Update On My "Poor Man's Monoblocks"

[Lazarus Short]

Barb and I watched Road to Perdition last night. The Aiwa's were making static-y noises, especially the flea market unit. I switched the preamp to mono and threw the balance knob all the way to the right. I then left them both powered up overnight, put on some music this afternoon, and everything seemed fine. They sounded great. Went upstairs, informed Barb, went back down to the listening room, and static again from the flea market unit. Well, I'm just going to try out this morning's ten buck estate sale find, a Kenwood KR-A5050. It may do until I can find a new power amp.

EDIT: The Kenwood sounds great for a $10 receiver. Specs say 100 watts, but it's a 1993 model, so they may not be old-school watts. I like the SQ of the Aiwa's better, but the Kenwood is clean.

I think I'll hit the bridging switch on the Aiwa's with Deoxit tomorrow.

 

[Lazarus Short]

UPDATE: I met a fellow in the "Dot" (Wyandot County) yesterday, and paid $150 for a Yamaha DSP-A2070. It was in good shape, except that the pre/main jumpers were trashed, and they were pricey Tara Cable. This thing was two grand when new, has massive heat sinks (four output transistors per side), a massive power transformer, and great sound. I'm running it in two-channel of course. There are no pops or clicks from the speakers on power-up or power-down, and the amp seems to be an excellent match for the Vandy's.

Lee, thank you (again!) for showing me the way with that loaner amp last summer!

Edit: Here's a sad photo of the former jumpers.