When bad audio is good - a possible site project

[Kamakiri]

So this idea came to mind maybe a year ago, and I thought this might make for some interesting readin and maybe a fun winter project for a few volunteers.......

We've all talked about bad audio at some point......Panasonic receivers, Yorx speakers, maybe a Lenox Sound turntable......

It takes a good DIY man to make a good piece of gear, but it takes a GREAT DIY man to make a crappy piece of gear good! So here's my idea.

We take a pet project, like a pair of Yorx speakers. We change crossovers, add sound deadening material to them,change them in any way shape or form, but the basic piece must be left as is. The challenge, being, to make them as good as possible. Or, grab a Soundesign receiver, add audiophile grade caps, tweak this or that, etc, while leaving the basic design the same. For no other reason, other than to see if it can be done.

We'd of course take pics along the way, and collaborate to form a plan of attack as to how to make the changes. Then, we'd have all of the gear set up at the Fest.

This would encompass a challenge to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, working within the parameters of the original lousy design.

Why am I proposing this?

1. It's something no other audio site would ever do
2. It would make for interesting reading, no matter how ridiculous you may think it
3. It would test the minds of our members to do a project like this

So, here's the poll, tell me what you think.......

[Celt]

Sounds like fun. :)

[RichPA]

Sounds like fun. I don't think I have either the expertise or the time to do the work,but I'd love to read about it. The state-of-the art Lenox/Sounddesign/Yorx system would be a hoot :thmbsp:

[qboneus]

Awesome!!
I've often mused about this, the results could go either way..colossal waste of time and materials or drastic improvement??
very interesting.
Tal

[doucanoe]

I for one think make for a interesting read absolutly.

1. It's something no other audio site would ever do

Another reason to do it, This hobby is about music reproduction and also having fun with gear. It bores the shite out of me to read and re-read some of the threads lately. Some, for which I am partly or mostly to blame.

LETS DO SOMETHING FOR GOSH SAKE!!


Also, Let the chips fall where they may. If upon completion It still sounds like shite, then shite it is.

RC

[rek50]

Sounds like a fine idea. "Kams version of an Audio Monster Garage", items must appear to be stock....Is it "What" you can buy, or "What" you can BUILD, that counts? The easy part is done, all that's left is the WORK...

[luvvinvinyl]

Make the proverbial silk purse...?

It sure would be something to debut this piece at the Fest. Invite the McIntosh crew over to see just how nutty we are. No, not 'nutty'...



...INNOVATIVE, CREATIVE, NON-LINEAR THINKERS (c'mon fellas, help me out here.)

Sounds like great fun! Think Echo is up for the electronics? Talk about 'Herculean'!

[theodoric]

I remember an old truism I heard once. Something about a sow's ear and a silk purse.

Hmmm. Why not? Defy expectations!

[luvvinvinyl]

Sniped!

[jcmjrt]

That sounds very interesting. It would be most interesting if there were an identical pair of say Panasonic receivers and one got tweaked while the other remained original. That would be interesting to A/B. Of course, maybe the A/B could be done on the right and left channels?? Just being different has its merits.

[fotno]

I think it's a grand idea - I can see where an interested party could present the piece of gear as found, theorize about what improvements could be made, then accompany the process with pictures & text here at AK. The great thing is, if the project turns out to be a good idea and a great return on investment, imagine going to the thrifts & yardsales then, actually looking for Yorx or Panasonic!

[gyusher]

Making Bad Audio Good. . . I mean isnt that what its all about??

Seems to me you call it tweaking. My desire is and always has been to make all audio sound as good as "I" can. . . :loser: :banana2: :banana2:

[mg196]

I think it would be a good idea if the site can subject people to blind A/B testing. Now THAT would be a true test!

[Kamakiri]

Okay, so who volunteers to help with this project? :)

A good amount of technical knowledge is going to be required for the modders, plus we need people to get some gear for us to mod :)

[TVtommy]

I've got a Roadstar 30wpc 10% thd car eq/amp. that I added heatsinks and to-3 outputs to - got bored on nightshift - didn't make much diff. - think I need to boost the output section supply voltage from 12 to about 20volts - I'll try to post some pics!(still not as good as a Lenox sound system upgrade)

[EchoWars]

I feel kinda guilty for not jumping in, but I can barely keep up with the things I already got going on.

By all means, I'm there for guidance...

[Manitoulin]

Let me know how I can help. I can do the work, but my skills at design are best left to someone else.

[mg196]

I think one of my very first posts on AK was related to this topic. What if someone took one of those massive BPC's from the early 80's and completely upgraded it with top-quality components, with everything from binding posts to the caps being replaced. It would be interesting to see if the basic circuitry of the unit is capable of dealing with the upgrades!

