advertisement


Classic flat earth setup?

I'm always very amazed to see those vintage Naim amps in such good condition after all these years. Really makes me wander if there’s anything else on earth as valuable !
 
Helen Bach said:
So what would a spherical earth system be? (asking for a friend!) :cool:
Click to expand...

Oracle / FR64 / Koetsu Rosewood / Audio Research SP9 / Krell KSA50 / Infinity RS4b

No, I haven't heard that system! I guess I know the Oracle and FR64 well enough, but not the rest. But nothing flat earth about it!
 
Retro said:
Hi Richard,

I'm working on my own Valhalla at the moment as, like you, I use a DIY Geddon. I'm planning a combo Geddon and 45 RPM Valhalla. I only have a few singles so i am not prepared to go mad on a newer Lingo.
FWIW I much preferred a Geddon to a Mark 1 Lingo. I understand the Mk4 is a lot better, but it is just too much money.

I've checked the rectifier on mine, the original from around '87, it is the same form factor, part number B500 C1500. I've not looked up the specs, so unsure if the 1000/1500 change is significant.
I also have the missing component values to hand, wattages etc. Let me know if you need them.

By the way, good score! Slightly amused by some of the luke warm responses. I can't imagine there are many on here, who had the money to hand, wouldn't have snapped those up.

Regards,

Graham.
Click to expand...

Thanks - I run a Geddon clone on my main 77 LP12. Have repaired a few Valhalla’s before too, so may still have parts to fix this one…just lazy and will use working one…if I can find it :D
 
That's a nice tidy 62. Yes, it was me. That means we can date it to probably the summer of '88 when I did a bit of work experience and a summer job in the PCB stuffing area. Many boards were still being hand populated then but some others were on the brand new 'auto insertion' machine. Nowadays you'd call that a pick and place machine, and that through hole machine was dreadfully slow by modern standards. Any components it couldn't fit, like large capacitors or DIN sockets on NAITs, for example, were hand fitted afterwards in "2nd ops" and whoever did that initialed the board. That machine made NAIT2s almost exclusively for about the next two years. It took a while for the rest of the boards to get updated because they needed to be designed by CAD. This all happened during the Olive transition and the CAD boards do have a slightly different presentation that the hand-drawn ones.

I like photos like these - keep them up!
 
Last edited:
PigletsDad said:
Oracle / FR64 / Koetsu Rosewood / Audio Research SP9 / Krell KSA50 / Infinity RS4b

No, I haven't heard that system! I guess I know the Oracle and FR64 well enough, but not the rest. But nothing flat earth about it!
Click to expand...

More like a spherical* Jupiter than a spherical Earth system. :)

*oblate spheroid!

My tiny moon system comprises 8 or 9 Lenco's with all sorts of arms and carts, two Cambridge Audio stereo amplifiers and a pair of Usher floor standers. This system has to do service as TV/video as well as two channel stereo (mostly vinyl based) and seems to cope with its multi-function very well.
 
MJS said:
Many boards were still being hand populated then but some others were on the brand new 'auto insertion' machine. Nowadays you'd call that a pick and place machine, and that through hole machine was dreadfully slow by modern standards.
Click to expand...
OT (apologies Dowser!): Slow, and not terribly reliable. One day I had been left "in charge" (as a young lad with little clue) of looking after the chap who had come to repair it. It worked by the components being delivered to the head area, the head rotated attachments round to take a resistor or diode from one place, or a cap or a transistor from another, then rotated to take them to the PCB. It would shunt the PCB about on a X/Y screw driven bed to aligned with the component (using a camera looking up via a mirror ) with the PCB through-holes, insert the component and then bend the legs from underneath. Rinse and repeat.

Alignment would drift over time and it would start to "smash" the components against the PCB as it forced the legs through the holes with a telltail sound, or it start dropping components or failing to insert them or not bend the legs. The repair chap was fiddling, I remember his quiff of grey slicked back hair and his obvious disdain to find a "boy" helping him out rather than the usual operator. He asked me to press the spacebar on the control computer (what was that Mark, an Acorn or something?) to step through the process as he peered in at the head. I nervously pressed away as he asked again and again. By this time he was inside the machine with his head right in by the PCB. The inevitable happened: I fumbled the spacebar, double pressed, sending the component head unexpectedly reeling round driven by the force of compressed air at quite a speed. The component head struck his bonce with a nasty thud.

No blood so all good huh? He was very decent about it really. :oops:
 
Hmm, there should have been microswitches on the door to stop that!

I'm desperately trying to remember the name of the engineers. One of them was a Welsh ex-Navy guy I got on really well with but that wasn't the one above [edit: Pete Roberts]. They were still around a few years back providing legacy support for these machines. Initially all the programming and driving was done with Apple II machines with Z80 cards running CP/M. Later they converted them to IBM PCs on DOS. The mechanics of it all were fascinating and a case of 'why make it simple when it can be complicated'. Fun fact: Some parts of the machine used injection moulded parts made in JV's 'knob factory' in Ferndown, I think it was. IIRC the company making the machine were just down the road from Naim near the Wilts/Dorset/Hants border, which was handy for support.

BTW the hard clunk when trying to insert axial components was a tin/lead build up on the jaws causing the legs not to align with the hole. You had to get in there with a metal tooth pick every couple of hours or so. The whole vision system was very clever and fun to calibrate. It was stupid money back in the 80s, pick and place machines can be had for the price of a small car these days.

I'd be really interested to see what Naim use these days but I suspect I disrupted their cable sales and service model a little too much to be invited back in for a look around.
 
I couldn't tell you if David had already rigged the doors or if the repair chap did, but rigged they were.

Apple II it was then, it wasn't running DOS I'm sure.

I seem to recall spending a long time reprogramming the CDS main board at some point, probably my first year summer hols?!!? The original programming was done in a hurry and did the job but with lots of time spinning the PCB this way and that.

Oh yes I remember the dentist's kit now, there was a dentists mirror too.

Back on topic: great find Dowser!
 
Another Naim that you have touched @MJS. One of my CB Nait2s that I no longer have (I still have one).
ZMDT63a.jpg
 
Tony L said:
It likely was a Basik originally, both the same budget AT body, the Linn version costing more and having a worse stylus! You have an AT95E stylus fitted.

PS The thing on the platter is a ‘dinked’ 7” 45 adapter, not a record weight. Why it is there is most odd given the Valhalla can’t play 45s!
Click to expand...
Linn used to sell a 45 adapter for the motor pulley back in the day. I probably have one somewhere.
 
I'd love a chrome bumper NAP90. I have a 32.5 waiting around for one, one of these days.

A great score, that lot!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top