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High-End
Vintage and Audiophile Equipment
Musical
instrument amplifiers
How
to send unit in for repair
Guide
to repair prices
Directions
To In House
Troubleshooting
your equipment
Equipment
care
Surround
Sound setup and installation-Long Island area only
Contact
Us
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Guide to our services...
Description of our shop...
Frequently asked questions...
Our
completely biased and subjective advice, tips and opinions on
setup, interconnects, tubes, caps ,speaker wires , plugs etc., etc.,
etc.
About
Stereo Repair - In House
Service Company...
We
are
located in the Stony Brook Technology Center, a medical and R&D
park in South Setauket, NY.
Centrally located, we are easily accessible from all major highways in
Suffolk County. We are open 9-4 Monday through Friday, Saturday 10-12
Noon. We accept
cash, MC/VISA, AMEX, and Discover. Major repairs are guaranteed
for six months. We have been in business over thirty years, the past
eighteen
at our present location and are licensed by the department of consumer
affairs.
Although
we repair all
types of consumer electronics, well over 90% of our work is repair,
restoration, upgrade and modification of High-End and vintage audio
equipment and vintage tube musical amplifiers.
In the past ten years the diminishing quality of most consumer audio
products has resulted in increased demand for restoration
of older equipment. These items were actually built to sound good
and last for years
rather than to fit a price point in a marketplace filled
with disposable junk.
Our
service area is clean, attractive and well lighted. We maintain an
extensive service library on paper and CD-ROM. We are well
stocked with replacement parts. We use original quality parts when
replacement
is made, either supplied by Mfgr. or the same item from OEM
sources. We
also maintain type integrity in our replacement of passive components,
never using a carbon resistor in place of a film or bulk metal type or
using a mylar cap in place of a foil polypropylene, for example. We use
high quality, low residue solder from reliable suppliers and silver
bearing solder where required. We have (and routinely use) a
comprehensive array of test equipment, specially designed test fixtures
and standard
and custom made test CD’s. We are very familiar with vacuum tube
equipment and have
extensive experience in this technology that pre-dates the current
"Revival. We have applied much time and effort in the setup of our
shop in order to do our work in a efficient professional manner. Taking
pride in our work and the relationship we have with our customers, we
provide prompt and professional service for the consumer in need of
repair of audio equipment.
Guide
to the services of In-House Service Company
Repair, Overhaul, and Upgrade : An Overview
We
have extensive repair experience with audiophile and tube equipment and
understand both the distinctive quality of these products as well as
the technical aspects of repairing this level of equipment.
We repair and restore vintage and tube audio gear and bring
the classic item back to "original" condition but with more
reliable modern components.
We also
repair and modify modern solid state and digital equipment and
offer custom modification services
to meet specific customer requirements and system balance.
Please
see the table at left on our main page if you have a specific
brand in mind as we have
our recommendations of service level listed for many items. Please
contact us for any item or question not covered.
Repair and Overhaul: Basic Service
This option is designed to replace only parts that are defective, and
to leave all other stock components intact. The basic service is
limited to repairing the equipment. Any item undergoing this
service
will be warranted for a period of six months on the work performed.
This
service includes replacing defective parts, cleaning all switches and
controls, adjusting bias, resoldering printed circuit boards, and a
complete function check. We replace all parts with original OEM types
or carefully chosen replacements that will not cause any electrical or
sonic imbalance. Most solid state high end products and modern tube
high end products will only require this level of service. Prices for
this level of service are usually in the range of 125-175.00.
Repair,
Upgrade and Modification: Options
We feature conservative
upgrades of equipment that enhance sonic properties without completely
altering the original design. Depending on the equipment involved we
replace generic resistor types with high quality metal film types.
Capacitors in the signal path and critical bypass points are replaced
with polypropylene caps of superior quality. Power supply upgrades
include UltraFast and Hexfred/soft recovery rectifiers, multiple poly
cap bypass and
low ESR electrolytic upgrades. Volume and balance controls can be
replaced with high quality potentiometers or multiple position stepped
switch attenuators. A wide variety of jack and binding post
replacements are available.
We have devoted a great
amount of time to selecting components and upgrades that give the
maximum return in audio quality for the money.
We believe that
selective replacement of critical components (and minor circuit tweaks
when appropriate) yield better cost effective results than radical
redesign and reworking of equipment.
Our standard service
cap brands are
Panasonic or Jantzen polypropylene for standard
tube replacement, with AudioCap Theta, MultiCap RTX or Auricap
for
upgrade, and WIMA MKP
for low voltage and solid state circuits. Electrolytic caps are
replaced with Nichicon Muse, Panasonic FC, FM,BG or other
premium low esr/impedeance types
as
required. Resistors used are metal-film, metal-oxide or
non-inductive
wirewound as required.
