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vintage marantz amp's bass distorts ?


quadklipsh

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hi folks,

heres my troubleshooting ....

my favourite Marantz 2230 , which i acquired from an old electronics store a few months ago has been very pleasant all the way . i know it is rated at 30 watts a channel ,hooked to a par of RF3s for my 90% stereo use, but i seriously think something needs to be done about its bass .

when playing it flat , the tone of this amp is amazingly beautiful . very musical and a delight to ones senses. but some material , recorded cds require me to raise the bass or treble. as i do so i find much added distortion in the tonality ( in both bass or the treble, whatever is tweaked ),and it happens just past two points beyond the flat point .

my other amp JVC 911 which is a 100 watts per ch, seems to hold good at its bass turned either turned full or when kept flat , it never sounds out of shape . The marantz is slightly less accurate,with lesser headroom and grip than the jvc but is fairly more musical than the digital sounding jvc 911 .i love this marantz more than my other amps ,but sometimes this lack of coherence of bass or midrange at the louder levels bother my mind.

when i first bought it and got it checked, the technician commented that nothing is apparently wrong with this 2230. it will sound good .and the caps and transformer are all good to go ...

plz someone of you techy guys out there resolve this botheration .....

do i need a recap ?

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i find much added distortion in the tonality ( in both bass or the treble, whatever is tweaked ),

Are we talking at higher volumes also? If so, it sounds like your Marantz is running out of steam. While the vintage 70's Marantz receivers are very musical, most are not really high current. The RF-3's might just be taxing the amps inside. If you have an external amp laying around, hook it up to preouts and try the tone adjustments again. If no distortion, the Marantz' amps are the culprit.

I tried "once" hooking my Marantz 2252B up to my RF-63's and at low to mid volumes it sounded really great. Once I added some real volume, the 63's really revealed the 2252B's limitations. Those 2.8ohm dips were too much for the Marantz. I added a 150w/ch amp and we were good to go. Sweet warm sound with plenty of detail and headroom.

You might also try cleaning the pots in the bass, midrange, and treble knobs.

Bill

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swl ....

i agree these marantz are low powered amps , regarded well for musicality , but not powerfull enough to rock n roll, but theres an old sony that my dad bought in 1979 ,it has STK amplifiers,cassette deck is still very much at the same performance as it used to when we used to hear it for hours back in the early 80s....and its also rated at 30 watts , no more than that .... the only thing that amazed me about it was the volume knob used to make a home run without ever showing distortion....even at 5 o clock it never sounded out of steam...maybe its the volume designed that ways [;)]

ill now be trying out my american amp VAV , rated 100 watts as an outboard amp to the marantz , but hey ,its own sound is very spiky ! bad hormonics ...[:(].but ill use it to power my marantz now ........

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ill now be trying out my american amp VAV , rated 100 watts as an outboard amp to the marantz , but hey ,its own sound is very spiky ! bad hormonics ...Sad.but ill use it to power my marantz now ........

I failed to mention that the amp/amps that I hooked up to my Marantz were of the warmish/neutral nature in order not to take away from the sweet sound coming from the 2252B. I used a vintage 80's Denon POA-1500 and then a pair of Marantz MA-700(200w) monoblocks. Either amp just enhanced that signature sound from the 2252B. A brighter sounding amp might detract from that.

Bill

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willand..

the vav is a brighter amp .it gives screachy/ squealy sound.... compared to my more cooler amps like marantz 2230 and the quad 303 .

though the power handling has improved , i have somewhat lost the absolute imaging that comes when only one amp is playing .the tone of the music is now controllable through both the amps .... 4 knobs , bass n treble and mid control from 2230 and bass and treble from VAV too....thats surprising..... i have been using my smaller bookshelf speakers for this tweak . the volume goes to 12 o clock before the speaker shows its limits . ill try the RF3s today . and see how the 30 watts vs 100 watts differ in control ...?

stay posted

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simple...simple...simple...if your speakers are 8 ohms...put a 2 amp slow blow fuse in line with your amp and speakers...if the fuse blows about the time the sound gets funky...then you know you hit 30 watts.

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