Building a completely new system

[Hydrolastic]

Hello guys, I have sent my stuff out to several different people to be worked on, And I have realized that each one has fixed them just enough to get working. They dont stay working long ! That got me to thinking about just replacing every component in the amp. I mean literally making lists of each part dividing up the amp into 5 vertical and 5 horizontal quadrants and replacing all (or as much as possible) of the components in each quadrant and the lists until its all new. Imagine a Amp 182 that was just as designed new !
I also am considering doing the same to the tuner/preamp but I dont think I would mess around with the RF section of the amp I would just get it to amplify the Tape input for the Bluetooth adapter and out to the amp. let me know what your practice has been with this aproach. Hydro

[electra225]

You may remember when I did a part by part restoration of my old Imperial stereo. And while I did achieve the desired outcome, this radical of a procedure is unnecessary in most cases. Rather than having someone do that, it might be better if you learned to work on your own stuff. The stuff we work on is designed to break. It will not run very long without something going wrong. Most of the stuff we deal with is 60 years or more old, many times what it was designed to run. It has lived four or five lives more than it was designed to do. I'm not sure the work you had done is substandard. It seems like I am always doing small things to my stuff to keep it working. Dirty controls, tubes go bad, dirty tube sockets, it;s always something. If you learn to do even small things like I just mentioned, you might be able to keep things running without having to take it in for repairs. The trouble I would have doing that is that if something did go wrong, I have no idea what they did exactly to it. I wouldn't have any place to start. At least if I work on it, then it fails, I have my notes and pictures I can fall back on and save myself some time. That's just my two cents.

[Hydrolastic]

Hello, yes that's exactly what I am saying. An example was when the the eye tube in the old chassis of the ebony continental was fluctuating you guys immediately nailed it as a B+ issue and it was determined to fix it before damage was done. That was a newly recapped amp and 5401 preamp !
I think I can get myself trained enough the read codes and use a schematic to change a resistor or capacitor but its the diagnosing and following the trail of failure that I dont think I will get in my lifetime. But I think I could replace a lot of stuff with a bit more experience.

[electra225]

My experience with console stereos, mostly Magnavox, has been that many "failures" are "common sense" type things. Like in cars, most failures are simple, basic things. Bad capacitors, drifted resistors, weak tubes, stuff like that. You don't often experience catastrophic failure. Scary stuff like bad power transformers. Yes, catastrophic failures do occur, but if you are prepared, know what to watch for and if you follow basic safety, you can work thru most things. We can talk you thru a lot of it. Reading a schematic is like reading a roadmap. It starts at the wall plug, then you can follow the electricity thru the entire chassis until you get sound from the speaker. I still have trouble deciphering the symbols for coils and function switches. I have to do a LOT of studying to finally make sense of those. You can work on cars, you understand that something comes apart exactly opposite of how it was assembled and vise versa. You understand the "laws of logical order". Working on electronics is much the same discipline as working on cars. You don't need to know how something works, exactly, you just need to know what to do with it DOESN'T work.

I would encourage you to start with a small project and share it here on the forum. Post a lot of pictures, ask a lot of questions, have a ball and learn something. I am amazed at the amount of talent we have here on our little forum. Everyone here will be thrilled to kick in their two cents. The first time you sort your project, it will be a great moment in your life. You'll never forget your first one. I still remember the first radio I ever fixed, I still own it, and have owned it since 1955. A little Emerson 520 that grandpa bought from "a guy at the shop", who, we found out later, had stolen it from the local Gambles store! Grandpa gave him $5 for it, then gave it to me so I would leave grandma's Grunow alone. I also have the Grunow. I turned on the Emerson one morning "way back when" and it was stone dead. The problem turned out to be that the dial light bulb had shorted and took the center tap out of the 35Z5 rectifier, opening the filament circuit, rendering the radio kaput. A new rectifier tube and dial bulb successfully effected the repair. I believe that was in the early 1960's. My parents divorced, then mom married one of the local TV repairmen. Sam taught me a more disciplined method of electronic repair, so I've been tinkering with this stuff for 50 years or so. I never quit learning. Just about the time I think I can "do it all" something comes along to keep me humble.

[TC Chris]

I second Greg's advice. Replacing everything is unnecessary, and it creates too many opportunities to mess something else up (breaking off solder tabs on tube sockets, etc.). Spend your time cleaning tube sockets & pins and other such fallible connection points if you want to avoid unexpected issues.

Chris Campbell