We use Tesla, Sovtek,
Sevtlana/SED, EH or NOS Tubes. We do not recommend any Chinese
tubes and
will not use them in any repair in our shop.
Prices for these
services vary and depend on the type of equipment, component choices
and if a repair is
involved or needed. Please feel free to contact us if you have any
questions as to your specific item.
Repair,
Upgrade: Standard Service
This option is
designed as a service to partially rebuild a
device. Coupling, blocking, bypass, and filter capacitors are
replaced and updated with standard upgrade or our premium
types. Plate, cathode, PS, and
bias resistors in tube equipment are replaced and updated with
premium types. Rectifier diodes are replaced with UltraFast
or HEXFRED types where advised. This service offers a six month
warranty (excluding
tubes). We perform all basic services as listed above and replace
input jacks with upgrade parts as needed and/or requested. The usual
price range for this level of service is 225-300.00, depending on brand
, model and parts required.
Repair,
Upgrade: Custom Service
This service
provides modifications requested by the customer, and
components may be selected by the customer. These can be supplied by
the customer or we will attempt to supply. Aftermarket third
party kits can be
installed.
You can
also ask us to examine your equipment and see what
we can do to go above and beyond the usual upgrade.
Some custom
modifications we offer are; power supply stiffening, bias adjustment
for each individual output tube, circuit engineering, filter and EQ
bypass, custom resistor and cap options, remote power supply mounting
etc.
Please
inquire for other
custom modifications. While we will try to honor your request we will
not attempt any modification that we feel will either not have any
audible effect or cause potential damage to your equipment. Please
contact us for questions in this area. As work of this nature is varied
and complex, it is difficult to give a accurate idea as to price, but
jobs we have done at this level have ranged between 400-1,000.00
Description
of our repair shop...
The
main audio bench is a 15ft.triple station workbench. There
is sufficient equipment and flexibility so that
any audio item can be serviced at all three stations. The flexible
nature of the repair stations is due to the custom made test fixtures
on each bench. These allow the item being repaired to be
connected to monitor speakers, dummy loads or internal monitor
amplifiers. The item being repaired can be connected to Level Meters,
Distortion Analyzers, O’Scopes, Wow & Flutter meters, CD audio
sources or Audio Generators. This is accomplished by relay switching or
direct switching of I/O sources . High level (speaker level) signals
are input via a 6 pin Alacatel 20A pro audio jack, then switched to
monitor speakers or internal 200W Dale non-inductive wire wound
resistors. The instrument relays and switches connect the various
pieces of test equipment to the appropriate source. Low level sources
are input through high quality input jacks, then routed to the internal
monitor amp and, as above, the signal is sent to the desired test
equipment. All bench connection cables are made from rope-braid copper
cable of 12 or 14 gauge. Audiophile grade cables are used for low level
signal sources. A system of adapters or designated cables provides
secure connection to any equipment regardless of the type of connector
on the item under test. All important tests can be done quickly and
without having to find patch cords, hook up equipment, search out
adapters, etc. This enables us to do complete and thorough tests on all
equipment we repair. All test equipment can be disconnected from the
fixtures and directly connected for special tests or equipment
requirements.The fixtures and wiring are of high quality, making use of
heavy gauge and low loss wiring. All instruments are well grounded to a
common bus consisting of dual 12 gauge solid copper wire. 12 gauge rope
braid wire is used for individual grounds to the bus. Equipment under
test can be connected to a heavy duty AC isolated supply that includes
a Variac and AC leakage tester.
Each bench has identical monitor speakers using Morel drivers and
custom made crossovers
Frequently asked questions...
1-Why can't I talk to
a technician?
2-Why don't you sell parts?
3-The person who answers the
phone does not know what my equipment is.
4-My e-mail was not
answered-how come?
5-I ordered parts and never
heard from you.
6-I'm repairing my unit and
just need some help
7-Why is my model not listed
on your brand specific page- does
this mean you do not repair it?
8-Can you give me advice on
buying equipment?
9-Do you hate surround
sound/home theater equipment?
10 - Are there any new
products that sound decent (in your opinion)?
11-Why does so much new
equipment sound like s***?
12- OK, you don't sell
parts-so where can I get them?
13- Are you "In House
Service" " Stereo Repair" or
"stereorepair.net" why so many names?
1- Actually you can but he
cannot answer calls, give directions, or answer routine questions such
as " do you repair amplifiers?", "Do you work on ( brand name)
equipment?") The receptionist is also the operations manager and is
fully qualified to answer 90% of your questions. When you need to speak
in detail to a technician or if she cannot answer your question she
will either transfer you or take your number for a return call from a
tech. Please note: Any expression of annoyance, frustration or
impatience in not being able to speak to a tech "right away" will
effectively result in your never speaking to a technician at all-be
polite.