[RetroHacker]

I think it's a wonderful idea - I love the idea of devices that work great, and don't look like they should. For example, my main PC is an AMD Athlon 2600+ system. It lives in an old full tower Gateway case that still says "Intel Inside Pentium Pro Processor" on the front. Before that, the same board and processor lived in an IBM PC/XT case, but I ran into heat issues and had to cut so much metal out to fit the huge motherboard, that the case lost a lot of it's structure...

But all PC crap aside, I'd love to see what could be done to make cheap junk sound like... not cheap junk. The speakers may be a problem, seeming as though a $4.99 6" driver is going to sound like a $4.99 speaker no matter what kind of insulation or crossover you put into it's particle-pressboard cabinet. But I would imagine you could do a fair amount of improvement to a solid state receiver that uses descrete output transistors, as opposed to those block things. Should allow some room for improvement. Now, what are the rules here - obviously you can't just go out and gut an 80's vintage Emerson mini-component system and build a tube amp in there, but you'd have to replace a certain number of parts for the thing to not suck - like giving it a proper power transformer, increasing the ratings of components.... but where do you draw the line? Must the original output transistors stay, or can they be replaced? How much circuit changes are considered "close to original design". The thing will also probably weigh 5 times more than it originally did when you're done...

But still, it sounds cool. Hmm... you know, this GE clock radio could use some more output power... <insert Tim Allen noises here>

-Ian

[Jay Pemberton]

Good points! I've done a lot of this over the years meself, citing a few examples here: going wild with a Tascam 32 and a 34B (coupling cap bypasses and upgrades like polystyrene replacing ceramic nasties etc in addition to IC upgrades and other things), improving the dbx type 1 unit for the 32 and streamlining two dbx NX-40s to work with the 34. Two other fun works in progress include a Tascam M-35 and a model 15 mixer....

[Donkey!]

So this idea came to mind maybe a year ago, and I thought this might make for some interesting readin and maybe a fun winter project for a few volunteers.......

We've all talked about bad audio at some point......Panasonic receivers, Yorx speakers, maybe a Lenox Sound turntable......

It takes a good DIY man to make a good piece of gear, but it takes a GREAT DIY man to make a crappy piece of gear good! So here's my idea.

We take a pet project, like a pair of Yorx speakers. We change crossovers, add sound deadening material to them,change them in any way shape or form, but the basic piece must be left as is. The challenge, being, to make them as good as possible. Or, grab a Soundesign receiver, add audiophile grade caps, tweak this or that, etc, while leaving the basic design the same. For no other reason, other than to see if it can be done.

We'd of course take pics along the way, and collaborate to form a plan of attack as to how to make the changes. Then, we'd have all of the gear set up at the Fest.

This would encompass a challenge to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, working within the parameters of the original lousy design.

Why am I proposing this?

1. It's something no other audio site would ever do
2. It would make for interesting reading, no matter how ridiculous you may think it
3. It would test the minds of our members to do a project like this

So, here's the poll, tell me what you think.......

This is how I got into audio, when I was a 14-15 year old kid, I didn't have enough money money to buy good shit, but I had a library card and hamfests full of shit that needed to be mine.

It's interesting, I think i knew more about communications and audio equipment back then vs. now.

Not sure why........... But I could guess.

[rca2000]

SO, you mean we can't take out the cheap, 2w./ch single chip amps, and add some nice class ab transistor amps, with maybe 10k/75v. caps ??

[rulerboyz]

My Toshiba SA-735 receiver would definitely qualify for the title of this thread. Echowars gave me some ideas on things you can do to a cheap receiver that would almost never get done because of the cost, and also because these kinds of upgrading efforts are almost always reserved to better quality gear. So what did I do thus far?

I fully recapped it with Nichicon UPW and Panasonic FC caps. I replaced the mylar caps with polypropylene film caps. I replaced the small ceramic caps on the amplifier board with silver mica caps.

This receiver did not have a adjustment pots for DC offset, so I built a circuit board that would inject a correction voltage to the base of the input transistors. I was thus able to dial the DC offset down from 76V to close to 0.

I then upgraded the Op Amps in the phono stage (NE5532) and the amplifier board (OPA2604). I then cut the connection between the output of the output stage of the OPA2604 to the power amp section of the receiver and soldered pre-out, main-in wires. Drilled holes in the back of the receiver for the pre-out and main-in jacks.

I now use it as a preamp, since the amplifier section of this receiver is really nothing to phone home about. But as a preamp it sounds pretty decent. Only thing is there is a low level hum. I think this could have something to do with the budget quality of the transformer/ power switch. Maybe if this was upgraded some further gains could be made. :scratch2:

Yet we must be aware that we are talking about making a silk purse out of sow's ear, here. It will have many DIY experts shaking their heads. :no: It can be fun no doubt, yet the end results will often confirm just why nobody else is taking on these weird types of projects.

By the way, anyone have any advice for a transformer upgrade?