Hi All,
Some of you may recall around this time last year I had a problem with an old Marantz PM50 Amp, whereby the sound suddenly stopped working from both speakers, after it working fine a couple of weeks beforehand, and I tried swapping each around the speakers to each input, and I was about to take it to the skip, but beforehand I thought I would take it into work, as there is a really very nice guy who repairs circuit boards, he's been doing it all his life and nearing retirement now, but he literally eats and sleeps electronics, he doesn't really have any other life outside of electronics!!
Anyway, I took it into him as a last resort, and explained the issue, and said to him if he was able to find out what's wrong with it, then I would pay him for his time and any spare parts needed, and that I certainly didn't want any freebies from him.
Anyway a couple of days later it ended up back on my desk, and I asked him if it's ready for the skip, but he said he couldn't find anything wrong with it.... I said definitely no sound coming out of it, and he asked if I had tried swapping the speakers around as it may be a speaker, and said I had already tried that....
Anyway took it back home, was about to throw it outside in the bin, and thought I would just try it again, and guess what... It worked, but not only did it work, but it also worked perfectly!!
I didn't tell him about the other problems with it as it was an old Amp and I just put up with its quirks, but it also had a loose/wobbly volume knob, and also I had to have one of the speakers over balanced by about a quarter of a turn due to one speaker channel being about 50% less than the other. But all of a sudden all those things had dissappeared...... And it was working like a brand new amp!
When I went back into him explaining that it's now working fine, he just replied maybe it has a lose connection...... I said we'll the volume knob was also wobbly and loose and thats no longer like it either so what's caused that? He said I may have tightened that up with a spanner whilst I was having a look about, and then I asked what about the channel that was nearly dead that's now working as well!!
Anyway he wouldn't admit to doing anything to it, but i knew he must have, so was trying to find out what tabaco he smokes, but couldn't as he has it in a plain tin..... But one of my colleagues has known him for years and reckons he sorted it but won't admit it to anybody as he's the type of person who doesn't like praise or reward..... But he told me he has a sweet tooth, so I bought him a few tubs of chocolates lasr year, left it on his desk with a note saying (from Santa) 🤣 and will be doing the same again this year as I really appreciate what he did for me.
Anyway sorry for the long story now to the point of this post.
I want to get the best out of this Amp as it seems to have been given a new lease or life. I bought it for £81.45 off Ebay about 6 years ago, and haven't really used it as much as I would like to.
The room it's in is an open lounge/dining room/kitchen and is long and dog legged/leg shaped. The amp and speakers are at the end piece just around the corner, and I'm therefore planning on leaving the amp etc there but moving the speakers, and buying new speaker cable to extend the speakers accross the room so that they fire out into the whole room and up towards the kitchen, I will try and post a photo of the room.
I went into a well known audio shop this afternoon and the guy said he didn't have any QED Silver Anniversary but did have some Chorn cable thst was 8.50 per metre, and I said I didn't really want to pay anymore than the 6.50 for QED as I think that's a bit overkill.
He said OK I can do the Chord for 6.50 and it's better than QED.
However he then said I would need these plugs thar are 12.00 per pair and he can put them on for me, I said I don't know what length each wire is going to be yet as that length I gave you was the total length, he said oh are they going to be different length cables on the speakers, I said yes, he said you shouldn't do that, you need to have the same length cable for each speaker otherwise one will be louder than the other, I said that will then add about another 50.00 to the cable cost for cable that I didn't need and I thought that's what balance is for?
He then got the hump with me and said its my choice but if it was them then they wouldn't do it like that.
I therefore decided to leave things until tomorrow so I can check with you guys, and he then got even more of the hump with me and turned around and walked away from me before I even finished the conversation!
My room setup won't allow me to have both speakers equal distances unfortunately......
Is he correct that I will hear a difference?
Some of you may recall around this time last year I had a problem with an old Marantz PM50 Amp, whereby the sound suddenly stopped working from both speakers, after it working fine a couple of weeks beforehand, and I tried swapping each around the speakers to each input, and I was about to take it to the skip, but beforehand I thought I would take it into work, as there is a really very nice guy who repairs circuit boards, he's been doing it all his life and nearing retirement now, but he literally eats and sleeps electronics, he doesn't really have any other life outside of electronics!!
Anyway, I took it into him as a last resort, and explained the issue, and said to him if he was able to find out what's wrong with it, then I would pay him for his time and any spare parts needed, and that I certainly didn't want any freebies from him.
Anyway a couple of days later it ended up back on my desk, and I asked him if it's ready for the skip, but he said he couldn't find anything wrong with it.... I said definitely no sound coming out of it, and he asked if I had tried swapping the speakers around as it may be a speaker, and said I had already tried that....
Anyway took it back home, was about to throw it outside in the bin, and thought I would just try it again, and guess what... It worked, but not only did it work, but it also worked perfectly!!
I didn't tell him about the other problems with it as it was an old Amp and I just put up with its quirks, but it also had a loose/wobbly volume knob, and also I had to have one of the speakers over balanced by about a quarter of a turn due to one speaker channel being about 50% less than the other. But all of a sudden all those things had dissappeared...... And it was working like a brand new amp!
When I went back into him explaining that it's now working fine, he just replied maybe it has a lose connection...... I said we'll the volume knob was also wobbly and loose and thats no longer like it either so what's caused that? He said I may have tightened that up with a spanner whilst I was having a look about, and then I asked what about the channel that was nearly dead that's now working as well!!
Anyway he wouldn't admit to doing anything to it, but i knew he must have, so was trying to find out what tabaco he smokes, but couldn't as he has it in a plain tin..... But one of my colleagues has known him for years and reckons he sorted it but won't admit it to anybody as he's the type of person who doesn't like praise or reward..... But he told me he has a sweet tooth, so I bought him a few tubs of chocolates lasr year, left it on his desk with a note saying (from Santa) 🤣 and will be doing the same again this year as I really appreciate what he did for me.
Anyway sorry for the long story now to the point of this post.
I want to get the best out of this Amp as it seems to have been given a new lease or life. I bought it for £81.45 off Ebay about 6 years ago, and haven't really used it as much as I would like to.
The room it's in is an open lounge/dining room/kitchen and is long and dog legged/leg shaped. The amp and speakers are at the end piece just around the corner, and I'm therefore planning on leaving the amp etc there but moving the speakers, and buying new speaker cable to extend the speakers accross the room so that they fire out into the whole room and up towards the kitchen, I will try and post a photo of the room.
I went into a well known audio shop this afternoon and the guy said he didn't have any QED Silver Anniversary but did have some Chorn cable thst was 8.50 per metre, and I said I didn't really want to pay anymore than the 6.50 for QED as I think that's a bit overkill.
He said OK I can do the Chord for 6.50 and it's better than QED.
However he then said I would need these plugs thar are 12.00 per pair and he can put them on for me, I said I don't know what length each wire is going to be yet as that length I gave you was the total length, he said oh are they going to be different length cables on the speakers, I said yes, he said you shouldn't do that, you need to have the same length cable for each speaker otherwise one will be louder than the other, I said that will then add about another 50.00 to the cable cost for cable that I didn't need and I thought that's what balance is for?
He then got the hump with me and said its my choice but if it was them then they wouldn't do it like that.
I therefore decided to leave things until tomorrow so I can check with you guys, and he then got even more of the hump with me and turned around and walked away from me before I even finished the conversation!
My room setup won't allow me to have both speakers equal distances unfortunately......
Is he correct that I will hear a difference?
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram