Advent 300's in the House

[Lazarus Short]

One of those CL ads...off to El Paso and back tonight. The guy, an ex-audiophile, had sold his last good speakers, and had these left, a working unit with a very worn faceplate and a mostly dead unit with a good faceplate. I'll be inspecting innards and swapping faceplates. The MD (mostly dead) unit has the volume pot removed, and I think he killed it when a little DeOxit would have sufficed. Maybe I can drop in a better pot to replace it, but I'll have to look at the innards, as I fear he may have buggered up the circuit board. Fifty bucks, not bad.

 

[laatsch55]

Not familiar with an ADvent 300. SS or tubes??

 

[speakerman1]

Speakers Lee

 

[laatsch55]

OH.... thanks Larrt.,.......

 

[Pure_Brew]

These are receivers actually, not speakers.

 

[speakerman1]

I hang my head in shame. Please forgive me. LOL

 

[Lazarus Short]

I had wanted one of these ever since I first read about them in The Whole Earth Catalog. Solid-state, in answer to Lee. I'll see later if they're a good match for the Heresys.

EDIT: I opened up the working unit, and everything looked good until I inspected the power supply. One of the filter caps is leaking, and not a little. They're Mallory, 3000 MFD, 30 VDC, axial connections. I could pull a cap from the parts unit, but these are 30+ year-old caps, and I'd rather replace them with new. Any suggestions as to brand and upgrading?

I'll try to post a photo later, but no promises.

 

[laatsch55]

I hang my head in shame. Please forgive me. LOL

If I could find ya I would......

 

[laatsch55]

I had wanted one of these ever since I first read about them in The Whole Earth Catalog. Solid-state, in answer to Lee. I'll see later if they're a good match for the Heresys.

EDIT: I opened up the working unit, and everything looked good until I inspected the power supply. One of the filter caps is leaking, and not a little. They're Mallory, 3000 MFD, 30 VDC, axial connections. I could pull a cap from the parts unit, but these are 30+ year-old caps, and I'd rather replace them with new. Any suggestions as to brand and upgrading?

I'll try to post a photo later, but no promises.

How many watts??Snap in or screw terminal?

 

[Lazarus Short]

If you're referring to amp output, it's 15 watts.

If you're referring to cap type, it's not snap-in or screw terminal, but has a wire out each end of the cap's cylinder - axial, right? I've been poking around - one DIY'er put in 10,000 microfarad caps. I know next to nothing about recapping, and need pointers.

 

[laatsch55]

Would the board take a snap in?? Most axials are not the best for audio. I have replaced MANY axials with radials. Bend the leads at right angles to the bottom, run them out to the thru holes then down. A great many audio caps can be had in radial. A 1000uf ina Nichicon KZ "Muse" of Elna Silmic II would be a great step up.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Would the board take a snap in?? Most axials are not the best for audio. I have replaced MANY axials with radials. Bend the leads at right angles to the bottom, run them out to the thru holes then down. A great many audio caps can be had in radial. A 1000uf ina Nichicon KZ "Muse" of Elna Silmic II would be a great step up.

Thanks for posting again! "The board"? No, the build quality of this receiver is something to behold! It seems to have a cult following based on the sound, but a look at the innards without knowing what it was might elicit something like Luke Skywalker's initial reaction to the Millennium Falcon: "What a hunk of junk!" The filter caps hang in space between two terminal strips - thus the axial leads. The boards, such as they are, do not have any traces that I can see - it's like breadboard, at least from the top. I was looking at it for awhile before I even noticed the output transistors, mounted on a heat sink that was almost vestigial. Would you believe that one jazzed-up version of this receiver is selling for $700-800?! Oh, did I mention the wire? There's wire running everywhere, quite a jumble of it.

OK, back to caps. Given what I have seen in axials (kinda hard to find in audio quality), I am going for radials done per your suggestion. I had been thinking about that possibility anyway, and if you've done it MANY times, I can proceed with confidence. I've read really good things about the Elna Silmic II, and I really do want to redo this thing for SQ.

About the "1000 uf" - should I not use a new cap of at least the same value? Like a 3300 uf or a little more to replace my 3000 uf?

 

[Lazarus Short]

Here's a link to the "jazzed-up" 300, actually only $600:

http://soundofthewood.com/preamptuners.html

I'll see if I can post of photo of the innards. You can actually see the crust of the leakage on the top of the filter cap nearer to the power transformer.

 

[laatsch55]

Yes Lazarus, misread your original post. If they came with 3300, you could easily go to 5600, course that depends on a few things and with no schematic I'd stick with the original values.

Phase Linear was nuts about axials in the beginning, even up to the 3300 Ser II they had axials. By stringing the leads out like ya do to replace the axials with the radials I thought they would pick up some noise, but so far on 16 recaps it's been good.

 

[laatsch55]

The 3300's are the big ones on the left??

 

[Lazarus Short]

Upper left, yes, actually 3000 uf, and the schematic is printed on the bottom plate. It even came with the original manual, box, and packing.

Oh, by the way...

 

[laatsch55]

Laz, there's enough room there to do what ever you wanted screw termonal ,snap in, or straight radial. Take your pick.

 

[Lazarus Short]

I think I'll go with a regular radial, but I have one more question: polarity. How does the polarity of an axial cap go? I see it printed all too obviously on some, but not on others. These have plus signs next to the brand name (Mallory), and the rubber end of the cap is above that.

BTW, I used to have a Phase Linear 2000 mark II - it was the best preamp I ever owned, and the cheapest. I wish I still had it, can't even remember why I swapped it off, and I got the short end of the deal at that.

 

[laatsch55]

I have 4 extra , how many ya want?? There is a dark arrow or black slash with a directional arrow pointing to THE NEGATIVE lead.

 

[laatsch55]

Upper left, yes, actually 3000 uf, and the schematic is printed on the bottom plate. It even came with the original manual, box, and packing.

Oh, by the way...

That's damn cute there Laz...