this tinselly tweed they always seemed to use back then? The tweed on mine isn't looking quite this good.

You want to look for speaker grill cloth. Lots of places carry it, and parts express has a pretty good selection, but to get something that really matches you might want to check eBay and places like that. You could try a fabric store too, that way you’d be able to actually feel and see it.

Replacing the cloth is usually as easy as stapling it to the back of some homosote or whatever they used to stiffen it up.

Thumposaurus
Jul 24, 2007

People on etsy have grill cloth in all different patterns too.

strtj
Feb 1, 2010

petit choux posted:

Anybody have a good lead on where I can obtain some of this tinselly tweed they always seemed to use back then? The tweed on mine isn't looking quite this good.

Googling "tweed gold grille cloth" brought up a whole bunch of options. The guitar amplifier folks will keep this sort of fabric in production approximately forever.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

strtj posted:

Googling "tweed gold grille cloth" brought up a whole bunch of options. The guitar amplifier folks will keep this sort of fabric in production approximately forever.

Haha Yes!

TooLShack
Jun 3, 2001

SMILE, BIRTHDAY BOY!

evobatman posted:

Very much so

Edit: Might as well throw in my new home office setup after I tidied up a bit. I have a Chromecast Audio connected to the optical in on the Minidisc player, so it acts like a DAC, which until I hook up my speakers makes this an extremely unnecessarily complicated streaming/headphone amplifier setup.

Also, the tape deck needs new belts, and they are not easy to swap on this one :(


I'm trying to find a NetMD deck for my Yamaha stack, I think it would be fun to have.

Also just changed the belts in my Yamaha K-1020, it was the easiest belt change in a deck. I truly hated doing belt change sin CTF1250/950.

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug
I messed around with recording from Spotify to minidisc via optical on the Chromecast Audio yesterday. Turns out it does not separate tracks like playing from a CD player does.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

evobatman posted:

I messed around with recording from Spotify to minidisc via optical on the Chromecast Audio yesterday. Turns out it does not separate tracks like playing from a CD player does.

LOL

strtj
Feb 1, 2010

evobatman posted:

I messed around with recording from Spotify to minidisc via optical on the Chromecast Audio yesterday. Turns out it does not separate tracks like playing from a CD player does.

Wasn't there some sort of explicit signaling from the CD player to the MD recorder in order for that track separation to work correctly? Or was it just detection of complete digital silence? It's been a really long time since I've had to deal with any of this.

Also lol at recording from a lossy digital audio source onto a lossy digital audio medium. You might as well just encode an MP3, then reencode that same MP3.

wa27
Jan 15, 2007

strtj posted:

Wasn't there some sort of explicit signaling from the CD player to the MD recorder in order for that track separation to work correctly? Or was it just detection of complete digital silence? It's been a really long time since I've had to deal with any of this.

Also lol at recording from a lossy digital audio source onto a lossy digital audio medium. You might as well just encode an MP3, then reencode that same MP3.

I think it's safe to say that if someone is using minidisc in 2021, it's for the novelty of it - not for the audiophile quality.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



strtj posted:

Wasn't there some sort of explicit signaling from the CD player to the MD recorder in order for that track separation to work correctly? Or was it just detection of complete digital silence? It's been a really long time since I've had to deal with any of this.
Both have been used, but never both in the same device afaik.

The detect silence thing always had some unreasonable 2s or 3s threshold, where 2s is definitely the longest gap on pretty much any cd (apart from hidden tracks, I guess). There's not that many songs with silences in guys, half a second would have been fine! It's also easier to ignore or delete extra markers than it is to manually place some. :argh:

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



Pfft check out this guy who doesn’t listen to beat down hardcore ;)

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug

strtj posted:

Wasn't there some sort of explicit signaling from the CD player to the MD recorder in order for that track separation to work correctly? Or was it just detection of complete digital silence? It's been a really long time since I've had to deal with any of this.

Also lol at recording from a lossy digital audio source onto a lossy digital audio medium. You might as well just encode an MP3, then reencode that same MP3.

Would you have preferred my SACD to cassette tape setup?

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

evobatman posted:

Would you have preferred my SACD to cassette tape setup?

Hey, kid, you looking to buy a cassette deck?

strtj
Feb 1, 2010

evobatman posted:

Would you have preferred my SACD to cassette tape setup?

Spotify to MD: :ughh:
SACD to cassette: :discourse:
24 track master recording downmixed directly onto an 8-track with the pressure pad missing: :pcgaming:

Qwijib0
Apr 10, 2007

Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?

Fun Shoe

strtj posted:

24 track master recording downmixed directly onto an 8-track with the pressure pad missing: :pcgaming:

the lightweight recording adds an airiness to the result at playback time.

