Cal Blacksmith

I posted this in 2 ch and someone mentioned to put it here as there is more action from So Cal here. I picked up a Yamaha M80 for $175 at a pawn shop. It works great and I am using it as a side speaker amp in my HT. I have about 4 hours on it since it came home but I would feel much more comfortable if it gets a good once over by a tech. The binding posts need to be replaced (evidently this is COMMON on the M80) as they mount into a plastic panel. Due to it's age, I am sure it would benifit from a good freshining up of power caps or whatever it needs. I have no hesitation sending it to Craig except for shipping 50 pounds half way across the U.S. can add up a bit. Any options or advice on a local tech?

Good call, I will do that. On a side note, I may be heading up your way between Christmas and Newyears, it seems that some members of a goup that I belong to borrowed something in about April and I need it in Feb. Now they want ME to go get it, it seems they are all too busy to bring it down![:@] They offered to bring it as far south as about Fresno but that was for this weekend and there is no way I can go there this weekend. SO if they can't find a place to store it in Fresno, it will either stay or go back up to Sebastipool (I think that is close to how you spell it) I know that no matter what I do, I am going to wind up being the "bad" guy in all of this [:|]

We used to use those. We called it the banding machine. Looked like this when overlapped band was crimped. Yes, a bAnding machine, I have just ONE letter wrong on the above post and it changes the meaning of the whole thing!!![]

NO help huh? Well I really didn't expect that anyone could help but I had to give it a try!!!! []

wow great score guys there have been some awesome pick ups lately! I second the use of that metal squeezing tool. it is for use on bending straps normally there is a metal collar that gets attached as reinforcement over were the straps overlap each other

As I posted in the sweet finds thread, I picked up a Yamaha M80 for $175 at a pawn shop[]. It works great and I am using it as a side speaker amp in my HT. I have about 4 hours on it since it came home but I would feel much more comfortable if it gets a good once over by a tech. The binding posts need to be replaced (evidently this is COMMON on the M80) as they mount into a plastic panel. Due to it's age, I am sure it would benifit from a good freshining up of power caps or whatever it needs. I have no hesitation sending it to Craig except for shipping 50 pounds half way across the U.S. can add up a bit.[] Any options or advice on a local tech?

blsamuel, WOW, lots of stuff there! Most of the time all I find are LPs either without a dust jacket or that have been used to play frisbe with. Every now and then I stumble onto an LP worth having though. I have seen some power amps there too but as I already have more than I can use, I am kind of picky about what comes home. The M80 was one that did make the cut. It is a GREAT amp, a little switch on the front forces it to run in class A, 25w worth but into a pair of Heresy 2s as sides, the amp dosen't know it has a load on it.... even at ear bleed levels. It sure is warm though when running in class A. I am running a Fort'e 3 for my mains, also in class A.Does anyone know of a GOOD shop in the L.A. calif area? Shipping this thing back east could add up to a few pennies.

I just picked up a Yamaha M80 at a pawn shop for $175. Somthing like 40 pounds of SS and iron. Someone had bounced it on it's back and broke the plastic mounts that the binding posts attach to. It works 100% but due to age, it likely will take a trip to Craig for a good once over. I have it in my HT to power my side speakers. Overkill, yep but so what?[]

Sweeeeet! My wife would just give me "that look" and keep walking.... not sure if that would be a good thing or not LOL! Congrats those are sweet! So what is behind them, in the corners, they don't look wide enough to be cornwalls!

My BIGGEST, well, that might be when I decided that $1800 for two brand new Khorns in 77 was too much. I suppose it was a good thing as I was in the army at the time and living in the barracks but GOSH DARN those would have sounded great in my room, not to mention every other place I lived since then. Other regrets, not folowing up on a lead my son had in his navy barracks. He had a room inspection and he had just recieved the KG 5.5s and a Dennon AVR that I gave him. One of the inspectors had a set of speakers and offered them to my son at $1k, turned out to be a pair of very nice condition La Scallas. My son wasn't too interested (he didn't know better) but I never pressed him to follow up either. OH well [:S]

You made the best decision you could at the time but in my HUMBLE opinion, you blew it, I have Quartets, Fort'e 1s, Cornwall 2s, H1, H2 and an Acadamy. The Quartets, Academy and H2s make up my HT setup with KG 1.5s bringing up the rear, The Quartets meld with the Acadmy better than the Fort'e 1s do because of the horn differences but other than that, it is a toss up between the Fort'e and Quartets in my HO, with as said, the size difference taken into account. The rear passive speakers are fairly sensitive to placement and that may be part of what you heard (or did not hear) when you listened to them YMMV!

Tom, there is no need to hold up a bank, in addition to the great KG series above, the used market offers some GREAT deals vs new. My cornwalls were $500 for the pair, yes there were a couple small water marks on the cabs but they were small and they do not affect the drivers or the sound! My Fort'e and my Quartets were in the ball park of $400 a pair and similar deals happen all the time.

