Yamaha a1000 1985

I went ahead and (over)paid for the A-1020 I found on CL. I have been wanting one for a while for sentimental reasons and they are a pain to find locally in decent shape. This one powered on but wouldn't come out of protection. For $50 that's a little high but it wasn't missing any teeth and is cosmetically a good solid 7.
I get it home and open it up and it's DUSTY. Cleaned it up with compressed air and give it a look. Has some glue greening up a few components but nothing burned. All original inside at least.
I plug it in and power it on. No click. Looking a little closer I notice it's a multi-voltage unit...that's set on 220V. I click it over to 120V plug it in and power it on. BINK, comes out of protection in 5 seconds :banana:
On further looking they had the jumpers in wrong so even if they figured out the voltage issue they still wouldn't have gotten any sound.
I listened to it for about an hour and am very pleased. I remembered this being a nice sounding amplifier and wasn't proven wrong. It sounds really good.
Stay tuned for it's own thread. I'm going to recap it, replace the trimmers and the green resistors that are stuck in the glue once I get a bit of time. Until then it's covered in the closet awaiting it's turn.

Wow, that one really was dusty inside, but the outside looks nice. Should be 50 buck well spent. Enjoy!
 
After driving an hour and a half and then, 10 minutes before I arrived, the seller insisting on meeting me in a parking lot rather than his house where I could more thoroughly check the amp out (I mentioned that I wanted to pull the top cover to check for damage/prior repairs) I figured it was going to be a $50+gas+time lesson on not knowing when to say to heck with it and go home.
Luckily the seller is not so good with the electrics so I'm counting my blessings, ha. I have a Digikey order put together and it looks like I should be right at about $50 shipped to completely go through it.

MCMFan, do you still need feet for your amp? Mine came with three so I bought some aluminum dealies off of the bay to replace all of them. If you need a foot or three let me know. I'll spread some of the luck around.
 
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After driving an hour and a half and then, 10 minutes before I arrived, the seller insisting on meeting me in a parking lot rather than his house where I could more thoroughly check the amp out (I mentioned that I wanted to pull the top cover to check for damage/prior repairs) I figured it was going to be a $50+gas+time lesson on not knowing when to say to heck with it and go home.
Luckily the seller is not so good with the electrics so I'm counting my blessings, ha. I have a Digikey order put together and it looks like I should be right at about $50 shipped to completely go through it.

MCMFan, do you still need feet for your amp? Mine came with three so I bought some aluminum dealies off of the bay to replace all of them. If you need a foot or three let me know. I'll spread some of the luck around.

I would highly recommend replacing the idle current trim pots while you are at it. I'm pretty sure that the left trim pot was responsible for killing the left channel on a A-1020 that I worked on at the end of last year.

Cheers,
James
 
I read through your A-1020 thread a while ago which is kinda what got me on the hunt for one again. Very good work there :)
Those trimmers look very suspect and I was planning on going with the Bourns multiturns discussed in that very thread. I pulled the two main glue caps (the two 1000uf near the bank of resistors) and was unhappy to see that the jumpers underneath are corroded almost to dust. I'm feeling like I got really lucky running this thing even for a little while.
It will never be powered on again until it's been gone through, that's for sure.

I have been putting together a BOM for the repair and have been wondering if I should just go ahead and replace all of the carbon film resistors rather than just the ones that have been damaged by the glue. I've heard they can drift over time and would rather just replace them while I'm in there. It only adds a few dollars to the repair list as well as a bit more time.
Should the diodes be replaced as well? I've got a million 1S1555s already and it looks like it only takes a few of the BAV21s.
I'd like to go into this once and then just listen to it for the next 15-20 years before I have to think about opening it up again.

Thanks James,

Yet another James
 
You're welcome James, glad that my adventure was helpful to you. There's also a Bourns 1 turn pot that works without having to make a leg extension for the middle leg. You just have to carefully re-bend the middle leg and then it's just long enough to drop in. PN 3386G-1-102LF. It's not as easy to adjust as the 20 turn pots but still easier than the original ones (not quite as sensitive imo) and sealed.

I'm very new at this and was even more so with that amp (my first). Looking back I think that I should have just replaced all of the diodes. I doubt that desoldering them to check them and then resoldering them did any good things for their life span. We had a ton of 1N4007 & 1N4148 and I was told that they would be quality subs but I was unsure and didn't do it.

I've read the same thing about replacing the carbon comp resistors with metalized film but have no experience to say if it's a must do. But if the price is right... why not?

Cheers,
James
 
I saw another of these silver Yamaha A-1000 integrated amps at a different local Goodwill today. It was priced at $19.99, was missing the POWER button cap, had lots of scratching on the case top, a couple on the face plate and volume knob and a couple of the speaker terminals were broken. I plugged it in, to check that all the controls worked and LEDs lit up - they did, but I did not hook it up to a source or speakers. I almost bought it as a parts unit, but decided to leave it for someone else.

I'm still enjoying mine on a daily basis. I love the sound in general, and as others have mentioned, it has a really sweet phono section. I'm using it as my main vinyl rig.

The 1980s look, with lots of rectangular buttons and rectangular red and green LEDs has really grown on me (I know, not for everyone, which is part of the appeal for me). So, I did pick up an age appropriate Akai AT-V04 tuner (circa 1980) at that same Goodwill today that is stylistically a great match for the silver A-1000, and a damn fine sounding tuner for the $9.99 sticker price.
 
That Goodwill of yours sounds pretty excellent :) It doesn't happen to be anywhere near San Diego does it? I'd love a silver A-1000 to go with the black A-1020.

I am all for the square with many buttons 80's look. Cool looking and much less to go wrong than a digital display of some sort.
 
Feel weird entering a thread that's been quiet for a year, but...

I have a black A-1000 that is unfortunately missing quite a few buttons (the class a turbe, direct, and all but one of the input buttons). All the buttons work, it's just not very aesthetic to look at dried glue where the covers used to be. Any help on where I might be able to find replacement buttons? I've scoured just about as far as google, ebay, and yamaha's site will take me.

Thanks!
 
Bucking for a Mod job here are you................... some people ......... try worrying about your own issues. A PM to me would have been the nice thing for you to do to start with .


I have the job, and you are breaking AK rules! your post has been deleted, consider this a warning.
Regards,
Jim
 
I just began using an all original A-1000. Lovely, clear, balanced - but no guts, no thump or rumble to the low end, as I was hoping to hear, being used to a Pioneer SX-1010. Listening with restored Polk Monitor 10 speakers... I now have the bass pot maxed, so not getting any of the direct mode benefits. Any ideas of anything particular that might need attention / restoration, or is this simply not the right amp for rattling windows?
 
I have 1983 A-1000 (black model)that I purchased last year on that auction site ($115.00) that had been re-capped and serviced, it sure has a warm tube like sound to it. :thmbsp:. Now after a year of daily use the MC side of the phono section is acting up and I need to send out for repair. Lucky for me the MM side still works so I use my vintage Pickering cart until I can save the $$ to it repaired. I am going to send it to AKer " Avionic " for repairs this time and have him go thru it all and check everything out.

did you change the main 4 large caps? If so which ones did you use?
 
Old thread redstarjedi ....No never had it repaired stored it in closet. I was looking for another tech after being ripped off from Ft Worth Audio on my Hafler P-3000 MOSFET amp.

Finally went back to a tube amp and NAD pre/amp for analog TT and R2R .
 
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