L-O's projects of eternity...

[Line Out]

Last week I fetched all the boxes from my folks place. Now I have them all at my appartment. I've been mainly doing some small repairs. For example, at last I got the CD555 to play CD's. I don't know if it was the caps or the mechanics, or both. Anyway, it was very demanding job to get it to play. Mostly mechanics. It still has some quirks, like stop and pause button stop working and the LCD goes blank... I should get some 13cm midrange speakers for the boxes.



Changed the fuse on the Siemens, maybe it blows because I put a bigger cap to the mains pcb. Could be that when the cap is drained and I plug the AC, 2A is not enough. I don't know if the fuses (that I found from my junk) are fast or slow.



Palladium has been the one box I don't really like, only because of the "flimsy" sound. Everything else on that box is nice. I tried to tape some of the holes on the back but it didn't do much. Or anything. I didn't think it before but this box has holes on the sides too and that is what definitely affects its sound at least somewhat. So I removed some of the tapes on the back and sealed the sides. Also I put the original woofers back in. Well, I gotta say, it sounds much more punchy now. It still lacks the lower bass, but it now has kinda nice kick on the higher notes. When it sits on the table about a feet away, the mid kicks feel in my chest when I crank it. And thats just what I need for the upcoming "Ghettoblaster" event that I will throw at second of May.



The next few things are the Sanyo, ICS "Super Jumbo" and Hitachi 3D80. I got one new belt for the Sanyo but for whatever reason, I didn't notice one fat and short belt thats the culprit now. Have to get that one changed before I put it back together. Started to mod the led meters on the ICS, changed the red leds to 2 green 1 yellow and 2 red. I'll add a pcb from old car booster EQ, that has stereo VU-meter. I'll have to rewire all the anodes of the leds, so 6 wires per side (5 for each led anode and one for all the cathodes).



Then there's the Sharp GF-8686. I haven't have any particular ideas for it but I accidentally found out that it can play line-in via DIN. But the mode switch has to be carefully set between tape and radio and the rec switch on. It also goes loud and is a nice addition to the event.

I have much to do before the event and I ordered a bunch of AC adapter plugs and five DIN connectors. I may have to use an old Coustic XM-3e crossover to manage the levels, because DIN input is often really sensitive, this is the case at least in Palladium and Crown. Others have a bit higher tolerance because of the ALC. With the Coustic I would have to use 40Hz highpass, because it cannot be switched off. Though 40Hz is so low that it shouldn't really matter, and I could use -18dB/oct and take unnecessary load off, better battery life and lower risk of driving the boxes too hard.

I bet the sound check will be a pain in the ass... the most boxes I've had playing at once was something like 8 and all played radio on their own.

One positive thing using a battery is higher S/N-ratio, because there should be no transformer hum...

I may have to open the GF700 too because the mode switch has static, right channel is weaker.

 

[Line Out]

I have decided that I don't care about mint. I've bought these boxes for use. I have put 10 of them up at once to do public music performances (I do some DJ'ing).

I got myself mentioned in a national radio show after one show had two guys going to some random locations in Finland. So they dropped in Ylivieska and made a show here. My friend insisted that I have to put the boxes up when the guys come here. So I did that with a help of few friends. It was afternoon and we did a little back 2 back DJ session with a friend. The guys really were amazed and asked some things about my hobby.

I found a nice place (old loading docks) where I can throw little parties every now and then.

Getting all 10 boxes to play at once was a tough task. I made DC cords and fitted DC plugs to them. Then I had to make some connectors for DIN and get a bunch of RCA cables. I hooked all the boxes to a Helix P-DSP car signal processor and hook them all to a car battery, DJ controller included. The processor has 8 channels and I had 10 boxes. So there is 3 boxes that are connected in series using line in and outs. Of course I've also EQ'd the boxes and adjusted the phases so they all play well together.

 

[Cpl-Chronic]

Holy Crap!! I wish I was close to you. We could mix some DISCO boxes in there for a sick show/dance......I've wanted to daisy-chain IN/OUTs on about 6 DISCO blasters & blast them at once....

just a thought...

Cpl

 

[Line Out]

Last year was kinda breathtaking. We had a big mid summer party with huge (21 kW) sound system from a new friend. I took my boxes to a small cabin on top of a little hill. Then I managed to fry the DJ controller in the dark (plugged the damn thing wrong way mismatching the +/- and then sparks). Few weeks after that I got the controller somewhat fixed, so it worked with digital audio in/out, but no analog. Meaning no headphone or monitoring at all. I'll have to mix tracks only with visual input and from memory

After that my friend talked me in to performing in a free to all "night of arts" -event, that took place all over the city, theend of August. He also booked a local artist "Roisto", who got his song "Apart In Love" out big time last year, to play a live set. It was really special night because his first -official- live set was not until week later in Oulu, Finland.

