Eleven GX

I picked up a Model Eleven GX from a CL seller recently. It's nearly flawless. Not a mark on the wood or scratch on the faceplate and a non smoker to boot. There are some scratches on the tuner knob that are hardly noticeable, but that's it. I don't have the words to describe how big this is. It could be an end table if it had legs.

It sounds great.....BUT...

The bass isn't as loud in the left channel as the right. This VU meters seem to reflect this as the left one doesn't go as high.

The only thing that doesn't seem to be up to snuff on the front panel is the High Filter slider. It's crackly when moving up and down and left/right separation is affected. The Low filter works OK on the right channel, but I isn't doing anything noticeable on the left channel. The rest of the MAC sliders work fine.

I plan to deox and faderlube everything. This is my first Kenwood project. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice before I get elbow deep in this thing?

Eleven G

I just had mine gone through-there was alot of issues with it solder joints were bad,resistors ect...I dont care much for the equlizer but I think its a real pretty unit! I love kenwoods!

I popped the hood on the Battleship Kenwood and found 3 bad caps. Two on the power amp board and one of the FM tuner board. This thing has an amazing tuner! I live 50 miles from San Antonio in the hill country and can get most of the stations there loud and clear. Despite the bad caps - vinyl, cd's, 1/4" reels, and radio sound incredible. I already like it better than the Marantz 2238b and Sansui 2000x. I don't know if those are apples/oranges comparisons, but that's what I've got for a Pepsi Challenge.

I got the sliders cleaned up and they're almost 100%. The DC offset is 6.8mV R / 58mV L, so there's cause for concern.

I have a Mouser order coming soon so I can shotgun cap the power amp section and replace the bad cap on the tuner. I'm also gonna replace Q1-Q4 transistors with better KSA992FBU ones. They're cheap, so I ordered 100 to get good matches. We'll see how it goes.

congratulations, i have one myself had to rebuild the amp section someone used tinfoil as a fuse. mine had a lot of bad capacitors it was heavily used. it does sound great. i also replaced the bias trim pots while i was in there it runs cool. mine was free but worth the effort.
steve

therizzzo1 said:

I popped the hood on the Battleship Kenwood and found 3 bad caps. Two on the power amp board and one of the FM tuner board. This thing has an amazing tuner! I live 50 miles from San Antonio in the hill country and can get most of the stations there loud and clear. Despite the bad caps - vinyl, cd's, 1/4" reels, and radio sound incredible. I already like it better than the Marantz 2238b and Sansui 2000x. I don't know if those are apples/oranges comparisons, but that's what I've got for a Pepsi Challenge.

I got the sliders cleaned up and they're almost 100%. The DC offset is 6.8mV R / 58mV L, so there's cause for concern.

I have a Mouser order coming soon so I can shotgun cap the power amp section and replace the bad cap on the tuner. I'm also gonna replace Q1-Q4 transistors with better KSA992FBU ones. They're cheap, so I ordered 100 to get good matches. We'll see how it goes.

Click to expand...

The DC offset is 6.8mV R / 58mV L, so there's cause for concern. you need to replace the driver transistors and the bias control pots. mine came from mouser.

Those bias pots ARE quite touchy and substandard looking. I had a heckuva time adjusting the bias. I'll have to get some better replacements on the next order. What kind did you use? I see the Bourns ones recommended a lot.


Tinfoil fuses eh? Wow......that's a crime against HiFi. The sentence should be earbuds.

i will look this weekend and see what kind of pots they were i think i have a couple of extra ones. the old pots in my receiver was bad touchy. steve

What was the verdict on the bias pots?? I have several of the G and one GX series units and would like to switch some out. I'm not a fan of the built in EQ's either. I use the smaller G units with seperate bass, mid and treble controls to control my 3 with the EQ. I do use yamaha eq 70's though. Gorgeous units

How did the GX turn out?? Did you get it all fixed. Come on I need updates lol.

I've moved in the meantime and haven't done anything to it yet. I finally got my workspace set up last week so hopefully I'll not be lazy and get it done. The GX did survive the move intact and still looks cherry.

I've had it set up in my new digs with a good Technics TT and it sounds like what cherry pie would sound like if pie made noise. Band of Gypsys and Exile on Main St are in heavy rotation @ Chateau Rizzzo.

I have one complaint about my GX and that is the stepped volume knob - there is too much difference between the steps. I want to change the volume pot to a more precise one. If anyone has any suggestion for a suitable replacement, I'm all ears.

an update and some questions...

I recapped most of the power amp board with Nichinon audio gold caps and replaced the Q1-Q2 2SA992 transistors with Fairchild KSA992FBU ones.

FWIW - the original 2SA992s measured 358, 339, 381, & 449 and I was getting an offset of 58mV L / 6.8mV R. I don't remember which ones were in what spot.

I got 100 of the Fairchilds for a good match. With the 100 count price break, it only ended up being a couple of dollars more than 10 count. Then, I matched the gain in the 435 range +/- 2% (the lowest avg match). This yielded an offset of 44mV L / 48mV R. Obviously I wasn't happy with this. I matched another set in the 500 range (the highest avg match) and I am now getting 34mV L / 39mV R. These results lead me to believe that a more suitable transistor will yield even better results.

Is there a better replacement for the original 2SA992 than the KSA992FBU that I'm using? Or am I missing something?