that seems like it does the same thing as the satellite speakers on my aiwa radio. actually like the aiwa cx-naj80 aka nsx-aj80 as the manual says i found online says. 250 watts and a lot of bass. there are 2 connectores for each speaker.
my 94 toyota camry radio a16404 has a light that messed up. should try and fix it some time. sure this radio is a basic one with tape but i sounds better then the sony explode and vr3400sdu radios i tried. toyota put 6 ohm speakers and radio in there car and the speakers just don't sound right with them since the radios are 4 or 8 ohm. i don't want to change the speakers since there is nothing wrong with them.
Hi, I have this receiver and also need some bulbs replaced...anyone had a service manual with the part numbers for the bulbs...anything at all would be a help...thanks...Bill B Newfoundland/Canada
@GamingPros77 The bulbs for this receiver are "194" automotive bulbs. Getting them to take solder is a little difficult and you don't want to heat them for too long. Scrape the terminals to remove the plating after carefully folding them down and you'll have it.
I have a JVC R-X500 that had the same issue - in the case of the JVC, it uses those 12V fuse type bulbs that are often found in more vintage receivers. Luckily there is an audio shop right nearby that sells them. About an hour of work and replacement of the fried zener diodes that always burn up when bulbs fail in these JVCs, and she's good as new. That receiver drives a pair of Polk Monitor 5 Junior speakers in my bedroom. The price for the receiver was $10 on Craigslist a bunch of years ago.
Found out some interesting info.Panasonic did subcontract to Sanyo.Sanyo at the time was owned by the brother in law of the founder of Panasonic.I don't know how long this went on but Panasonic bought Sanyo last year.I still Think Technics made alot of the parts for their pro line equipment.
Technics used computer drive new class a on many of their receivers and amplifiers in the 80's and 90's.They also had a class aa vc-4 amplifier system that produced pure class a sound without being affected by load conditions and an active servo power supply that operates in silence that exceeds that of a car battery,often said to be the ideal power source.
Technics invented new class A and computer drive.sanyo had nothing to do with it.In fact some of their higher end amps had class a class AA amplifier.
@lghaze42 While that's true, the amplifier power packs (mostly STK-XXXX series) were produced by Sanyo. Technics and many other companies used them. Watch my SA-310 video and you'll see an STK-2038 series II stereo power amplifier, produced by Sanyo.
It's unclear who made the Technics-badged ones. I'm sure you can get them made to say whatever you want when you order as many as they did. I have also never seen a datasheet for an SVI-XXXX Techics badged module.
The light did burn for over twenty years without incident. I'm not too worried about this one failing any time soon.
There's really no room for an LED and dropping resistor, and unless it was a BIG LED, it wouldn't fit or look right. That rubber jacket has to be filled with a bulb to fit back in and work as intended.
There is one last thing you might try. If it's one of those thin ribbons with printed wires, check the connector it plugs into at both ends. If it's a "squeeze" connector, try moving its pins closer together so it grips the cable tighter.
A multimeter on the ohms scale hooked up to parts of the cable can tell you if it's busted--just flex it with the meter hooked up and watch the needle/display. Sudden changes strongly indicate busted wires.
Hey Bill, Do you have anything on how to do a power switch repair? I have a Technics SU-V96 Stereo Integrated Amplifier and it is always powered on maybe a bad connection or the the switch is just plum wore out. But it still clicks and stays engaged I like your vids and I can understand them if you run across any type of repair let me know I will try to get a video on soon. Thanks
I think one of two things has happened--either the switch broke internally or its contacts have burned/welded themselves together. (This usually happens if the reciever was drawing a lot of power when it was turned off, like it would if it was playing loudly.)
The problem I've found is that the switches really aren't made to be disassembled at all. Replacement usually requires getting clever as a precisely identical part isn't available.
You can buy new switches from electronic parts supply houses and they're not expensive (places like Digi-Key, Mouser, maybe even eBay, etc). Or you could pull one from a dead receiver and "make it work".
If you're not opposed to modifying the unit and cannot find another way, you could always install a standard switch somewhere else, like in the back and reroute the wiring to it.
A video would be great, as would any numbers/names on the switch.
It appears that Panasonic PASC (parts and service center) *may* actually have the switch you need. You'd want to call them and verify, but if they do, it's priced around $11.
I have a question for you. I have an MCS 2240, of similar vintage to most of the Technics recievers you have, and since MCS (JCPenny) is made by Technics, you may be able to help me. The left channel of this reciever has full power output and sounds great, but the right channel only produces intermittent farts of sound. Usually only when the volume is set to an obnoxiously high setting. Any suggestions?
