There are several very good Marantz 1060 restoration and recapping threads on this forum and I don’t know if another one is really necessary, but I’ve learned so much from what others have written that I want to contribute my experience to the community. In the past, I’ve built some relatively simple DIY amplifiers from the ground up, but this is my first vintage amp and my first experience working with a more complex commercial product.
This Marantz 1060 was an ebay purchase that was advertised as a working unit. I hooked it up to a turntable and a pair of test speakers when it arrived and it did indeed play music. I opened the case to see what was going on inside and it looked pretty good. It was a little dirty, but not horrible and there were just a few spots on the chassis where some oxidation was getting started.
All of the caps and components looked like original equipment so a re-capping was definitely on the agenda. When I flipped the unit over, I noticed the 470uf 63v cap on the Power Supply board (C803) was leaking like an old battery (all component numbers come from the Marantz 1060 Service Manual). No more using this amp until after the re-cap. I ordered the parts (based largely on what I learned here) and while waiting for them to arrive, started on the mechanical and cosmetic work.
The knobs and faceplate came off and were cleaned and disinfected using mild detergent, isopropyl alcohol and Windex.
The tone controls, main/remote/high & low filter and loudness/tape monitor/mono switch controls were removed from the chassis.
All of the switches and controls were sprayed with DeoxIT, worked and then flushed with more DeoxIT.
Although none of the controls sounded bad when the unit was tested, a surprising amount of black goo came out of the pots when they were flushed. A couple days after cleaning the switches and pots, they were all sprayed with FaderLube.
Before reassembling the front panel, all of the DeoxIT overspray was cleaned up and all of the wire bundles coming off the controls and switches were cleaned using a small foam paintbrush sprayed with isopropyl alcohol. Both sides of all the control and switch PC boards were cleaned using Q-Tips and alcohol. All of the resistors on these boards were also checked to make sure they were up to spec.
After re-attaching the switch and control units to the front panel, the front panel itself was cleaned with alcohol and Windex. The fluting on all of the potentiometer shafts was grimy so they were cleaned using Q-Tips sprayed with DeoxIT and then isopropyl alcohol.
The underside of the chassis and the wire bundles running along the chassis were cleaned using alcohol, Q-Tips and the foam brush.
All of the back-panel input and output connectors were sprayed, worked and flushed with DeoxIT. The back panel was detached from the chassis and all of the input and output connectors were removed from the back panel. The RCA jacks were polished with fine steel wool until all oxidation was removed and they were returned to their original mirror finish. The inside of the push-in speaker connectors were cleaned using a small, fine, round file.
Pre-amp jumpers before (left) and after (right) cleaning.
One of the speaker connectors was flopping around because the piece of plastic it was mounted to had broken off from the other three connectors in its group. I found a replacement on ebay and installed it before reinstalling the back panel.
The inside of the back panel was cleaned using alcohol and a foam brush. The input and output connectors were reattached to the back panel and their wire bundles were also cleaned using alcohol and the foam brush. The back part of the chassis was also cleaned before the back panel was reattached. The back panel itself was grimy and almost sticky, so it was cleaned with De-Solv-it (a degreasing cleaner), alcohol and then Windex to make it shine.
The heat sink and power transistors were removed from the chassis and cleaned. The transistor leads were cleaned with DeoxIT and set aside to wait for the arrival of new insulators.
By the time the parts started arriving, I was tired of cleaning and eager to get started on the soldering (using WBT silver). Here’s a list of what I ordered by category:
- Chassis-mounted power supply and output coupling caps: Nichicon Gold Tunes from Parts Connexion. As recommended by EchoWars and others, I went with higher capacitance than original spec for these caps. The power supply cap is 10,000uf and the coupling caps are 6800uf each. These three caps also got 1uf Vishay bypass caps from Mouser.
- Power supply board caps: Elna Cerafines from Parts Connexion.
- Phono, pre-amp and amp board caps: Elna Silmic IIs from Parts Connexion.
- Eight large mylar caps on the phono, pre-amp and amp boards: Vishay 225P orange drops from Mouser.
- Potentially problematic 2SC1000 and 2SC458 transistors on the phono and pre-amp boards: 2SC1815s and 2SC2240s from B&D Enterprises. I bought a bunch of these and took hFE readings so I could install matched pairs in the right and left channels.
New parts
Old Parts
The first part to come out was the big power supply cap. As you can see from the image, this made it possible to reach the worst of the chassis oxidation points.
The oxidation was polished and ground away, the area was cleaned with alcohol and the new cap was installed.
The same basic procedure was followed for the coupling caps: remove, clean the area, install replacements. These caps had the added complication of being smaller than the original units, despite being of higher value. I used foam insulation to make the smaller caps fit the original clamps.
The first board I chose to work on was the power supply (P800) because it was the simplest. There were just four capacitors to replace and five resistors to check. The old caps came out, but there was a lot of clean-up. All of the caps were glued on so there was residue left behind. C803 had been leaking, there was rosin residue on the board and it was just generally sticky feeling. It took a lot of Q-Tips and isopropyl alcohol to get everything cleaned up.
After the clean up, resistor values were checked. Some resistors need to have one lead removed from the circuit to get an accurate resistance reading. Any time I didn't get the proper resistance reading from a resistor, I pulled one of the leads and measured again. Finally, the new caps were installed to finish the board. There's a problem with this board I didn't recognize until later...
Next up was the amplifier board (P700), with 12 electrolytic and two mylar caps to be replaced.
I removed all the caps, went through the board cleaning procedure, checked resistors and then soldered in the new caps. The power transistors were reinstalled on the heat sink with new insulators and thermal compound. Of course, the thermal compound squeezed out all over the heat sink so alcohol and Q-Tips were once again called upon for clean-up duty.
I've used up my 15-image limit for this post, so I'll have to continue in Part 2.
