New York SBAF Pyrate Cove

Discussion in 'The Meeting Place' started by thegunner100, Sep 13, 2016.

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  1. jchang1988

    jchang1988 New

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    Hi, although I've been lurking on the forum for years, I recently officially joined sbaf and so I wanted to take the time to introduce myself in the local thread also.

    I'm from Bergen County, New Jersey but I travel all up and down the state for work teaching private piano lessons. Or at least I did until the pandemic hit. I've been fortunate enough to be able to keep all of my students by conducting virtual lessons. So all the gas money I've been saving is going straight to audio gear

    I haven't had many first hand experiences with gear. Other than my personal gear, which have all been acquired via blind faith of internet reviews, I've taken a few visits to some dealers around NJ.

    I'm looking forward to going to some shows and meets when things return to normal, and looking forward to meeting some of you.

    Thanks for reading
     
  2. Tchoupitoulas

    Tchoupitoulas Friend

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    Welcome! I'm in the city right now but will be moving to Bergen or Essex counties this summer. It would be good to have a meet once it's safe for all of us to do so. I'd be happy to help organize a meet either locally in NJ or in the city, although I haven't been to one previously. It would be nice to meet sbaf neighbors!
     
  3. Doctorjazz

    Doctorjazz New

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    Hi-I live in Central Jersey (Westfield), miss being able to meet at meets and hear gear, can't wait for things to get at least close to the old normal.
     
  4. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    Does anyone have any recommendations for someone who can service amplifiers? I am looking for someone to inspect and fix my ZDT locally if possible.
     
  5. Ziva

    Ziva Friend

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    Good to see you around.

    I’ve had great experiences with Blackie Pagano - http://m.blackiepagano.com/#3023. Really good guy and can seemingly repair anything. Prices are fair, but might be stiff in comparison to the ZDT MSRP.
     
  6. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    Thanks! I've seen him from the google searches but it's good to hear that you've personally had a good experience with him. And yeah, considering the age/cost of the ZDT, it is a bit steep. If I had something like an EC 2A3 (which evolved out of the ZDT), I wouldn't hesitate to do it.
     
  7. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

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    What kind of problem do you have with the ZDT? If it's an easy job like visible broken wire, loose solder joint, or blown cap, maybe I can fix it for you. If it's more complicated things like out of bias, I don't know enough about the circuit to do anything.
     
  8. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    I appreciate the offer! I can only describe what i am hearing.

    Either one channel or both channels will fade in volume as music is playing, until one or both channels have no volume. Sometimes the volume will return, and music usually ends up playing in one channel.

    I've tried swapping out both the 6c33-b power tubes as well as the 12ax7/ECC83 tubes, and that didn't change anything.

    This is what Craig has suggested:

    So I've ordered a multimeter and I may do his suggested test if I am feeling brave enough.

    Edit: pics of amp https://imgur.com/a/QDD5Z
     
  9. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

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    I'm not a tube guru, but that feels like a loose connection or component failure to me. Following Craig's suggestion is very helpful to figure out which half of the circuit caused the problem. That voltage should be mostly safe to measure. You can use these type of wires if you don't feel safe with probes. Have fun with measurement :) If you spot a loose wire or blown cap after taking the bottom plate off, you probably won't even need to measure anything.
     
  10. jchang1988

    jchang1988 New

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    Since we're on the subject, any suggestions for a repair guy in Jersey? I have an old yamaha integrated (ca-410) and a carver receiver I might want looked over and tuned up. I know they're not worth much but they've been in the family, so if the price isn't outrageous I might drop part of my stimi check on them.
     
  11. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    Here's some photos. I have no idea where to even begin measuring tbh.

    PXL_20210315_225840714.jpg PXL_20210315_225938886.jpg
     
  12. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

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    I though it was a Massdrop ZDT JR until I saw the image. Your ZDT looks pretty impressive and very nicely built! The twisted wires in the signal path also looks beautiful! I guess that's part of the reason why EC stuff are awesome.

    There are many things overlaying each other, so I'm not quite confident with which pin to probe exactly. I'm 90% sure where I circled in green is the ground, so you can probe it with the black probe, as a voltage reference. Put the black probe on the chassis might also work.

    One of the pins I circled in red contains the cathode pin. Craig mentions a power resistor, so look for the pin connected with the biggest thing with color bands. My first guess is that the big blue capacitors (probably worth $20+ each) are either connected to either the grid or cathode. If it's the grid, the cathode pin is 2 pin away from it according to the datasheet. That's about as much as I can figure out from the image, so you might want to double check with Craig about it.
    [​IMG]
     
  13. Alondite

    Alondite Acquaintance

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    Off-topic, but are there any SBAFs located more upstate, or is everyone here pretty much in the NYC area?
     
  14. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    @thegunner100 I'm in CT on the coastline. We can debug it together if you'd like.
     
  15. Jinxy245

    Jinxy245 Vegan Puss

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    I'm Orange County NY
     
  16. mimart7

    mimart7 Friend

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    I'm in NYC, but won't be doing any meet ups until Covid is a bit more under control. I'm looking forward to Canjam 2022, though.
     
  17. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    Thanks to @batriq, we have fixed my ZDT. There wasn't any obvious reason he could find inside the ZDT but he poked and prodded around. We first discovered that the 470uf/200v cap on the left channel was causing some sound cutout/crackling when it was being moved/measured, so he re-soldered it. Unfortunately when we powered the amp back on, both the left and right channels still had intermittent crackling/fading.

    After some more poking around, we found out that the wires associated with the headphone/speaker output switch (2nd from left side, with the yellow, green, and red wires) was causing the channels to cut out. The simple solution for this was to just turn the switch back and forth between the two outputs to get rid of some possible oxidation. Afterwards, all was well.

    So if you guys ever find that you're having similar issues with an amp cutting out or crackling on one or both channels, it's worth giving those unused switches a turn every now and then.
     
  18. Darkstar1

    Darkstar1 Facebook Friend

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    Any meets ups in NYC scheduled anytime soon?
     
  19. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    Would love to, but doesn't seem like it's a good time yet. On the bright side, meeting space rentals are probably a lot cheaper.
     
  20. Ryu

    Ryu Friend

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    I've got my eyes on the horizon and I'm itching to get back out to some meetups, what's a good place to stay at for Canjam?
     

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