Archive for the ‘Technics RS1506USr&r’ Category
Technics RS1506US r&r
This is a nice project that somehow initiated this idea of starting ‘analogicsound.ro’ . The Technics RS1500 series is one of the latest produced by Technics back in late 70’s early 80’s.
We are talking about very high quality solid state products. What is so special about this reel2reel is the isolated loop tape path, a full direct-drive unit with very low wow&flutter.
The deck looks fantastic, sounds fantastic and is a ‘very nice to have it’ reel2reel. Every time you press play, it turns you back in time and for me it’s the best ‘time travelling’ machine.
Though these decks are famous for their high quality, they are aging like everything on earth. The deck was running but had problems with recording level, tape path adjustments, capacitor leakage and noise produced by dried out bearings.
It was in need of a complete r&r job, a very time consuming job and this is how all has been performed.
First of all , we considered purchasing a service manual wich covered all drawings of the electronic boards and adjustment procedures(mechanical and electronic).
I decided to replace all capacitors with high quality components from Panasonic.We have a supplier for high quality components.
this is how the old capacitors looked like, notice the corroded terminals due to capacitor leakage:
here is the unopened box with all new capacitors :
power supply module recapped:
more pictures with soldered components and boards:
We used the internet and forums for as much information as we could get about these Isoloops. I found something interesting about a nice upgrade on the line amp to reduce distortion and increase gain by a simple modification. I will post this here with many thanks to A.N.T. Audio from TapeHeads.com.
Here comes the mechanics:
replacing capstan bearings
more bearings:
we used high quality SKF bearings designed for high speed operation.
Finally we put everything back together and with the use of service manual and our ‘old school’ minilab managed to adjust the deck properly.
The final result is a reel2reel who will last for many years from now on and it will be a delight for listener’s ears.
There is nothing more relaxing than seeing this beauty at work, you can never stop looking at it.