2- It is simply a area we do
not get involved with. The demands of stocking, research, shipping,
order filling are not something we take on, all of our time is taken up
in repair work and running a service business.
3- She really does know a lot
about this stuff, but
something like " are you familiar with the Golden Pentangle Persephone
DAC ?" or " How much to upgrade a 8b ?" is a bit too out there for
someone who is not a real audio geek. She will ask you a few questions
like "What is a 8b?". You can answer
"A tube Marantz power amp" or " A Bryston amp" and she will either
answer you question or put you through to a technician.
4- It may not have been read
yet, it may not have gotten
through, or possibly deleted by mistake as we wade through spam and
junk mail. If you do not get a response in 48 hours, resend or try
calling on the phone. All requests for parts, d.i.y service
information,
addresses of dealers, advice on the"real" value of a item listed
on e-bay are deleted. Sorry, but that is the way it is.
5- Strangely enough, we receive
orders for parts, circuit
boards, cabinets and such a few times each month. Even though we state
we do not sell parts they arrive complete with credit card information
and shipping address, usually from europe or south america. Do not know
why they are sent, but these are simply deleted.
6- Not to sound arrogant
or self important but we are busy running our shop and repairing our
customers equipment. Would you call a Doctor at random and ask what you
should take for bronchitis ? Or a Lawyer you never even spoke to
before advice on how to file for a divorce?. Think this through a
bit,
hope you
understand our point of view.
7- Specific modes are listed because they are common
repair items or we have certain upgrade packages for a specific model.
If your brand is listed, we probably repair all models by that company,
but
feel free to ask about the unit you have. Chances are that unless it is
a unit we know has a parts availability issue or is a real dog of a set
we will be able to repair it.
8- If you e-mail and are patient, good chance. By phone,
none at all.
9- NO! Home theater is fun, we install and set them up.
We like to watch movies and sports like anyone else, but home theater
setups just do not cut it for music. This is our opinion, anyone can
disagree with us. Basic
idea:
Two ears, two speakers for music. It just sounds better. Also most
consumer grade home theater equipment is really poor quality, made to
fit price points in a very competitive market. Quality costs!
10- Yes, but not at consumer audio mass market stores.
Entry level High-end equipment from companies such as Creek, Arcam,
Adcom, NAD and Rotel come to mind, but you will not find these at your
local bigbox store. Most new high end equipment is good as this is a
very competitive market and a crappy product can ruin a companies
reputation and credibility. ( An example: A really fine company
from Canada made a CD player that a highly regarded reviewer found "
lacking in pace and that sense of overall cohesive musicality that is
to be expected in the very best of audio equipment". The company
pulled the entire production run from its dealers and crushed them.)
11- The answer is found in #10
12- We will have a page of
some sources soon, but sometimes we have to Google it too.
13- Our official business name is " In House Service
Company" When we started the company this was because of two things- We
repair all equipment ourselves in our own shop, we do not farm out or
sub-contract anything. "In House Service" was too vague for the
Internet -were we a house cleaning, dog grooming, home improvement or
whatever company?- no way to tell and too much confusion. "Stereo
Repair" is a title and best working description of what we do and is
the best way to communicate what 90% of our business is.
"Stereorepair.net" is a really good URL , easy to use and remember.
(someone grabbed .com, we got .net.)
Our
completely biased and subjective advice, tips and opinions on
setup, interconnects, tubes, caps, tips
speaker
wires, plugs etc., etc.,
etc.
Basic Connection:
Connect all equipment with the power off. Never connect speakers
while a receiver or amp is powered up. Check speaker wires
carefully as a single strand of the finest guage wire will look like a
direct short to your amp. Start out with good quality cables and
interconnects:
Speaker wires:
After years of futzing around with every kind of speaker cable made
this is our basic idea; LESS REALLY IS MORE! . Time and time again I
have seen that the simplest type of construction of speaker cable is
the
best. Ohms law really works and the basic requirements for speaker
cable are low resistance and high current carrying
capability. Get
these right and add some care about magnetic induction and 90% of the
problem is solved. I am always wary about cables that have any
black box at
one or both ends of the cable A few times I have cut these " matching
devices or stabilizers open and have founf just wire imbedded in epoxy.
Point is : beware snake oil audio!. I make my own wires and on
request
will do up a set. No big secret: I use high grade clv-3 rated speaker
wire of 16 or12 gauge twisted pairs, tripled or up to five separate
pairs over ten feet, interleave the conductor pairs and try to
bi-wire on
unusually long cable runs. I usually use ten feet as a minimum length
for any speaker wire, it is my impression that cables under six feet do
not sound as good as a longer cable. Feel free to disagree, but give it
a listen first.
Of cables on the market I like Kimber cables best. Their entry level
cables are fairly inexpensive and use the type of multi-counductor
interwoven construction I prefer.
