Reviving old equipment

In the not too distant future I will be receiving some old hi-fi gear that was stored away without use for roughly 15 years. Though well wrapped and stored in a dry area with good ventilation it was a garage so there were obviously regular changes in temperature that may not have been helpful.

The CD player is an Arcam Delta 270, which I suspect will just need a dust off and hopefully work fine. It certainly hasn't done much work so I'm hoping it will still give years of good service and it was a decent player at the time. There is also a Creek tuner that I may or may not even include in the setup but I'm not expecting problems with that.

The big question remains over the Leak 20 valve amp and how to bring it safely back to life. I am a photographer, so I have experience with studio flash and I've learned that flash units need to be switched on and run regularly or the capacitors die. The worst thing you can do it not use them for ages and then just turn them on and start popping the flash because it will end in tears with an expensive repair bill.

Following the same theory I was advised by somebody to switch on the Leak for just 30 seconds the first time without connecting the CD player but with the speakers connected. Apparently this is where you watch for smoke... Then if all goes well, switch it off for 5 minutes and then switch it on for a couple of minutes to check again. The idea is to allow the capacitors to slowly rebuild from their presumably fragile state.

The Leak was completely overhauled before purchase, so presumably the components that matter will have had very little use before going into storage and we have spare unused replacement valves. I am wondering though if the best bet is to get it serviced before even attempting to switch it on.

Having never attempted anything like this before with old hi-fi I wondered if anybody had any suggestions on the best way to bring old gear like this back into service?

Many thanks

Ashley

The advice is sound, to me at any rate, although I suggest the first turn-on of the leak is around five seconds - then leave for a couple of minutes and then try for thirty. Hifi dave's Stereo 20 was also rebuilt at some time, but there's still a problem with one of the output valves glowing red internally after five minutes or so, preventing long term use - and it's NOT the valve.... Sounds great for the very few minutes it's working though :)

I worry about these old Leak amps as they don't have bottoms fitted and 'everything' is exposed. Please take extreme care - blu-tac it to a wood or stone-composite base for some sort of safety I think.

The CD player shouldn't suffer so, but it might be worth taking the top off and checking the laster lens for contamination. The transport used (a CD-M9 IIRC) was the best that Philips ever made for tracking bad discs (if not the most solid) and seems to last well if kept clean. The drawer loading gear causes trouble though but pattern ones are available on ebay. be VERY careful if you need to ever replace this part, since the ribbon connectors for the mech are very frail and very easily damaged... Arcam can still do some repairs if necessary I understand.

Chances are, whoever you took the Leak to would do the same as you suggest and just switch it on and wait to see if anything smokes or goes bang. Then if it doesn't, return it and give you a hefty bill, saying all is well.

I've had a number of old amps, valve and solid state that had been stored for years before I got them and not one has gone bang when connected. had a couple that didn't work at all though.

If it was me I'd connect it up with a couple of resistors on the output, or sacrificial old speaker drive units and see what happens. I bet it'll be OK. Don't run it without some sort of load on the outputs though.

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Originally Posted by DSJR

I worry about these old Leak amps as they don't have bottoms fitted and 'everything' is exposed. Please take extreme care - blu-tac it to a wood or stone-composite base for some sort of safety I think.

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I know what you mean about the safety issue and I'm terribly cautious about this sort of thing. The Leak was originally mounted on a piece of granite rock from Bodmin Moor, so that will be brought back into service for sure. I haven't had a chance yet to look at the underside but the mains block is circular and looks scarily old fashioned.

While doing some digging the other day I came across a link for a site where they do servicing and safety updates http://www.amplabs.co.uk/Leak%20stereo%2020.htm which include a new electrical mains block and a bottom panel with holes that would in theory make it much safer.

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Originally Posted by walpurgis

If it was me I'd connect it up with a couple of resistors on the output, or sacrificial old speaker drive units and see what happens. I bet it'll be OK. Don't run it without some sort of load on the outputs though.

