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Help! Nobody wants to service my Sony ES amp.

booja30 said:
Wow, yeah, look at all those gadgets, buttons and lights:
Sony%2BTA-F870ES%2B1.jpg

:rolleyes:
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Nurse! Nurse!:cool:
 
Mr Magoo said:
Hi

I have a 90s Sony TA870ES which would possibly benefit from some TLC. I have already approached a couple of highly respected audio engineers, and both declined my request for a service. Both stated similar reasons along the lines of ‘opening up a can of worms’ with potential for dry joints etc.

Also, they mentioned that this, and presumably other Sony ES amps from the same period, had certain internal parts that were/are specific to those amps and are no longer available. Can anyone advise on a way forward or anyone who may be able to service my amp?

Thanks in advance.
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Just out of curiosity, how did it go?
 
Nytechy said:
Just out of curiosity, how did it go?
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Hi
I did eventually manage to get the amp sorted via an audio engineer in Hereford. The amp was subsequently sold but trashed somehow by the recipient (who claimed it was damaged whilst in transit). I had it returned, but to cut a long story short, I won my appeal with eBay who repaid me £500. Yes, I know, completely against all the odds. Haven’t touched it since and it has remained boxed in the garage since it cam back. It probably still works fine as the damage was to the underside/bottom corner.
Peter
 
I 'serviced' one of these a while ago. I agree with most of what has been said but when going through the one I had the only components out of spec were the main PSU caps. The client wanted all electrolytics replaced and it took me a while to convince him a) they were all in spec b) it would be pretty costly. One switch was knackered which I did spend time on as a replacement was impossible to source
 
Mr Magoo said:
Hi
I did eventually manage to get the amp sorted via an audio engineer in Hereford. The amp was subsequently sold but trashed somehow by the recipient (who claimed it was damaged whilst in transit). I had it returned, but to cut a long story short, I won my appeal with eBay who repaid me £500. Yes, I know, completely against all the odds. Haven’t touched it since and it has remained boxed in the garage since it cam back. It probably still works fine as the damage was to the underside/bottom corner.
Peter
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Wow, an amp with a story! Thanks for replying :)
 
As an ex-Ham: I once undertook to servie TenTec (US made) transceiver and it worked well. A year later I got the not so bright idea of "restore" an older Kenwood transceiver. At the time it was nearly 30 years old and under the hood it was a nest of wires crisscrossing all over the place. Just moving them aside to check something underneath would have half of them breaking off at the solder joint. In the end I gave up on the Kenwood.

A similar occurrance happened with a neighbour who sought to restore an 20 year old Japanese car - he experienced the same issue of wires breaking off. It appears that a certain badge of Japanese copper wires is prone to it. You may be lucky but I'm not going to ever try that again. Better off buying new.
 
Apart from wires breaking off, if you start replacing all the small electrolytics there's a strong chance of the pcb traces coming off leading to even more repair work............so even more reason not to touch them if they are in spec
 
I ‘inherited’ a TAN900 power amp from an ex friend ( long story I paid for the bloody thing). Anyway it had issues when he got it and when I connected it, the amp basically shorted out the output stages. I took it to a local tech who has an excellent rep and he declared it unrepairable due to the design and part unavailability.

I know these older Jap battleships have their followers but they are of an age where they will be out of spec at the very least. Most of them are complex and difficult to work on even if you can get replacement parts.

I was tempted by a Yamaha B2 years ago but after my experience with the ES thought better of it.
 
Juancho said:
I 'serviced' one of these a while ago. I agree with most of what has been said but when going through the one I had the only components out of spec were the main PSU caps. The client wanted all electrolytics replaced and it took me a while to convince him a) they were all in spec b) it would be pretty costly. One switch was knackered which I did spend time on as a replacement was impossible to source
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I've recapped a few of these (four IIRC).

The caps in three of them were reasonably within spec but in one of them they were totally knackered, especially those on the 'power A' board near the heatsink.

All sounded better for the recap.

These amps suffer from dirty switches and they usually also have lots of dry joints on the RCA inputs.
 
Mr Magoo said:
The amp was subsequently sold but trashed somehow by the recipient (who claimed it was damaged whilst in transit). I had it returned, but to cut a long story short, I won my appeal with eBay who repaid me £500. Yes, I know, completely against all the odds. Haven’t touched it since and it has remained boxed in the garage since it cam back. It probably still works fine as the damage was to the underside/bottom corner. Peter
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are you willing to part from it now? I would consider buying it for parts. I have a 770 who I believe share many parts with yours.
 
I read a bit of the scam thread and I understand the concern, the threat is real.

however I would like to buy, not sell, and I'd be ready to pay in advance. I have almost 1000 positive feedbacks on eBay. I am genuine, and ready to deliver proof of identity if needed.

my only blame is I just joined the forum :)
 
Gibraltar chassis.


https://audio-database.com/SONY-ESPRIT/amp/ta-f333esr.html

The chassis uses an Acoustic Tuned G chassis (Acoustically Tuned Gibraltar Chassis) that pursues a vibration-free and resonance-free design from all angles including material and shape.
The G-chassis is made of calcium carbonate, the main component of marble, reinforced with unsaturated polyester and glass fiber. This material has superior vibration damping characteristics with greater internal loss than metals, and is also strong and capable of high-precision machining. In addition, this material is non-magnetic and non-metallic, so there is no electro-striction or eddy current induced by magnetic fields of transformers and condensers, etc., and from the electrical aspect, sound quality degradation is reduced.
The shape of the G chassis is designed with careful attention paid to acoustic characteristics. It has a very simple structure with no protruding parts. It eliminates partial resonance and split vibration that occur at the protruding parts. In addition, the thickness of each part of the chassis is sufficiently large, and the rigidity is increased by running ribs vertically and horizontally. In addition, the thickness of the ribs and the spacing between ribs are changed randomly so that there is no specific resonance mode
 
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