I was interviewed to a local radio station that is part of national media. Before it I wrote down key points that I should mention, but forgot the notes despite they were in my pocket all the time! Never heard the interview myself...

We had some retro PAR lights and few more modern light fixtures on the stage (which was a little loading dock of the local culture center). The sound was really special and the thing that came as a surprise was that the sound carried very far and was spot on even about 20 meters away. And when walking off-axis the volume dropped dramatically. I try to upload a few samples from the sound check. Too bad I was hands full at the event and forgot about taking videos. I started the night around 8:40 PM by playing mostly 80's street sounds ans some disco sounds. Then Roisto played his own set and after that I played a bit more underground electronic music until around 11:30PM.

I played "front of house", my back towards the crowd, just because I had to control the sound and lights. At some point I turned around and there was something like 40-60 people all around the parking lot! Had to say to my self "no pressure"! I think all people combined there could've been more than a hundred people there. One older guy, around 60, made wishes and I played few songs to him and he was really taken about my sound system.

Around christmas we had a rave party where I put the boxes to the chill stage. The sound field of the things is very special when listening from a nice 2-3 meter distance. There is no clear stereo separation, but the sound has one of a kind lightness, clearness and hard to describe impact and the sound stage is kinda "out there". Some effects sound like they are coming around the room rather than the boxes themselves.

As for now, I try to get the controller to work properly (spare part was about $200, fingers crossed it'll remedy the problem). Also there are two Goldstar TSR-800's coming my way, neither one's so good condition. One Sony CFS-77L (beater) is coming up too, hopefully I'll get that without loads of money. EDIT: Sony went to someone else...

Will see how things go.

Cheers

 

[goodman]

I see a lot of nice boomboxes here.
Good luck with restoration and modification.

 

[Line Out]

Got the TSR-800 yesterday. Mode switch was bad, radio was on all the time (at least the seller told so) and the power switch didn't do anything. I didn't even try to power it before opening the machine.

Sorry for not taking pictures, plain text is always dull... but here goes.

In the deck, a fat belt was slipped off from the flywheel and the play pulley was missing a retainer. I fixed those, and it seems the belts are still ok because controls and ASAP works, but there is one problem. The motor stays powered after stopping the playback. I don't know if it just needs a good cleanup and some lubing.

Cleaned the knobs with a little ultrasonic washer and hot water + hand dish washing agent + toothbrush + microfiber cloth + isopropyl alcohol.

Unsoldered the mode switch and took it apart and cleaned it, sandpapered the contacts with P1200 grit and gave it just a bit of grease. Then put it back together and soldered back on the pcb.

I rushed the box back together to take it with me to the gym with a few friends. Played some radio and tested the line in too, worked nice and goes loud. Higher notes are somewhat dark, even the treble knob all the way up. Wide mode helps a bit but eats the bass. Lower notes are nice, but maybe not so deep as the Crown. Though the Goldstar has better midbass punch. Should test them next to each other, but I have a feeling that the Goldstar goes louder overall.

Here it is after few hours of work. Will have to look into the deck again because when I switch it of, it breafly spins the motor and it may stuck. In fact it may stuck anytime when using the deck...

 

[Line Out]

VU-meters looked a bit dull on the TSR, and the paint was chipping. I happened to have some neon orange spray. First I carefully wiped the needles with q-tips dipped in acetone. Then I sprayed the paint in a cut up plastic bottle and used a q-tip, dipped it in the paint and lightly painted the VU needles. Had to do this more than once.


Better?


I've been thinking about painting the grilles bright red. This box is so plain as it is. Maybe the more beaten up box, which should arrive next week, is the better one to do mods.

I noticed that the right tweeter has much more dull sound. Will have to check them in the new one also, if there is differences, and match them.

The more demanding thing that was also in my mind, is to remove the aluminium front panel and sandpaper it with a harsh grit, then anodizing it myself. Dont know about the decals... Could look killer with red grilles, red anodized front panel and red back.


I haven't painted any of my boxes yet, but the temptation is so strong...!

 

[Reli]

I'd leave the grills black, but paint the woofer cones blue or red.

 

[virgilg]

Hi, Line-Out

I am trying to repair a Philips 70CD555 of my own, but in this case it's a more demanding job than just replacing capacitors. The unit doesn't even enter the testing program. I am using a CD150 as a donor...