I would start by cleaning all the controls on the set, especially anything that can redirect, cut off or change where the sound is going (tone defeat, stereo expansion, any muting buttons). If that doesn't help, look up the transistors or amplifier module to see if they're getting the right power.
If there is a protection relay, check it and see if one of the contacts is pitted. I saw that most recently on an SA-1010 and it made one channel all scratchy and weak while the other was loud+clear.
If that doesn't work, it's time to trace the circuit and see where the audio goes both into and out of the amplifier. My bet is that your receiver could be losing the signal before it hits the power amplifier circuit. Some sort of a pickup, working amp and a speaker could be useful for these checks. If the pickup is a metal probe, touching it to a part of the audio circuit will tell you if signal is making it there.
You may need a service manual unless you want to trace the circuit yourself.
I don't know what it is but watching a piece of tech going from broken to a fixed status gets me all giddy inside and I absolutely love watching it be done!
My SA-946 has indeed been quite durable, although hot-running. Yours is one step better because it has MTS stereo TV audio, while mine is just mono TV. At least on the 946, you tune the cable TV channel by holding down the CATV button until it changes. It also has a fine tuning button for CATV, but I haven't figured out how it works. And of course mine also has the bad solder connections on the front panel; I usually have to tap on it to get the backlighting and indicators to light up.
It seems to be a common trait of the STK/SVI modules to run hot, especially in the Computer Drive New Class A mode (as they never shut all the way off). I saw someone on a forum who was designing an amp based on the modules say that keeping these modules from oscillating even a little is very difficult and that even little oscillations cause them to dump a lot of heat and break down.
I played with the fine tune button. Pressing it resulted in the audio fading out and coming back on clearly.
Great video I love seeing these old electronics up and running > I gotta ask where do you find these great things? I look in good will and a old to new shop with not very good luck they told me they throw them away because nobody wants them. and they do not have the space.
Thrift stores, hamfests, very rarely a flea market, garage sales, Curbside Discount, electronics recycling centers (the ones that will let me take things--few of them do), town dumps (very, very rarely) and of course: eBay.
Everyone has different ideas as to what's worthwhile and I suppose it varies with your location. Around here, it's rare that any of these stores throw something away unless it won't sell for months/years on end.
WOW, that's actually not bad for one o' them 80's board-based units.. LOTS of discrete shits in there.. nice on the TV sound, too.. xD ..I swear, you find some of the ODDEST things mate.. xD
I'd kind of doubt it. But you could possibly make a new one, depending upon how the current one is constructed. If what you have now is a cable that binds together many wires with rubber insulation between them, it would be fairly easy to replace the bad part or even the whole thing.
On the other hand, if you have a thin plastic cable that looks like a circuit board trace without the fiber backing, you may have to go point to point with wires to bypass the problem. These are not easy to fix.
thats a cool reciever. i suppose you could listen to a football game or something back in the day, without using an actual tv. i like the tv feature. it was hard to get true stereo sound from a tv, and even if you did it was coming from two small speakers.
Portable "TV band" or "TV sound" radios were great. Most of them used a pretty simple trick--a simple circuit that lowered the frequency into the range of the receiving circuit so it could be tuned in. (Cheaper radios will oftentimes indicate this, as the tuning will "wrap around" causing stations to appear on the dial where they don't belong.)
They were also invaluable in a power outage...a battery operated radio will last much longer than a battery operated TV set.
@uxwbill i know the feeling, i have a tiny casio tv with a 2.5" LCD screen. it lasts about 3 hours on 4 AA's. they're just the best thing to have when the power goes out
Had a Technics receiver, similar to yours (but not exact model). Had the VCR input, VCR EQ, front-panel A/V inputs & the TV tuner. Sold it on Craigslist a few years ago.
my uncle has an amplifier that is almost like this one and it has a tv tuner on it. the way it works out is that you do have to hook up a cable box or some other source through the cable input and u can listen to tv through it. also the one my uncle has has a blown channel on it but it is very powerful still. after a few years or so i had forgotten what model his was but i never forgot it was a tv tuner type
If the hybrid amp is bad, the unit should (hopefully!) trip its relay and shut down. But this means *both* speakers will be silent as there is only the one relay.
This receiver had the same problem. The proper fix is to CAREFULLY pop the protection relay open (and I do mean /carefully/) and clean the burned contacts. Sometimes you can "gas" the volume control and get the sound back, but that's abusive to your speakers and the amp module.
