CzarDestructo Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Does anyone in the Boston area know of a repair shop to fix up busted amplifiers? Possibly a forum member that does this? I have a pretty decent amp that recently stopped working and I'd rather repair it than get a whole new one. I have a background in electrical engineering and access to a variety of test equipment to do preliminary probing. Just don't have the experience or confidence to fix this myself. I'm pretty confident the problem lies in the very first stage of the amplifier as it conducts current when unloaded as soon as it turns on. Any help would be most appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishingFiend Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 I have an old Soundstream Ref. 500 I'd like to get repaired too. Any info for a SoCal shop will be appreciated too. What amp do you have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwiener2 Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 unless it's a tube amp...... good luck finding someone to repair it. the manuf. will probly be the only one that can help and they may just tell you you're SOL My Mods List (Updated 8/22/17) 2005 Outback FMT Running on Electrons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CzarDestructo Posted September 28, 2008 Author Share Posted September 28, 2008 There has to be someone, any technician can make decent cash on the side repairing circuits like this. My amp was already visibly repaired in the past by someone, maybe I should ask the previous owner. Either way if I can't find anyone I'll order a new amp and some spare parts and try my hand as fixing it since it's already junk, nothing to loose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonman586 Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Wait you bought a hacked up amp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CzarDestructo Posted September 29, 2008 Author Share Posted September 29, 2008 I bought a 1500W Fosgate amp and a matching 10" sub for around $100, hacked up or not that's a pretty damn good deal. The amp has worked fantastic until I got a little stupid with it. And of course I didn't realized it was hacked up, I bought it from someone I thought I could trust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prime Power Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Call around to some audio shops. Thats what I did and found a place here in tulsa. I'm sure you'll find one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ean611 Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Czardestructo. I've got a Kicker ZR240 and a Rockford Type RF X4.c that I'm not using. They're local if you're interested. (it's not a fix, but hey, sometimes that may work) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonman586 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Come on man flex those EE skills. I'm sure you can handle it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
112 dB Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Call Rockford. Or maybe check their website's KB. It's an old amp, so of course they won't fix it under warranty, but I called them about a similar issue with an old school Punch series and there's an electronics shop (I think somewhere on the East coast) that they recommended for repairs to older Rockford products. I remember the quote was too much for me (Punch 40's are cheap-ish on ebay), but it might be worth it for you. The issue I had was with a broken/intermittent connection from the remote turn on lead to the board. Basically it's a broken solder joint. It looks easy enough to fix, but I'll need to pull the board off of the heatsink. Anyone know what that white compound is that they use to 'glue' the Fets to the heatsink is? I assume it's some kind of thermal paste and was thinking I could just use some arctic silver I've got laying around as a substitute... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CzarDestructo Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 I wish it was something as simple as a bad solder joint, I could very easily repair that in a few minutes. Problem is I'm not very good at analyzing the hierarchy of circuits to find the parts that got fried. They use a thermal epoxy of some sort. A plain old thermal paste like arctic silver wouldn't be very advisable on certain designs since its meant for thin coatings and firm/even contact. For example my amp has all the MOSFETs attached to a narrow long PCB board and the board in turn is glued to the heatsink. Since the PCB is flexible and the amp is going to be doing a lot of rattling you'd want the epoxy. However, if your amp has the MOSFETs screwed directly into the metal wall of the heat sink I'm sure you could get away with generic thermal paste of arctic silver. Just be aware the metallic composition of AS causes it to be slightly capacitive which might be bad news for audio applications. Use a ceramic based paste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HungHing88 Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 try this place: its called audio video integration, in newton MA, I think. Ken is a good friend of mine, maybe he can help you out!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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