TooLShack
Jun 3, 2001

SMILE, BIRTHDAY BOY!

wa27 posted:

I think it's safe to say that if someone is using minidisc in 2021, it's for the novelty of it - not for the audiophile quality.

100 percent about novelty, the hoops I went through to just even use Sonicstage to send 320 MP3s to my MD was silly.

Right now, I like to rip hour long youtube mixes, so I have a Ubuntu Vm to run youtubedl. Then I have a Windows7 VM to run sonicstage, I was first running a XP VM, but I could not get netmd discs to read right.

I've done stupid things like MP3 to Open reel on my RT-909. My hearing isn't the greatest, so all my equipment choices are based on cool factor. I have a Sansui G-8000 and 8080DB I don't use, at this time I prefer my 90s Pioneer Elite receiver.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

Hey yall, please advise. I just pulled a huge pair of speakers from a dumpster, Pioneer CS-G403, and the midrange speakers are both torn but the woofers and tweeters appear in good shape visually.



That dent in the center of the woofer on the right, is that repairable?

ED: And that wrinkle in the one on the left?

petit choux fucked around with this message at 21:43 on May 26, 2021

large hands
Jan 24, 2006
For the woofer, you can get the dent out of the dust cap easily with a q-tip and super glue. Just put a little glue on the end of the q-tip, hold against the deepest part of the dent until it sets up enough enough then pull it out. Then pick any remaining fibres off the dust cover

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

large hands posted:

For the woofer, you can get the dent out of the dust cap easily with a q-tip and super glue. Just put a little glue on the end of the q-tip, hold against the deepest part of the dent until it sets up enough enough then pull it out. Then pick any remaining fibres off the dust cover

drat, you rock. My dumpster fu appears to be on the ascendant today. I'm letting them sit in the sun for a bit couple of days before bringing them inside.

large hands
Jan 24, 2006
No worries, you learn these things when you have toddlers and make the mistake of leaving the covers off your speakers lol. I found it helped to cut the rounded bit off the end of the q-tip with scissors so you have a flatter surface to stick to the speaker.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

Okay, been posting about this mostly in the vinyl thread but I got these up and running and despite some smallish damage to both midranges they sound really good. I never turn anything up all the way but maybe tomorrow I will. Biggest woofers I've ever had. I have an Onkyo sub here in my hole, it blows everything away, but these probably will beat it. They need some cleaning, a little repair and these 1981 speakers should be good to go a little longer.

Thumposaurus
Jul 24, 2007

Small tears in speaker cones you can fix with some watered down white glue and tissue paper.
Won't help with gaping holes but small ones that the edges are touching on it works.

Thin the glue with water till its like milk and carefully brush it around the tear rip the tissue paper so it doesn't have regular edges to a size slightly bigger than the tear. Lay a piece of paper down over it and brush a little thinned glue on top and work out any air bubbles. Do this 2 or 3 more times with larger pieces of paper each time and it should be good after that.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

Thumposaurus posted:

Small tears in speaker cones you can fix with some watered down white glue and tissue paper.
Won't help with gaping holes but small ones that the edges are touching on it works.

Thin the glue with water till its like milk and carefully brush it around the tear rip the tissue paper so it doesn't have regular edges to a size slightly bigger than the tear. Lay a piece of paper down over it and brush a little thinned glue on top and work out any air bubbles. Do this 2 or 3 more times with larger pieces of paper each time and it should be good after that.

You think that would apply to those midranges? And anybody think those Klipsch speakers suck?

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

Here is another question. I've now acquired a couple decent turntables and I'm considering spinning up my album ripping op, thinking of selling records and including a rip of it as added value, so to speak. I have a really old ATUS DJ mixer with setup for two turntables. I'm assuming it has RIAA preamps on each one. Anybody have experience with these, and would it give decent sound? It's just like this but in better shape:

Thumposaurus
Jul 24, 2007

petit choux posted:

You think that would apply to those midranges? And anybody think those Klipsch speakers suck?

I've only personally used that technique on woofers and guitar speakers so I can't say if it works for a midrange repair or not.
If the cone is paper it has a decent chance of helping.

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eddiewalker
Apr 28, 2004

Arrrr ye landlubber

petit choux posted:

Here is another question. I've now acquired a couple decent turntables and I'm considering spinning up my album ripping op, thinking of selling records and including a rip of it as added value, so to speak. I have a really old ATUS DJ mixer with setup for two turntables. I'm assuming it has RIAA preamps on each one. Anybody have experience with these, and would it give decent sound? It's just like this but in better shape:



I mean, those faders aren’t probably crunchy, but it’ll probably work. You still need a soundcard and this will do it all for $20

Behringer U-Phono UFO202 Audiophile USB/Audio Interface with Built-in Phono Preamp,Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GHBYZ0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_ACCGSZ1M3SJ73QPM9JTA

eddiewalker fucked around with this message at 20:09 on May 29, 2021

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