@uxwbill it still worked on the right channel and somehow it bypassed the bad part of the amp and allowed it to still run. when i had visited my uncle i did run one of your kitchen table electronics repairs though it was a laser lens cleaning. cleaned up the laser and the player went back to normal. it was having issues reading discs at the time.
@uxwbill You may need to get a slightly lower watage bulb, I once put car bulb in likethat and believe it or not the display looked exactly the same with the blue but when it had been on for a few hours it just started to light up all of the display digits, I think it must ebe related to the heat of the bulb heating up the liquid but im not too sure, look forward to hearing from u
Yeah, it's the way the bulb heats up the liquid. All liquid crystal displays will do this to some degree--set one in the sun sometime and you can see the effect when next it's turned on. The heat makes the opaque segments "come out" and block the light.
I don't know who makes the bulbs I'm using (they're bulk packed in a plain box) but so far it has been working fine.
that seems like it does the same thing as the satellite speakers on my aiwa radio. actually like the aiwa cx-naj80 aka nsx-aj80 as the manual says i found online says. 250 watts and a lot of bass. there are 2 connectores for each speaker.
james42519 5 days ago
@james42519 It's probably not a whole lot different, only in this case there are only two speakers used.
uxwbill 5 days ago
my 94 toyota camry radio a16404 has a light that messed up. should try and fix it some time. sure this radio is a basic one with tape but i sounds better then the sony explode and vr3400sdu radios i tried. toyota put 6 ohm speakers and radio in there car and the speakers just don't sound right with them since the radios are 4 or 8 ohm. i don't want to change the speakers since there is nothing wrong with them.
james42519 5 days ago
I own a Technics SA-351 and it blew out where it won't turn on. Is there a way to fix it? I love this receiver. <3
deezol 1 month ago
@deezol One the single most common problems with these receivers is the power switch. It's been known to go bad after many years of use.
uxwbill 5 days ago
MTS Stereo
ussmbus 4 months ago
Hi, I have this receiver and also need some bulbs replaced...anyone had a service manual with the part numbers for the bulbs...anything at all would be a help...thanks...Bill B Newfoundland/Canada
GamingPros77 5 months ago
@GamingPros77 The bulbs for this receiver are "194" automotive bulbs. Getting them to take solder is a little difficult and you don't want to heat them for too long. Scrape the terminals to remove the plating after carefully folding them down and you'll have it.
uxwbill 5 months ago
@uxwbill Thanks for getting back to me...yea I know the bulb..have them in my car.
sounds like a headache to change..thanks again
MrTechnicscollector 2 months ago
Hi Uxwbill!
where did you get that 99% alcohol?
ouimetnick 8 months ago
@ouimetnick At a Meijer store.
uxwbill 8 months ago
I have a JVC R-X500 that had the same issue - in the case of the JVC, it uses those 12V fuse type bulbs that are often found in more vintage receivers. Luckily there is an audio shop right nearby that sells them. About an hour of work and replacement of the fried zener diodes that always burn up when bulbs fail in these JVCs, and she's good as new. That receiver drives a pair of Polk Monitor 5 Junior speakers in my bedroom. The price for the receiver was $10 on Craigslist a bunch of years ago.
ngtflyer 1 year ago
Found out some interesting info.Panasonic did subcontract to Sanyo.Sanyo at the time was owned by the brother in law of the founder of Panasonic.I don't know how long this went on but Panasonic bought Sanyo last year.I still Think Technics made alot of the parts for their pro line equipment.
lghaze42 1 year ago
Technics used computer drive new class a on many of their receivers and amplifiers in the 80's and 90's.They also had a class aa vc-4 amplifier system that produced pure class a sound without being affected by load conditions and an active servo power supply that operates in silence that exceeds that of a car battery,often said to be the ideal power source.
lghaze42 1 year ago
Technics invented new class A and computer drive.sanyo had nothing to do with it.In fact some of their higher end amps had class a class AA amplifier.
lghaze42 1 year ago
@lghaze42 While that's true, the amplifier power packs (mostly STK-XXXX series) were produced by Sanyo. Technics and many other companies used them. Watch my SA-310 video and you'll see an STK-2038 series II stereo power amplifier, produced by Sanyo.
It's unclear who made the Technics-badged ones. I'm sure you can get them made to say whatever you want when you order as many as they did. I have also never seen a datasheet for an SVI-XXXX Techics badged module.
uxwbill 1 year ago
The Statler Brothers. :3
Jerkwad152 1 year ago
I'm a big fan of your videos. You're a very versatile and intelligent, congratulations, Bill.