I do not find any advantage to any
speaker cable set over 800.00. Over this price range and any
advantage is so far down on the cost/return scale that I consider it a
waste of time and money.
If you just want decent wire that works and will not blow up anything
RadioShack 16 gauge Megacable or "Stereo Speaker Wire " at Home Depot
will work well. I disagree with some writers who extoll the virtue of
solid gauge wire ( telephone, hook-up wire, or Romex).
Interconnects:
I really feel that very heavily shielded interconnects squeeze the life
out of music. The interconnects I use at home and for my customers
usually consist of (feel free to try out secret recipe!) three twisted
pairs of stripped out cat 5e wires, one strand of each to ground, the
other to signal hot. Terminate to good quality RCA's and cover in
nylon braid to protect and to damp vibration. Dozens of my
customers have
really liked the result, and have had me make up replacements for all
his
interconnects. You will have to use good wiring practice if you use
these to prevent hum.
Again, I like Kimber interconnects
I
have come to believe that any cable
with a bandwidth greater that 10 MHZ or so will work for digital
signals
just fine. At times I did think I heard a difference between digital
cables, but could not confirm. I have used very expensive digital
cables in my reference system and have used standard video patch cords,
but have found little difference between them.
I prefer Coax for all purely audio digital connections, but use Toslink
for anything that touches sat or cable tv, due to safety issues in case
of lightning strikes ( glass=insulator, Copper= conductor )
Good wiring practice:
Run all AC leads to a single outlet strip to prevent ground loops. Use
a surge protector. The computer grade units by Belkin you can get at
Home Depot for about 75.00 are OK to use.
Never parallel run speaker wires or low level connectors with AC lines,
never bundle RCA and speaker wires together. If dissimilar lines come
near to each other, cross at 90 deg angle.
Never coil up speaker wires into loops, you are just building a choke
coil (inductor). You do not want this but it would take a long, long
time to explain why, trust me on this one.
Spray every single connection with Caig Labs G5. This stuff really
works, I use it on my equipment, and use only Caig products in my
shop. Do not use anything else, especially never use WD-40, this will
really louse up your gear!.
I have noticed countless times that both
speaker wires and interconnects sound better if lifted off a floor and
either suspended or lifted on blocks of wood, dixie cups, anything but
clumped on the floor. Other have commented on this and suspect pickup
of vibration as a cause of this problem.
Vibration damping:
No skepticism here, this really works and is important. In my shop it
is standard procedure to use a variety of damping materials when we
upgrade and modify equipment. All conductors carrying
electromagnetic energy are capable of modulating signals when subject
to mechanical vibration. Sometimes this is severe such as in preamp
tubes, much less in output transistors for example.
Stone or heavy wood bases , vibration damping such as
Dynamat, and damping feet can all be important to better sound.
I usually use dense live rubber under power amps, stone base with
small silicone feet for CD players and preamps. Big receivers usually
work out well with stone or heavy wood with multiple silicone feet. My
best speaker mount technique is using construction adhesive to bind
heavy maple
or oak block to the bottom of floor standing speakers or speaker
stands, and then bolting directly to a floor, cutting through carpet if
necessary. Best results with at least six bolts/lag screws right over a
stud or setting with bondo body filler to a slab floor.
I take a lot of time in setting up internal damping in a upgrade
component and know how much labor it can take to kill resonance
in some equipment. Some of the well known tweaks of discs, stones, goo
and
such are useless crap designed to remove money from the pockets
of the more gullible among the audiophile public.
Tubes:
Any time we retube a set I usually use new production tubes from
Sovtek/New Sensor, E-H , Svetlana /SED. and Tesla JJ. I WILL USE
CUSTOMER SUPPLIED TUBES BUT DO NOT GUARANTEE RESULTS WITH THEM.
I do not use "NOS" tubes unless the type is not available in new
production. Quite often nos tubes are really just used, and there are
some far east companies that offer to make brand new "NOS" tubes with
any branding desired on them.
90% of my tubes are purchaced from www.tubestore.com.
They are fast shippers, provide excellent customer service and all
their products are genuine and reliable. They also rate and review
every item they sell and provide a lot of tube and audio info on their
website.
I always like to send a repaired set back with the output and driver
tubes that are going to be used in the set. This just makes sense
considering the chance of a customer having a bad tube and not being
satisified with a repair.
Preamp tubes last much longer than usually thought. I receive Fishers
and Mcintosh preamps with 30 year old
Telefunken and Mullard tubes ithat perform and test as well as new.
Lesser brands and many imports do not perform nearly as well. I will
usually change out preamp tubes if they are mismatched or actually
defective in some way.
NOTE: We
stock
parts
for our own use and absolutely DO NOT sell parts or
tubes.
Please do
not request that we sell parts or service documentation as this is just
not what we do.
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