When I was a youngster growing up in the 80’s my dad had an SX-980 that he would let me listen to with him from time to time. In fact it was listening to that 980 with him that served as my introduction to much of the music which I still enjoy today! Unfortunately for my dad he sold off his 980 years ago after replacing it with some 1990’s surround sound equipment.
A couple of years ago nostalgia for those days led me to discover vintage audio. Since then I have accumulated several vintage pieces which I have repaired and restored with the help of this forum. SX-737, SX-1010, SX-950, 9090db, 2240, STR-6065, etc.
A couple of weeks back I was cruising craigslist and found an SX-980 for a very fair price which looked to be in very nice shape. With my dads 65th birthday approaching I made contact with the seller and drove out after work to take a closer look. When I arrived I was happy to find the unit to be in very nice shape and everything seemed to be working nicely. The left channel would drop out when I flipped the tone control switch, but I figured that a good cleaning would remedy that easy enough.
When I got the unit home I opened the top and discovered that everything was still original. No one had ever had the top off before I suspect. I cleaned all of the switches and checked the bias and offset. Bias was a bit high in the right channel, and a bit low in the left. I was able to adjust it per the manual but the readings seemed to jump around some while adjusting the trimmers. I cleaned the trimmers with deoxit but they still seem a bit flaky. I plan to replace them with some bourns and I was thinking of also replacing the EC’s on the amp boards while I’m in there. While I have the heat sink out I plan to repaste the output transistors.
I noticed that the preamp board has a couple of 2SA726 transistors that should probabaly be replaced? I can see a blue paint mark on both of them so I guess they should be replaced with a matched pair? Anything else that I should put on the must replace list in this unit?
His birthday is coming up on the 25th and I hope that I can surprise him with this SX-980 then. Last month I cleaned up my father-in-laws old Sansui 661 and returned it to him on his birthday. It turned out to be a really great birthday gift, and I think my dad will enjoy this 980 just as much!
A couple of years ago nostalgia for those days led me to discover vintage audio. Since then I have accumulated several vintage pieces which I have repaired and restored with the help of this forum. SX-737, SX-1010, SX-950, 9090db, 2240, STR-6065, etc.
A couple of weeks back I was cruising craigslist and found an SX-980 for a very fair price which looked to be in very nice shape. With my dads 65th birthday approaching I made contact with the seller and drove out after work to take a closer look. When I arrived I was happy to find the unit to be in very nice shape and everything seemed to be working nicely. The left channel would drop out when I flipped the tone control switch, but I figured that a good cleaning would remedy that easy enough.
When I got the unit home I opened the top and discovered that everything was still original. No one had ever had the top off before I suspect. I cleaned all of the switches and checked the bias and offset. Bias was a bit high in the right channel, and a bit low in the left. I was able to adjust it per the manual but the readings seemed to jump around some while adjusting the trimmers. I cleaned the trimmers with deoxit but they still seem a bit flaky. I plan to replace them with some bourns and I was thinking of also replacing the EC’s on the amp boards while I’m in there. While I have the heat sink out I plan to repaste the output transistors.
I noticed that the preamp board has a couple of 2SA726 transistors that should probabaly be replaced? I can see a blue paint mark on both of them so I guess they should be replaced with a matched pair? Anything else that I should put on the must replace list in this unit?
His birthday is coming up on the 25th and I hope that I can surprise him with this SX-980 then. Last month I cleaned up my father-in-laws old Sansui 661 and returned it to him on his birthday. It turned out to be a really great birthday gift, and I think my dad will enjoy this 980 just as much!
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