BTW: I can see you use a compact camera and I'm curious about it. Which maker and model is it, please?
Thanks and keep the good work.
zk61 1 year ago
That's true, but:
The light did burn for over twenty years without incident. I'm not too worried about this one failing any time soon.
There's really no room for an LED and dropping resistor, and unless it was a BIG LED, it wouldn't fit or look right. That rubber jacket has to be filled with a bulb to fit back in and work as intended.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill I have tried to use leds but when u use them they seem to act a bit like a short when you put them in ac devices
MOTERHEAD69 1 year ago
There is one last thing you might try. If it's one of those thin ribbons with printed wires, check the connector it plugs into at both ends. If it's a "squeeze" connector, try moving its pins closer together so it grips the cable tighter.
A multimeter on the ohms scale hooked up to parts of the cable can tell you if it's busted--just flex it with the meter hooked up and watch the needle/display. Sudden changes strongly indicate busted wires.
uxwbill 1 year ago
Hey Bill, Do you have anything on how to do a power switch repair? I have a Technics SU-V96 Stereo Integrated Amplifier and it is always powered on maybe a bad connection or the the switch is just plum wore out. But it still clicks and stays engaged I like your vids and I can understand them if you run across any type of repair let me know I will try to get a video on soon. Thanks
1986JohnDeere318 1 year ago
I think one of two things has happened--either the switch broke internally or its contacts have burned/welded themselves together. (This usually happens if the reciever was drawing a lot of power when it was turned off, like it would if it was playing loudly.)
The problem I've found is that the switches really aren't made to be disassembled at all. Replacement usually requires getting clever as a precisely identical part isn't available.
uxwbill 1 year ago
You can buy new switches from electronic parts supply houses and they're not expensive (places like Digi-Key, Mouser, maybe even eBay, etc). Or you could pull one from a dead receiver and "make it work".
If you're not opposed to modifying the unit and cannot find another way, you could always install a standard switch somewhere else, like in the back and reroute the wiring to it.
A video would be great, as would any numbers/names on the switch.
uxwbill 1 year ago
It appears that Panasonic PASC (parts and service center) *may* actually have the switch you need. You'd want to call them and verify, but if they do, it's priced around $11.
uxwbill 1 year ago
I have a question for you. I have an MCS 2240, of similar vintage to most of the Technics recievers you have, and since MCS (JCPenny) is made by Technics, you may be able to help me. The left channel of this reciever has full power output and sounds great, but the right channel only produces intermittent farts of sound. Usually only when the volume is set to an obnoxiously high setting. Any suggestions?
donbehatin 1 year ago
I would start by cleaning all the controls on the set, especially anything that can redirect, cut off or change where the sound is going (tone defeat, stereo expansion, any muting buttons). If that doesn't help, look up the transistors or amplifier module to see if they're getting the right power.
If there is a protection relay, check it and see if one of the contacts is pitted. I saw that most recently on an SA-1010 and it made one channel all scratchy and weak while the other was loud+clear.
uxwbill 1 year ago
If that doesn't work, it's time to trace the circuit and see where the audio goes both into and out of the amplifier. My bet is that your receiver could be losing the signal before it hits the power amplifier circuit. Some sort of a pickup, working amp and a speaker could be useful for these checks. If the pickup is a metal probe, touching it to a part of the audio circuit will tell you if signal is making it there.
You may need a service manual unless you want to trace the circuit yourself.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill Okay. I'll try that. Thanks, man!
donbehatin 1 year ago
I don't know what it is but watching a piece of tech going from broken to a fixed status gets me all giddy inside and I absolutely love watching it be done!
Keep them coming Bill!
MacintoshUser1986 1 year ago
My SA-946 has indeed been quite durable, although hot-running. Yours is one step better because it has MTS stereo TV audio, while mine is just mono TV. At least on the 946, you tune the cable TV channel by holding down the CATV button until it changes. It also has a fine tuning button for CATV, but I haven't figured out how it works. And of course mine also has the bad solder connections on the front panel; I usually have to tap on it to get the backlighting and indicators to light up.
vwestlife 1 year ago
It seems to be a common trait of the STK/SVI modules to run hot, especially in the Computer Drive New Class A mode (as they never shut all the way off). I saw someone on a forum who was designing an amp based on the modules say that keeping these modules from oscillating even a little is very difficult and that even little oscillations cause them to dump a lot of heat and break down.