Its present symptoms are that the CD spins, presumably the lens focuses and reads (I get -- -- on the display) and then it says ERROR.
I took the CDM2 out of the machine and placed it into the CD150 - it works perfectly. I'm thinking it's either the decoder board or the uP...

At least I got the cassette to work perfectly (and boy it records like I remember one a long time ago used to).

Here's a thread on stereotogo about the machine:
http://stereo2go.org/forums/threads/resurrection-of-a-philips-cd555-sound-machine.791/

For me this model is very special, I'd love to get mine fully operational again.


Thanks,
Virgil

 

[Line Out]

Damn I've been gone a long time. Virgil, nice to se you have one too! Mine is missing the deck altogether. Also the other speaker has no woofer in it.

It's a long time since I fiddled with the CD -player! Do you have the service manual? I can send it to you if you need it. Also the manual for the CD
mechanism. Seeing you've entered the test/calibration program, I'd assume you already have those?

Mine has a problem with some of the buttons, at least pause and some other stop working after a while. But since I don't know crap about uprocessors or any of that fancy digital stuff and have no testing equipment, I can't give much advice. Have you replaced the caps on the CD unit? I recapped most of them and IIRC, they helped.

 

[Line Out]

The last month or two have been very boombox -oriented.

Fixed the CX-W700 (except the CD). I didn't really have any feelings towards this box. Ugly and too new. Only reason to get it was my interest in the special 3D ASW woofer box, which is 4th order bandpass enclosure. It was well beat up, CD not working and the woofer made weird noises. After trying to make the woofer better by drilling a breathing hole for the voice coil and failing (metal crumbs all inside the voice coil), I gave up.

But then one day I thought about resurrecting the woofer. Removed the dust cap, used some packing tape and tweezers to remove the metal, glued it back together, threw some thick oldskool damping material to the enclosure, put it back together with changed belts and voila, now it plays flawlessly and OH BOY that bass. Deepest and crumbliest of them all. It won't make massive amounts of noise when outdoors and the bass won't reach far. But especially in closed spaces, indoors, it makes wonderful low notes and fills the room with massive bass.


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Took the D8444 back on the bench, it seems that the motorboating was because of where I took the audio signal. It's after a high value resistor. I moved them to the amp board and got much better results. But for some reason the tone controls are not working as they should. I had a pair of 5 1/4" 2-way car speakers that claim to have 93dB/W sensitivity. I removed the tweeters and glued chrome dustcaps on them. The original Sound 4008 woofers were used as organ donors. After that it seemed the new woofers had so much output that the original middle woofer is probably not up for the task.

I am thinking about trying a passive radiator configuration. But that probably calls for very good air seal on the box, which may be just a daydream. I replaced the original transformer with a 4A 12VDC power adapter. Also the original piezos sound horrible, that is probably due to the idiotic modeling of the "horn" that is closed with the rivets and has just a very small opening. Dunno what would be a reasonable way to have good treble...



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Found a small Sanyo M4100LU from a thrift store, for 10€. It was dirty, but the speakers on it seemed promising. Got it home and without even testing, went ahead and dismantled it. One of the most pleasing boxes to work on. Everything is simple and well laid out. Old belt had dropped and the pulleys were very "corroded", a thing I haven't witnessed before. Seemed like the original belt had some chemicals that had dissolved the plastics. I happened to find a belt that seemed to be ok. The pulleys were so worn that the motor speed had to be adjusted quite much, play speed was really fast before the adjustment. Head seemed to be in a slight angle and the sound also muffled. A bit of force and it sat straight. Demagnetized the head and it sounded really good for a small, budget oriented box. Didn't get it to record right, but thats not really an issue. Also it has a DIN PB/REC, but the signal goes only to the head, and doesn't come out. Only one LED indicates the rec level, which is funny.



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Then there was this one Philips Turbo Bass Generator, in a local pawn shop, veery dirty! Filthy, actually. Unlike usually, it had no radio, but cassette worked. Just a stuck radio mode selector. I dug up the service manual and decided to go ahed and get it, for 10€. Again, just because I was interested about the bass enclosure. I gave it a good clean and added some damping material to the enclosure. I was a quite disappointed to find only a 3" woofer. I have an artistic vision to make the box to resemble a simplified face, to have eyeballs looking to upper left/right corner and have some teeth (the turbobass generator grille) and maybe a dark blue/white color scheme.

The deck was otherwise ok, but there is a miniature rec switch, that had a white plastic lever, which just dropped out. It wont stay in place. I didn't find anything to hold it on. Also the service manual doesn't have exploded view of the deck. Also the box still stinks. I have to took it apart again and do some serious scrubbing, or just paint it... This box has some serious potential, if I can find suitable better speakers for it. 2x 120mm and 2x 100mm (round type). I may end up putting the 2.1 Creative computer speaker amp to this one... Who knows.

