Accuphase M-60 Love

[Macca]

A tester would have saved you time but when you look at how much gubbins 'Mend It Mark' has in his workshop it seems like there can be no end to how many different gadgets you might need to fix stuff quickly and efficiently.

[User211]

I am not sure a Peak tester would have found it. It took a lot more volts than it would put through the transistor to test it. Grok reckons about 5-9 Volts is all it would apply at low current. The DBT didn't light until 80V when either DC rail was connected, or 30V when both were connected.

What I decided to do was avoid buying a Peak due to the price, reasoning that brand new modern transistors would not need matching and were very unlikely not to work. That's due to inexperience at the time of that decision.

A Peak is needed for precise matching, and it should find very serious issues. Get a Peak, though, and you need to buy excess transistors too to get reasonable matches.

So confident was I that it wasn't the transistors because they were brand new, I spent loads a time exploring everything you see in this thread. Huge mistake, LOL. But I learnt one hell of a lot doing it. Which is an extremely good thing. I am now pretty confident I can keep them running for years.

I have a bit of a dilemma going on now - whether to go back to the ELNA caps and original rectifier diodes, or just move forward. Those TDKs have a 60 day return period.

Because I don't want to sell them, I think I will move forward on this mono, and if it sucks sonically, go backwards. Or if it doesn't, make the other mono match it. Might mean a lot of mono comparison listening sessions before I make the final choice, LOL.