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Assuming it all looks good when it arrives I was planning on waiting until I have the speakers and connecting them before going through the slow rebuild process of the capacitor. Since the amplifier is only 20 watts it's hard to see how it could do much damage to a pair of speakers. Not being terribly technical with this sort of thing I'm not quite sure what I could use instead as resistors.

Is this one of those areas where recent CD players totally outclass older models or could a decent quality 20 year old player still compete favourably? I gather these Arcam 270s were in production from 1993 to 1996.

This was a unit that my father purchased to replace his Linn Sondek turntable so I'm guessing it must have been quite highly rated at the time but there is very little information about them on the internet these days. I do remember it seemed to have a fairly solid appearance.

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Originally Posted by ashleyk

Is this one of those areas where recent CD players totally outclass older models or could a decent quality 20 year old player still compete favourably? I gather these Arcam 270s were in production from 1993 to 1996.

This was a unit that my father purchased to replace his Linn Sondek turntable so I'm guessing it must have been quite highly rated at the time but there is very little information about them on the internet these days. I do remember it seemed to have a fairly solid appearance.

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OK I've done some more research now and it appears the CD player technology was already pretty good by the mid 90s. As long as there are no mechanical faults it looks like there would be little to gain by looking at newer alternatives unless I spent a considerable sum.

Digital can be done well very cheaply now (look at the numerous sub £200 USB DACs out there for some sort of proof), but the thing about CD spinners is that indefinable something the now ancient breeze-blocks of the mid to late 80's bring to the party - and I'm NOT going down the 'TDA1541 series is better than anything else!" route either, despite using a breeze-block from 1998 fitted with one either ;)

ALL digital sources can emit all sorts of rf and ultra-sonic mush down their electrical orifices (SA-CD are renowned for loads of 'noise' at 25 - 50kHz down their signal leads apparently) and the former rf issues in older players can affect older amps which weren't the most stable of designs (I cite older Quad and Naim preamps, where their once crude ultra-sonic filtering could be upset by the CD player quite audibly at one time). These days should be well behind us now though.

I've been stunned how basically good the cheapest DACs are these days. Fiio do a not good measuring USB DAC for little more than twenty notes and both myself and Alex_UK have been surprised by the performance it offers. I recently had mine 'stolen' by my son for its mic inputs so 'treated myself' to the technically better Behringer UCA 202 at a huge £25! I haven't used its headphone output (its not as good as it could be apparently) but the sonics as a DAC are very good indeed, with differences in recordings quite easy to hear. The £70 Fiio has a world class DAC chip in it apparently and the headphone amp, as well as the basic line driver output, is also very good indeed, doing justice to some seriously good headphones apparently.

If vintage CD players, then I echo the need to get one that can be repaired still, if modern, I do respect the Cambridge Audio designs, since a slight lack of mechanical strength in some, is made up for by good internal design I think...

I found this piece on another forum while looking for info on this point about old v new CD players that may be of interest:

"The difference between old CD players and new ones are the drives.When CDs first came out in the 1980's, there were 2 kinds of drives: CD-ROM drives and CD-audio drives. CD-ROM drives were for computers and CD-audio drives were for music players. In the late 1990's, CD-ROM drives became cheaper than CD-audio drives. Electronics companies began to use CD-ROM drives instead of the CD-audio drives to save money and to add features to their players. Manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sony quickly stopped making CD-audio drives due to lack of demand. Modern CD players (also DVD and Blu-ray players) are simple computers programmed to perform specifics tasks.

I became aware of this almost a decade ago when the major music labels began releasing CDs with copy-protection. Some players with CD-ROM drives can't play these CDs. Players with CD-audio don't have this problem because they "ignore" any non-audio data on a CD. They're designed to play music and nothing else. I've found that players with CD-audio drives have far superior audio quality to players with CD-ROM drives. Hang on to that Denon for as long as you can."