I played with the fine tune button. Pressing it resulted in the audio fading out and coming back on clearly.
uxwbill 1 year ago
very nice technics there bill
naterade21 1 year ago
Great video I love seeing these old electronics up and running > I gotta ask where do you find these great things? I look in good will and a old to new shop with not very good luck they told me they throw them away because nobody wants them. and they do not have the space.
ncrdisabled 1 year ago
Thrift stores, hamfests, very rarely a flea market, garage sales, Curbside Discount, electronics recycling centers (the ones that will let me take things--few of them do), town dumps (very, very rarely) and of course: eBay.
Everyone has different ideas as to what's worthwhile and I suppose it varies with your location. Around here, it's rare that any of these stores throw something away unless it won't sell for months/years on end.
uxwbill 1 year ago
WOW, that's actually not bad for one o' them 80's board-based units.. LOTS of discrete shits in there.. nice on the TV sound, too.. xD ..I swear, you find some of the ODDEST things mate.. xD
Sansui350A 1 year ago
I'd kind of doubt it. But you could possibly make a new one, depending upon how the current one is constructed. If what you have now is a cable that binds together many wires with rubber insulation between them, it would be fairly easy to replace the bad part or even the whole thing.
On the other hand, if you have a thin plastic cable that looks like a circuit board trace without the fiber backing, you may have to go point to point with wires to bypass the problem. These are not easy to fix.
uxwbill 1 year ago
thats a cool reciever. i suppose you could listen to a football game or something back in the day, without using an actual tv. i like the tv feature. it was hard to get true stereo sound from a tv, and even if you did it was coming from two small speakers.
Jallge 1 year ago
Portable "TV band" or "TV sound" radios were great. Most of them used a pretty simple trick--a simple circuit that lowered the frequency into the range of the receiving circuit so it could be tuned in. (Cheaper radios will oftentimes indicate this, as the tuning will "wrap around" causing stations to appear on the dial where they don't belong.)
They were also invaluable in a power outage...a battery operated radio will last much longer than a battery operated TV set.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill i know the feeling, i have a tiny casio tv with a 2.5" LCD screen. it lasts about 3 hours on 4 AA's. they're just the best thing to have when the power goes out
Jallge 1 year ago
That was cool! Just about every thing you get fixing on it starts working later! Man, i wish things would be like that for me.... :(. Great video!
JDMowerGuy1998 1 year ago
Had a Technics receiver, similar to yours (but not exact model). Had the VCR input, VCR EQ, front-panel A/V inputs & the TV tuner. Sold it on Craigslist a few years ago.
Madness832 1 year ago
THE STATLER BROTHERS! Wooohooo!!!!
thegeekredneck 1 year ago
I think the cable thing, was for a cable box, thats all I can think of
LuigiFan128 1 year ago
@uxwbill i wish i could meet you some day.
techhelper1 1 year ago
pretty good uxwbill your pretty smart eh !
wesley5138 1 year ago
my uncle has an amplifier that is almost like this one and it has a tv tuner on it. the way it works out is that you do have to hook up a cable box or some other source through the cable input and u can listen to tv through it. also the one my uncle has has a blown channel on it but it is very powerful still. after a few years or so i had forgotten what model his was but i never forgot it was a tv tuner type
rmx77 1 year ago
If the hybrid amp is bad, the unit should (hopefully!) trip its relay and shut down. But this means *both* speakers will be silent as there is only the one relay.
This receiver had the same problem. The proper fix is to CAREFULLY pop the protection relay open (and I do mean /carefully/) and clean the burned contacts. Sometimes you can "gas" the volume control and get the sound back, but that's abusive to your speakers and the amp module.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill it still worked on the right channel and somehow it bypassed the bad part of the amp and allowed it to still run. when i had visited my uncle i did run one of your kitchen table electronics repairs though it was a laser lens cleaning. cleaned up the laser and the player went back to normal. it was having issues reading discs at the time.
rmx77 1 year ago
Cool, I'm first!
///gets ready for thumbs downs :D
andruha11234 1 year ago 3
You should get a thumbs up for being *prepared*...!
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill You may need to get a slightly lower watage bulb, I once put car bulb in likethat and believe it or not the display looked exactly the same with the blue but when it had been on for a few hours it just started to light up all of the display digits, I think it must ebe related to the heat of the bulb heating up the liquid but im not too sure, look forward to hearing from u
MOTERHEAD69 1 year ago
Yeah, it's the way the bulb heats up the liquid. All liquid crystal displays will do this to some degree--set one in the sun sometime and you can see the effect when next it's turned on. The heat makes the opaque segments "come out" and block the light.
I don't know who makes the bulbs I'm using (they're bulk packed in a plain box) but so far it has been working fine.
uxwbill 1 year ago