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Carnivore

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  1. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/366660361892333
  2. What are those oval things? Did someone install ports? Mine don't have those.
  3. The capacitors and especially the MOV's in those power blocks (conditioners / surge suppressors ) have limited lifespans. It probably served its purpose by absorbing some power spikes over time. Most people don't realize those devices are consumables that need to be replaced after a few years. Glad you sorted it out, anyway!
  4. It might be worth getting an inexpensive mains socket tester and use it to check for proper wiring and ground. They plug into your socket and have 3 lights on the front that show whether the wiring is correct, polarity reversed, or has an open earth/ground. I see them for £5-6 on amazon.co.uk. It could be that one of your audio components is plugged into a socket with an open ground or reversed polarity.
  5. Agreed, it sounds like something in the signal path. I can't see how the speakers would cause the amp to buzz unless there's some weird short going on in the crossover or something. Can you hear the buzz if you swap out the LSTs for different speakers?
  6. The closest might be the KLH revival at klhaudio .com . They look interesting but I have to admit I haven't researched them much since I'm not currently shopping for speakers.
  7. How does everyone here check the air seal after reinstalling drivers? You can get a cheap stethoscope from Amazon - mine is an Omron brand that cost less than $15. I found out through trial and error it only works if you remove the stethoscope's pickup (aka diaphragm) and use the open end of the tube to go around the perimeter of each driver to listen for leaks while playing a low frequency test tone. With the pickup removed, the leaks are obvious. I was able to seal them by tightening the screws closest to the leakage point just enough to stop it.
  8. Is the wood split on top in that bottom picture? If it's just water stains then sand it down and refinish with one of the recommended finishes. It's time consuming but rewarding. I used Watco danish oil when I did mine which looks nice and is low maintenance.
  9. Grace has discontinued that tuner but the Grace Mondo+ looks like an interesting alternative. It's not exactly a component tuner, more like an Internet radio, but it has RCA jacks to connect to an amp. The problem with the standalone Internet tuners and Internet radios is they all lack support for at least one streaming service or another. The Mondo+ is about the most full-featured one I've seen with native support for a whole bunch of services, plus Chromecast and Bluetooth which provide workarounds for getting to the services that aren't natively supported. Using a laptop lets you punch up any station or aggregator you want, though. And you can easily use a VPN on a real computer to connect to servers in countries where the stations you want to hear are geographically restricted (CBC Music in Canada, for example). Bluetooth digitally compresses the audio so there is some degradation in sound quality but the codec is pretty good so you may not be able to tell. You could always connect the headphone output of the laptop directly to the amp and see if you can hear the difference. Speaking of CBC Music, there's another workaround that doesn't require VPN outside of Canada if you own an Amazon Echo device. You can say, "Alexa, ask CBC to play CBC Music," which invokes the CBC skill bypassing the geographic restriction. You can always plug an Amazon Dot, Amazon Input or the pricey Echo Link into your amp and use that to stream music too. There's just a ton of different ways to do this now, and it seems like more devices are coming out all the time.
  10. Have you downloaded the PDF document from the post pinned to the top of this forum, 'Restoring the AR-3a'? That's a fantastic resource that will help you step by step with the restoration -- you should definitely read it. And yeah, those speakers appear to be in nice original condition, great candidates for a restore.
  11. Can you post pictures? It might be useful for the group to see the condition of the drivers and cabinets, and whether it looks like any previous work was done.
  12. Turns out the thick walnut veneer is pretty forgiving, I used 80, 120 and 220 sandpaper with the random orbital sander and was able to get a lot of the substantial scratches out without any accidents. I still need to hand sand around the edges, apply a laminate strip to one edge that had previously delaminated, try oxalic acid on the dark stain and fill any remaining nicks and scratches, but I made good progress today. New grill cloth will follow the cabinet finishing and I will post photos when done. Thanks for the tips everyone.
  13. This has been a helpful thread, I'm working on cabinets right now. 1. I followed HarryM's advice and used Spray 9 to strip off the old oil. (Done) 2. I need to sand out some scratches, some of which are deep, so I'm using a Bosch random orbital sander with 80 grit sandpaper to get through those. (In progress) 3. I plan to follow that with 120 grit sandpaper to prep it for the first coat of finish. 4a. I may apply a coat of Watco Danish oil natural finish to pretreat the wood as recommended by the manufacturer, after a color test on the bottom of one of the speakers. 4b. Applying Watco Danish oil, possibly medium walnut after an additional color test on the bottom of one of the speakers. 5. Light sanding with 220 sandpaper, then a final coat of Danish oil if needed. Some questions for the group: A. If I need to use the hot iron & damp cloth trick to try lifting dents and scratches, it is best to do this before applying the finish or after the first or final coat? B. Is it best to use the Mohawk epoxy to fill any remaining defects before applying the finish or after the first or final coat to match the color? C. Any tips for bleaching a dark water stain out of one of the veneer surfaces it if doesn't come out with sanding? D. The recommended Watco Danish oil color as mentioned in other threads here seems to be medium or dark walnut. However I was under the impression that the original AR finish was boiled linseed oil over the natural walnut veneer without any additional pigment. Does this mean the walnut tinted Watco finish will be darker than the original AR factory BLO finish?
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