A very quick thank you to everyone who visited in January 2024 because you guys have gone nuts and made it my biggest month of all time!
January – aren’t you all meant to be on holiday or at the beach? I guess my many European and North American readers are perhaps indoors trying to stay warm. I’ve been sweltering here in the 40+ degree Perth heat answering enquiries and trying to catch up on work from 2023 whilst getting ready for the 2024 influx.
In the meantime, I can hardly believe that my little website garnered almost 43,000 views from over 22,000 visitors this January! I mean, who knew that gorgeous hi-fi gear and sensible advice would be this popular? I’m always thinking of things readers might like to learn more about too, so feel free to drop ideas in the comments below. Likewise, if you have any website design ideas or suggestions. If I get a sense that there are particular pieces of equipment or topics, I’ll try to make them happen.
My most recent article on the Sansui BA-5000 certainly garnered a lot of interest and rightly so, it is an extraordinary amplifier. There are quite a few Sansui fans out there and you guys should know that I’ve just finished a near-perfect, museum-condition Sansui BA-F1 overhaul, so that’s another article I need to write.
I also finally finished a Pioneer M-90 power amplifier repair and overhaul for her very patient Queensland owner and she’s now on her way back to him. That article will be coming at some point, but her owner tells me that she’d visited almost every repairer in Queensland before being sent to Liquid Audio, so I’m thrilled to have gotten her back up and running for him, and a little tired after that one. These amplifiers are not fun to work on, I will say that!
I started accepting new customer bookings on January 30 and on that very first day, booked enough work to keep me busy for a couple of months I reckon. I’m going to be keeping a lid on the bookings so please bear this in mind if looking to engage me to work on equipment for you. Likewise, I’ll be only very selectively accepting interstate and overseas work because I need to keep things manageable. It’s all about the balance in 2024.
Anyway, this is just a quickie to thank everyone who visits, enjoys the content and keeps these statistics growing. You guys are why I write and without you, I’d probably not bother.
Legends!
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No surprise to me Mike. Your honest, call BS when you see it and know your (expletive). These qualities are rarer than you think, particularly in the hi fi industry.
Thanks Tony, always appreciate the support!
I’m not suprised at your continued web growth. As the great Freddie Mercury once observed, “talent will win out, dear” Moving forward, I’ve about decided that sometime down the road I am going to attempt to retain your services to figure out once & for all what the issue is with the speed accuracy on my much loved Sharp Optonica RP- 3636. I’m prepared to pay the hefty shipping to Australia & back from NC, USA (and of course your service fees) & thanks to the awesome performance of my Technics SL 1200 mk 7 anniversary red edition, I can continue to play records in the meantime. I probably should be satisfied with what I got but, I just can’t. Due to how much more weight, heft, & just general awesome bottom end impact that Sharp table renders when it’s working correctly. IN the few months before it started having speed issues, it smoked every TT I’d ever heard including 2 Kenwood KD 600/650s at least wayyy down low & in general dynamic impact. I hope its not just due to the metal weight situated in the dustcover but more a product of the tonearm design. Time will tell.
Thanks Tim, the support is much appreciated! I don’t generally accept non-local turntable jobs because of the costs and risks involved in shipping so, whilst I’d love to help, I may not be able to with this one, unfortunately. Let’s stay in touch on it though.
Absolutely. I have given that shipping subject a lot of thought. My plan was to remove the tonearm as it’s not necessary for the service issue (same for the proprietary dustcover) & just ship the the plinth (+ it’s internal motor and circuit board) & platter in 2 seperate boxes inside a 3rd well cushioned outer box. I’m at least a year away from wanting to pull the trigger on this however. I have absolutely exhausted local options for this both my ownself & the best professional tech in my area, one Sasa Malkoc at All Electronics Repair in Charlotte, NC. He & I both can get it to work correctly for a few weeks to a month or so by replacing certain caps, resistors, one particular Zener diode as well as De-oxing the 2 trim pots on the board but the issue always returns in a far too short period of time. BY the way, every time I say the word Zener aloud I feel like I have the biggest redneck hick accent mis-pronouncing Lucy Lawless’s character’s name Xena (the Warrior Princess) LOL! Have a good one sir.
No problem Tim, we will stay in touch on this one and think of Xenas..!
Hi Mike, Curious, do you have or consider an apprentice to keep your work going far into the future. It seems to be a dying art . Cheers Craig.
Hi Craig, that’s a great suggestion but my workplace and set up just wouldn’t allow for it right now unfortunately. Added to that, I wouldn’t trust anyone else working on my customer’s equipment, so this is a problem without an obvious solution!
Hi Mike
I just sold my Accuphase E303 to a hi-fi shop. The owner identified a couple of things about it which I should have been doing to keep it in good operating condition.
One of which was that I should have used all mechanical parts once a month by giving knobs a full turn to prevent oxidation which had occurred on the balance slide which in turn caused a temporary noise
If you get a minute I’d enjoy your thoughts on a video about powering down your amp, etc and any other gems to look after equipment
Accuphase addict
Hi Steve, this is called ‘exercising’ the controls and it’s good practice for owners of equipment with mechanical switches, sliders and rotary controls. I recommend this to my customers, though it’s important to note that it doesn’t remove the need for periodic maintenance and service of controls and switches. I’ve just repaired an E-303 that needed deep cleaning and service of all mechanical controls to restore normal operation. I use a multi-stage service process that is very effective on noisy/sticky controls. I’ve mentioned this in articles and videos over the years, thank you for the suggestion!
I have taken up your suggestion and bought 2 pairs of Accuphase Super Refined RCA cables
Sounds good Steve! Balanced is better than single-ended (RCA) as a signal transmission method and in terms of the technical performance of the XLR connector and the circuitry that handles balanced signals within a component, so balanced connections should be used wherever you have the option.
Hi Mike
I also bought 2 pairs of Accuphase XLRs which arrived before the rcas. Still awaiting the rcas.
They are older blue ones and have Cannon xlr connectors.
Believe it on not, the thing letting down the balanced signal is my Arcam 2014 or 2015 FMJ D33 super high fidelity dac. It has only one xlr input connector.
Hi Steve, great work with the balanced cables, this is the way to go. The Arcam DAC has balanced analog out so you can use this. The single XLR is for digital signals via AES/EBU.
Temporarily saved from an Accuphase DAC purchase [which hasn’t been sanctioned].