Hifi advice...

[NiceCupOfTea]

Hi folks,

I have a reasonable setup (by my standards) at the moment of:

Arcam CD72
Arcam Alpha 9 Amp
Mission 731 speakers

Obviously it's all older stuff and the Missions are budget, but they sound OK. I got the CD72 at about 6 months old for £200 which was a bit of a bargain, although now they're not worth much on ebay. Cracking player though. The Amp I bought s/h from my local hifi dealer - it's a tad older but as I understand it it was Arcam's flagship model and was well over £600. I bought it for £200 3 or 4 years ago, and they seem to go for more than that on ebay even now!

Basically I'm pretty happy with it although I might spend a bit on speakers at some stage.

Unfortunately my amp's developed a problem with the source select switch whereby I get a lot of crackling and one channel keeps cutting out. Apparently it's quite a common problem.

Just got a quote from Arcam to repair it for £147 :|

Now, that's a fair bit of money to spend on an oldish amp even if it was pretty good in its day. However, I understand that will include a full service. On the flip side, what could I get for £147 plus whatever a faulty Alpha 9 fetches on ebay (I am guessing maybe £200 total)??

My brother has on AVR200 AV amp from Arcam which is pretty good but don't know where I'd look for s/h kit, not much on ebay...

I know some will suggest I try to fix it myself as it is just the source selector. I have used switch cleaner, but it is a very complicated switch with many many solder joints, multilevel PCB, and the switch is motorised. Plus my soldering skills are not up to much and I understand that the switches themselves are not cheap...

My gut feeling is to pay up and get it fixed, but I'm a bit out of touch with the hifi world these days so I don't know if it's worth upgrading for the amount I listen to it (I am never in to listen to music!)

[Garett]

Have you had a quote from a local Hi-Fi repairer or did they just refer you to Arcam? My mate had a NAD C370 that fried a load of capacitors and needed a new PCB, NAD quoted him a lot more (can't remember exactly) than some local bloke who fixed it for £90.

Failing that maybe a good TV repairer or pro-audio place that deal with PA systems (basically someone capable of repairing PCBs at component level) could probably sort it,if it is just a case of cleaning up the switch or fixing a dry joint somewhere.

I'm actually looking for a new amp myself, looking second hand at Rotel or Marantz.

HTH

[Pigeon]

Well it looks like you have only one source, so perhaps the easiest thing is just to take the switch out entirely and hard wire it in the CD position.

[Digger.]

NCOT. . .Try asking your question here

http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=...

I believe John Dawson (Arcam) posts there and plenty of advice generally available.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Digger. said:

NCOT. . .Try asking your question here

http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=...

I believe John Dawson (Arcam) posts there and plenty of advice generally available.

Blimey, just came back from posting there!

Pigeon, I also use the Aux for the TV/DVD - and being relatively audiophile I think it's a bit more complicated than just bridging a couple of contacts. Certainly beyond my soldering skills anyway

[outlaw biker]

Get yourself a Yamaha AV receiver.

If only Yamaha made cars too

Edited by outlaw biker on Tuesday 9th September 21:43

[Pigeon]

Wire in a DPDT toggle switch then.

Or am I going to be posting on here in a few weeks about the dodgy Arcam Alpha 9 I got off ebay complete with closeups of the two wire links on the circuit board?

A quick google suggests it is possible to download the service manual but it's one of these wry sites that makes you register first so I haven't tried it.