 Amplifier Repair | Amplifier Restoration
Amplifiers; I think we have all seen the steady interest
in valve audio technology. For a number of us die
hard valve audiophiles, we have never known anything
else.
Over the years, a considerable experience has built
up in the repair, restoration and servicing of quality
amplifiers and Hi Fi audio equipment. Countless numbers
of Quad 2 and 22 amplifiers have been the service and
overhaul mill. A stock of transformers, output, mains
and chokes are kept in stock. Having said that, I have
seen an uprising in the number of sets requiring attention
with damaged transformers, possibly as a result of the
“young – valve uninitiated”, committing
the cardinal sins, powering up amplifiers without loads
being connected, or leaving them on all day and all
night with no ventilation.
A real soft spot is the Leak
range of products. I have lost count of the number
of ‘Point One’,
‘Stereo 20’,
‘50’ and ‘60’
amplifiers that have been brought back to life. I
can’t help thinking that there is a slight edge
over the Quads. Now come
on, who says that there is a better tuner than a Leak
TroughLine! I will admit that the decoders
are not all that, but that’s Mullard
for you!. These tuners can be made to work well and
are a match for any modern analogue VHF receiver.
Strange that Leak fitted an AFC switch. The tuner
does not drift! Mr Leak could have saved £3,13s6d
off the price, and he had the bad manners to disable
the EM84 Magic Eye when the AFC was switched into
play. People have been shot for doing lesser things.
Other manufactures of amplifiers worked on and catered
for include; Audio Research, Lowther (lovely),
Armstrong (sorry), BTH
(known as Big Thick and Heavy and not British
Thomas Huston as some people will have
you beleive), Beam-Echo
(fun), Champion (enough
said), Clark and Smith (great
for schools, play football with them and they still
work), Decca-Beau and Decola
(I am in love), Dynatron
(not as good as you think), Elizabethan
(Ummmm), Fisher (so very
American, the capacitors were okay though), GEC
(well there you go), Goodsell
(just copied Mullard), HMV
(don’t bother), Leak
(can’t be bettered), Linear (wait
outside to be shot please), Pamphonic
(not many of these sets survived, but they should
have and were good), Philips
(made some good PA gear, fun), PYE
(why PYE. Let down by rotten components. You would
have thought they would learn), Radford
(good if you have money to spend on electric bills.
They get hot), RAC (not
bad for USA), Rogers (not
for me. Why make output transformers so delicate…),
Sugden (quite good I have
to say, given being made in Yorkshire), Tannoy
(okay, grown ups play here), Tripleton
(I am sorry, so sorry, I mean it), Vortexion
(are….. that’s good).
So, there we have it. Some likes and dislikes. The
main controlling factor when it comes to the quality
of the sound produced, is the build of the output
transformer. Leak invested heavily in the design as
did Quad. A sad day when the dear old gentleman at
Majestic Transformers in Pool decided to hang up his
coil winder for the last time. Not may chaps left
who can understand the make up of an output device.
Like most British sets, the main problem was poor
quality capacitors. Of course I won’t mention
Hunts. But Hunts did more
for the demise of the British Radio, TV and Audio
industry than Japan, and the rest of the far east
put together and multiplied by 100. Perhaps I am being
unfair on Hunts………. No.
|
|
