Engraved 2215 - Restoration

[Jailtime]

This should be a fun little project, first time I've had an engraved Marantz in my hands. Sure is a pretty thing, and heavy too, especially considering its 15W rating. There's plenty of troublesome 2SC458s in this one, they will all find a new home in the round file.

Check out the carnage in the amplifier board and surrounding area. Axial caps crammed in spots where radials should be. The green ones are Rayrex, never heard of those. The installation of that coupling cap is, well, interesting. Oh look, half of the unobtainium 2SD315s are missing, replaced with TO-220 parts. Emitter resistors of unknown quality are installed on one channel. I can only assume that's exploded cap goo on all the wiring in the last picture.

I figure I will have to match the channels with MJE15032G outputs, since the TO-66 originals are not available and have no known subs.

 

[Fairlane]

See it was "restored" by an expert.

Once sorted these are terrific receivers. Recently updated one for my son who lives in a NYC apartment and it's the perfect balance of power and great sound for a small space.

Supposed to be rare and your is rarer still. Luckily the one I found was still in great working condition. Just had to update the basic stuff for long term insurance.

Have to ask if it is working?

 

[Jailtime]

I haven't fired it up yet, just took the covers off to build a parts list. I'm doing the restoration for member Onebean, I hear it works aside from a hum in one of the channels.

I'll fire it up on the DBT to get a baseline.

 

[Onebean]

It's mine, but I'm not to blame for the ham and egg repair work. Yes, it was working, I used it in my work shop for a couple years. It had a hum in the left channel, but actually still sounded pretty good. This was found at a Goodwill many years ago by my brother, and I ended up with it luckily.

 

[Fairlane]

You will love it once it is properly sorted out. Think I read they only made 784 of these total.
Great you rescued it and got it into good hands.

 

[catrafter]

OMG.
I'm sure Kyle will make it sing like new.

Tom

 

[Jailtime]

Finally got the parts in from Mouser, made some nice progress on the 2215 today. Check out how the previous "tech" clobbered in the coupling cap, that's a unique way to join wires.

Got the power supply recapped, and installed a KSC2383 in place of the 2SC1213. Everything checked out good on the DBT, so I finished up the phono amp (not pictured), the 2SC458s were dumped in favor of KSC1845s. The preamp board received nice WIMA films and Nichicon FG electrolytics, there's 6 of the 2SC458s on this board, all gone now.

I also polished the faceplate, there was spotting that mild dish soap solution would not remove. Meguiar's M205 Finishing Polish did the trick wonderfully, I figured if it's safe for automotive clearcoats, it would be safe for the champagne faceplate.

 

[Steven Tate]

Nice work! That’s going to be a nice little unit when you get through with it — and engraved to boot!

 

[Jailtime]

New filter and coupling caps installed today, they received a bump in capacitance, 3300uF coupling caps and 4700uF for the filter. Still haven't tackled the amp, saving the best for last.

I rebuilt all the tuner boards as well. I wish all Marantz tuners were this easy to rebuild. The AM tuner/FM front end flips over easily after removing the tuning pulley and one green wire on the left of the board. The 2215 is so easy to restring, you don't have to worry about the dial string slipping off the pulley. The meter driver board will flip over for access with nothing but removing the screws. IF board needs the orange and white wires on the left removed, you'll have full access then. MPX board takes no fancy tricks for access, Marantz really built these to be easy to service.

I have noticed they liked to slop the solder on thick in these early receivers, my solder sucker is getting a workout.

 

[Jailtime]

Finished up the little 2215 today, made a mighty 18.6 WPC into 8 ohms at 1KHz. I had to install new trimmers, one of the bias pots was either zero or 70mV (!) bias. Good thing I used the DBT when I was checking the bias and trimmer operation. New trimmers got the bias and clipping adjustments dialed right in.

The amplifier board got all new small transistors and new emitter resistors, in addition to all new capacitors. It was just a mess, almost every part was different between the channels. I also installed a set of MJE15032G for the outputs, had to do some delicate heatshrink work to get them installed safely.

Nice sounding little receiver, the FM section is a real performer in this one. Beautiful to look at too, the champagne faceplate is highly reflective.

 

[Onebean]

I can hardly wait to put it back into service. Thank you!

 

[Fairlane]

These are sweet sounding little receivers.
You will love it.

Nice job Jailtime.

 

[patfont]

Nice work on bringing this one back to life! For the output change to 15032's I use teflon tubing for the pass through for zero drama.

 

[rBuckner]

SOOO much nicer. Awesome resuscitation.

 

[Pioneered]

Gees! I don't think I've seen anything in that much of a mess but, it looks like everything is fairly easy to get to and you've done a wonderful job
of bringing back to clean and mean.

 

[Onebean]

I put the restored 2215 back into service this morning. It sounds so good, and 15 watts is plenty for my office. My source is computer audio streaming Tidal, Pandora, and Spotify. This replaced a 2.1 computer speaker system, and the additional level of detail, and the soundstage these pieces throw in near field listening is everything I was hoping for. Work will be fun next week.

Onebean

 

[Steven Tate]

If you work in an office away from home, you will be the envy of the neighborhood.

 

[Jailtime]

Your picture really brings out the champagne color of the faceplate, looks great in your office. Sharp looking little speakers too, probably sound similar to some 4" driver ones I built a while ago. They were great with the 2215.

 

[spark1]

I know that this is an old thread, but I'm working on restoration of a 2215. Done with power supply, EQ and preamp sections, getting ready to start on the power amp board.

Any advice on how to best access this board sure would be appreciated. I've been looking at it, and best approach is definitely not obvious (at least to me!).

Also...to replace the dial lamps, it appears that the best approach is to separate the glass panel from the chassis? The screws to pull the plate on which the lamps are mounted are on top of the assembly, and I cannot get at them...even with a right angle screwdriver. To do so, it appears that I would have to remove the top plate, to which dial strong pulleys are mounted. That does not seem like a good idea!

Thanks for any advice or suggestions!

 

[Onebean]

I can't help with your questions, but I will say I still use this 2215 every day all day long and love it. Thanks @Jailtime