Arcam Delta 290

[admin_exported]

 

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

My first ever question to What HiFi.

I have owned my hi fi now for 18 years or more, my beloved set up but in truth a dinosaur now is

Alpha 5 plus cd player

Delta 290 pre amp

Delta 290 power

TDL rtl3's

Recently one of my speakers suffered a problem with tweeter from the preamp. Not knowing waht it was i set about checking to see if it was the amp that had a channel down or the speaker itself. After determining the amp was fine i dug deeper to check the tweeter, being a complete idiot i had not checked to ensure that both amps were turned off prior to removing speaker cable and hey presto leads from power to pre amp touched together.

This as no surprise shorted the preamp and blew the internal fuse, i replaced with the spare that arcam kindly supply within theamp but still no joy in powering up.

Question is do i now bite the bullet and upgrade? i have been offered an alpha 10 pre and power amp along with alpha 9 cd player taking in my kit as a trade in.

What are your thought on this upgrade? i know the cd player is far better but would i see a big differance in the amps performance apart from the obvious of updating etc.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

My first ever question to What HiFi.

I have owned my hi fi now for 18 years or more, my beloved set up but in truth a dinosaur now is

Alpha 5 plus cd player

Delta 290 pre amp

Delta 290 power

TDL rtl3's

Recently one of my speakers suffered a problem with tweeter from the preamp. Not knowing waht it was i set about checking to see if it was the amp that had a channel down or the speaker itself. After determining the amp was fine i dug deeper to check the tweeter, being a complete idiot i had not checked to ensure that both amps were turned off prior to removing speaker cable and hey presto leads from power to pre amp touched together.

This as no surprise shorted the preamp and blew the internal fuse, i replaced with the spare that arcam kindly supply within theamp but still no joy in powering up.

Question is do i now bite the bullet and upgrade? i have been offered an alpha 10 pre and power amp along with alpha 9 cd player taking in my kit as a trade in.

What are your thought on this upgrade? i know the cd player is far better but would i see a big differance in the amps performance apart from the obvious of updating etc.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

 

[eggontoast]

Question is do i now bite the bullet and upgrade? i have been offered an alpha 10 pre and power amp along with alpha 9 cd player taking in my kit as a trade in.

No, get your Delta 290 serviced (especially the input selector) and repaired they were one of Arcams finest hours IMO. Might be an idea to update the cd player though.

 

[Anonymous]

HI Many thanks for your thought on this.

Do you have any idea what level of damage i may have done to my pre amp givien that the power amp speaker leads and pre amp speaker leads touched whilst both powered up.?

Is it worth purchasing a second hand one rather than sending off for repair?

What do you think of the alpha 9 cd player as an upgrade?

Incidently just found out the tweeter has indeed given up the ghost on the TDL , ordered up ugraded ones from Wilmslow Audio this afternoon.

 

[eggontoast]

HI Many thanks for your thought on this.

Do you have any idea what level of damage i may have done to my pre amp givien that the power amp speaker leads and pre amp speaker leads touched whilst both powered up.?

Is it worth purchasing a second hand one rather than sending off for repair?

What do you think of the alpha 9 cd player as an upgrade?

Incidently just found out the tweeter has indeed given up the ghost on the TDL , ordered up ugraded ones from Wilmslow Audio this afternoon.

Has the power amp survived OK ?

It will probably just have blown the power transistors and possibly the drivers. If it's a later Delta 290 it will be easy to repair, an earlier model (the one with the mono button) is a bit more of a pain as the original power transistors are obsolete and you have to modify it to use the newer transistors, which are a different package. It's not difficult just time consuming. As to buying another, I wouldn't personally as they are all getting on a bit and it will cost you at least £150 and you don't know what your getting, just have yours serviced and it will be as good as new.

 

[Anonymous]

Many thanks for your advice and thoughts on what may be wrong.

My 290 has not got the mono button so some good news there.

Good question regarding the power amp, the power light was still on but thats not to say it has not had any damage i guess. I was so dissapointed in blowing the pre amp at the time i did not think of checking it, would it still pick up audio if i connected up to preamp in and power up out sockets as before and turned both cd player and power amp on?

Who would be best to carryout this repair, send it to arcam?

When turning up the volume the sound would crackle a little until the amp warmed up, is this a common fault to sort out?

To upgrade the cd player i have my eyes on a delta 250 cd transport and Black box DAC 500, what do you think?

Or should i go for the alpha 9 cd player?

Great to get some advice as apart from knowing good sound and loving music i don't know much else about hi fi technology.

 

[eggontoast]

No the audio signal won't pass through the preamp as it's not a passive signal path and requires power to work. Arcam will charge you an arm and a leg to fix it, just look for a good audio tech or do a bit of googling and you'll find someone. The crackling could be a dirty volume pot but more than likely the input selector as these can be a problem, again there is info on the web about this. With regards to the power amp, if its powering up to a green led and the relay is clicking the chances are it's OK.

I'll let others advise about the CD player, it's been an age since I heard an alpha 9 CD player but the blackbox 500 etc is getting on a bit now.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok will do a bit of research into someone local that can carryout a repair.

Power amp relay is clicking in ok , hopefully good sign.

Thanks again

 

[eggontoast]

Ok will do a bit of research into someone local that can carryout a repair.

Whereabouts in the country are you, I may know someone in your area.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

Did a bit of research last night for 290 repairs.

This company carried out a recent repair on a 290 (sutcliffe Audio Engineers) London area ) see link below.

I actually live up in Inverness north scotland so not much choice of audio engineeres up this way that im aware of.

Reading some other forums today it seems to be mixed messages if the selector swiches are still available as it seems to be a common fault worth replacing during servicing. can you shed any light on their availability, apparently original switch is an alps.

http://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=repair%20of%20delta%20290&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CFwQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Famp-repair.com%2F2012%2Farcam-delta-290-amp-repair%2F&ei=0nT2UOSCAsWf0QWumoDAAQ&usg=AFQjCNGiS-Ccu_xdzWguK6m6AwWOfbsONw&bvm=bv.41018144,d.d2k

 

[eggontoast]

No they are not available anymore, you have to find someone willing to remove, dismantle and clean the switch properly.

If you get someone to service it, make sure they are going to do this and not just squirt some contact cleaner in it, as this doesn't work for very long. There is a thread on the AVforums where people have tried different things to solve the problem.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok Thanks!!

I will bring this to the attention of whoever does the repair, if its needed at all.

Checking av forums now