MunkeyQ
02-23-2008, 04:37 PM
I saw an ad for an Audio Innovations Alto system in the paper - it said that it wasn't working, and if someone didn't collect it, it would be dumped. So I phoned up and collected it.
Turned out the fault was...a blown backlight bulb for the CD player's display. It therefore looked like it wasn't coming on, so they assumed that the amp was dead too. Hmm...:scratch2:
It sounds too harsh for my ears, but hey - it's free! It might live downstairs, where the big old EMI's could use something a bit more harsh to drive them.
And...it's very, very shiny. Both amp and CD have metal front panels polished to a mirror finish. The amp is built very well with a huge toroidal transformer, muting relays and well spaced out board, but the CD player looks very average inside. Strangely, it's also a tuner - and when the tuner function is selected, the CD bit is completely disconnected via a bank of relays.
Turned out the fault was...a blown backlight bulb for the CD player's display. It therefore looked like it wasn't coming on, so they assumed that the amp was dead too. Hmm...:scratch2:
It sounds too harsh for my ears, but hey - it's free! It might live downstairs, where the big old EMI's could use something a bit more harsh to drive them.
And...it's very, very shiny. Both amp and CD have metal front panels polished to a mirror finish. The amp is built very well with a huge toroidal transformer, muting relays and well spaced out board, but the CD player looks very average inside. Strangely, it's also a tuner - and when the tuner function is selected, the CD bit is completely disconnected via a bank of relays.