EDIT: I tried an old fashioned way to get rid of the smell. I put a small amount of vinegar in a plastic container and put it and the box in a big trash plastic bag. I sealed the bag (just twisting it closed) and let it overinight or so. Today I took the vinegar out and for some reason the air inside the bag seemed warmer than the ambient indoor temp(?). I put the box (still in the bag, but open) outside on the balcony (its cold out there, around -20 degrees celsius) and let it sit in the bag for a few hours, then took it out of the bag and again let it sit there. Now I took it inside and I think the smell is almost gone. When I washed it, the black material that covers the speakers started sagging and eventually I had to tear it out.


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Sanyo M9990LU has had its deck falling inside the box, so I thought I would make quick fix. But I found out there were few screws missing and as a result a few screw posts were broken. I have glued them with epoxy (ZAP Z-poxy 5 minutes), which cures crazy fast, but should be quite flexible. Will see how it holds. I bought a few belts but for my amazement, the other new one (short fat one) was still way too long, even though it was very much shorter than the one I pulled out. Well, maybe I'll visit the electronics guy again, this time with the deck.

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Crown CSC-850L has seen better days, but I havent dismantled it all the way before. It has had some problems with the function switches. I took it apart and now I have serviced all but one switch (that I don't remember acting up), maybe its better to service it too, just to be sure. Someone have been to the swithes before and with high heat! The traces were loose on many points and the surface of the PCB has burn marks and bubbling on it.

Started to repair some of the screw posts and other plastics with the epoxy.

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Sharp GF-8686. I had lost hope for resurrecting the deck on this one. But still, I took the old mechanism from my folks place and thought that I'd give it a look once again. I tried to make new idler tire from some rubber seals, but they were too large in diameter. I also tried to make the other idler tire for the capstan from a shrink tubing. After that, searching the web I came across the somewhat odd idler tyres of this mech and that made me more confident that my approach was about right. I happened to find a more suitable rubber seal, which had to have some surgery to fit. I made the capstan idler tire from a 3-5 layers of shrink tubes with different diameters. After the part was ready, I glued it on with superglue. The other tire is a bit too large and pause/rewind are not working, but other than those, sound plays and there isn't even a lot of wow. Quite happy with the result actually.


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Siemens Club 745, this upgraded AKA of Sanyo M4500K (line in/out & AMPS) had originally quite hollow sound, even though its a heavyweight for its size. I replaced the original speakers with some JVC car enclosured speaker -woofers. It was ok, but still lacking. Also it had the tendency to blow the fuse, at least after I put a big cap on the transformer board.

Recently I replaced the JVC speakers with the Macrom 4" component system woofers (that I test fitted to the 3D80). The looks are now very modern and the color is very good match. But the looks are maybe even too futuristic. Also the unneccessarily big cap (4700uF) got changed to a smaller one. For some reason the cassette wont play when on batteries. There is probably something going on with the power/transformer pcb and I'll get back on this at some point.


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Marksound MC-3, this is a little 3-piece box with 5 1/4" woofers and it sound like it packs some punch. But very low-mid oriented speakers. Also I noticed that the other channel is much weaker. This may have something to do with the fact that there may have been some sparks at some point when testing (plus and minus don't like to come together)... But not sure If it's because my stupidity or something else. Other than that, it works okay, maybe some problem with the auto stop and loose headphone jack. Would be nice to find some better woofers...

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Last year, autumn, I had the GF-575 blasting in the workshop, from a line input. It was playing on the edge of distortion and at some point I noticed some unevennes on the sound. The the right channel went really weird, just the treble came out, with very high volume. I thought it was a mode switch problem, but it was worse. The right woofer was blown. Just a few weeks ago I took it apart and examined the thing just to find this out. Of course I tried cleaning the switches and sliders too. I ended up using the woofers from the black ICS "super jumbo". The sound is ok now, but I think the lower notes don't have the oomph that they had before. Sad. And the looks are quite different now with the black cones.

The deck had one switch broken right after a few times of playing a cassette, so I stripped the whole thing from the box. The mech is a real heavyweight in this one. Now I'm about to try and 3D print the switch with my friend, who has one. Not sure if its possible to do so small bits, but I'll come out with some kind of solution in the end.

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Thats about it. I hate the fact I'm really lazy on the photo -side of things. Once I get to the repairing craze, I can't help myself. I totally forget to take pictures as I advance. Sorry for that. I will try to put something out here!

EDIT: Some pics added!