Kassanova
05-11-2008, 08:52 PM
Hit a local flea market not neccesarily known for electronics this weekend on a whim. Scored a Kenwood GE-7030 EQ in excellent shape for $35, a Rotel RB-980BX Amplifier for $30, RB-976 6 channel amp for $30. Also had a RTC-970 preamp / tuner for $50 and the Onkyo AC-3 decoder for $35 with attachment cable. They even let me bring in my own speaker and mp3 player to test the stuff before buying. The EQ was straight but the RB-980BX was dead on both channels and the RB-976 had very faint audio output on all channels. I bought the EQ right away but left the Rotel stuff for about a day and did some research, obviously, I realized the parts alone were easily worth $30 bucks apiece but what I found out from some searching is the build quality and protection implementation is so high on this stuff that a goodly percentage of issues with it turns out to be just blown fuses from stuff like speakers shorts / power surges / etc... So I went back and scooped up the amps for a shot in the dark on the fly Sunday project. Cracked open the cases and on the RB-980BX all 4 5A 125V fast blow output fuses were blown. The RB-976 had 6 of the the same rated (although slow blow) output fuses. These fuses weren't visably blown although the fusile link material showed signs of break off and beading rattling around in the glass and appeared weak (I figured thats why I could hear only faint audio output). So I went to down to Radio Shack and just bought 3 packs of the 5A 125V fast blow type. Swapped them all out and the amps play good as new. listen time on both has been about 1 hour, no problems. Not bad huh? One if not both amps are going the way of the auction block soon to continue to fuel the fire but now I just have to figure out if one of these is good enough to dethrone the recapped Sansui 881 in my main system?