Tom, Congrats on your first step in Klipsch. For a good card, get one that has digital output, route it into a AVR then to your speakers. As soon as possible, get something like, Oh, I don't know, er, Cornwalls and your games will come ALIVE! I also have some promedia but they don't get much use, my 2 ch room which is also my computer (gaming) room is running Cornwalls. Both my HT rooms are 7.1 Klipsch, they play for everything, movies, games, TV, the works! You need to get great sound to match the great picture you have when playing games or just relaxing in front of the "tube" (I guess we really won't be calling it that much longer!) Enjoy!!!!

I think I go along with clueless. At work, we have these sheet metal things that look like a pup tent that they place over any flat surface that they don't want you to put anything on, perhaps you could make some of those from old cardboard boxes, to place on the speakers when company comes over, you could paint them then write something "cute" on them like "DONT EVEN THINK OF PUTTING YOUR PURSE ON HERE" Or not....[]

I have been VERY happy with the improvement in sound by the addition of a high quality stereo amp to take the load off of the power supply of my AVR, I am using a forte 3 amp I picked up from Audiogon (which turned out to be listed by a member of this board and the deal was finalized here). By letting an outboard amp handle the duties of the mains, the AVR only has to drive the center and back 4 speakers. As the information on the rears is not of the same amplitude of the mains, there is more than enough power for the center to shine. You may not need more than just taking your mains off of the AVR, give it a try, quality stereo power amps can be bought reasonably and can be resold for the same money should you not like the results, freeing up the cash to be used on a multi channel amp if need be. YMMV! EDIT: I missed the triamp line the first time through the thread. I still think stereo amps are the way to go though. I am not a fan of bi or tri amps but I have nothing against those who want to do this. If you use multiple stereo amps, you have the advantage in your use of being able to tailor the amps sound profile to the section of the Khonr you are driving with the amp. YMMV really applies here!

I'm right there with Dtel, my AVR is a few years old and though it does have HD audio decoders and HDMI (only two, a real bummer if you have more than that to connect and dont' want to use a switcher like I have to do) I have been out of the active market for a little while, like detl said, find the features you want and work from there. I have been very happy with my Yamaha equipment and have had several over the years, while the video side of things on my AVR are skipmy the audio has been great.

I still have some snake oil for sale, it seems that there were not enough discerning TT listeners to use my supply the last time I had talked about it, remember one drop of my snake oil on the bearings of your TT will eliminate rumble and wow, your motor will last twice as long due to the reduced load on it. Only $999.99 per 10 drop container. Such a bargan! UH, sorry, it does not affect the quality of your cables, though I have heard that when lightly applied to the connectors of the cables, it tends to smooth out the sound and makes smooth jazz ever so much more enjoyable. YMMV!

I'm going to be watching this thread. My projector is working well for now and I still have a good 800 hours left on the rated life of the bulb but it is pretty old tech now and when the time comes to replace the bulb, I hope I am in a place money wise to replace the whole projector. This should be interesting but I suspect that you will not get many objections to the Panney, they are fairly popular.

Scrappydude, I will pass it on! You are just a year younger than he is []

Andy, you are right, we DO remember who was there for us. In 1977, Fayettvill N.C. Fort Bragg, I must have tried a dozen or more times to go to the USO when in town before I gave up. They were closed EACH AND EVERY TIME I WENT. To this day, I will NOT give them one red cent! OH, btw, that was the same time frame that I fell in love with Klipsch. I wanted a pair of Khorns so bad I could tast them, they were like $1800 a pair then if my memory serves (that WAS a long time ago!) and they were just out of reach of a E3 pay rate.

It might be but I know the last 12 or so miles to the south west enterance of Yosemite National Park is some of the twistiest around also, I don't think there is more than 100 feet of straight road anyplace on that section except for where it goes through the tiny town of FishCamp.

I guess, all I can do is echo the comments about having the sides a little higher than head level, in my setup, the sides are about 2 feet above the front main speakers but only slightly above ear level in the rear seats as the rear row is elevated above the front row. My rear speakers are mounted to the wall and about 3 feet out from center line of the room/seating as you may have guessed, I have a 7.1 setup. This works well for us and I would raise the sides a little higher if it was easier but the H2s are already on 3 foot stands and if I go much higher, they would be pretty unstable.

Happy BDAY! Great shirt AND setup! Ya know though, the shirt is the prize, the wife bought it for you!

So that is what we are doing wrong, we don't have our machines outside! Great link []

I read the first several posts then skipped to the end. We went with a HE top loader from the Sears scratch and dent store. Got the pair for about 30%off list price. The consumer reviews hated the pair we bought, said they broke down all the time. We have had them for going on 4 years now and not a hint of trouble. Our personal preference is to go with top loaders, easier for us. All the new machines need to be cleaned every now and then, in short run without clothes or soap and sometimes with a cleaner to remove residue from the inside of the machine.