The Unlikely Nakamichi Amp Fix (Build quality! Ahem....)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Mark takes apart a 7 channel Nakamichi AVP1 amplifier, hunting down the cause of a dead channel. It turns out to be quite silly. In fact, Mark is not sure it was worth filming!
Even if it is an easy fix it is still worth filming it as we have a chance to have a peak inside of rare beauty like this one. Thanks for that upload.
I agree.. even running a Hi-Fi business you don't get to see items such as this every day! Great video!
@@jacksonsystemslimited Stuff you need a hand truck, and a strong lad or two to transport safely.
@@thomasmleahy6218 32kgs
beograd07 exactly...we need to see the quickie ones too...call them shorts if you like...not all fixes are rebuilds...some are simply loose connections...and this Amplifier is the most awesome power amp i've ever seen...obviously it has a separate pre-amp...i'd love to see what it's paired with...the total Watts per channel must be outrageous...you wouldn't live in a terraced house or flat with this output...my bookshelf speakers would blow the cones as soon as it's switched on...
I agree, even the simple fixes are entertaining.
Nice one. Makes me smile when audiophiles are demanding gold plated connectors etc for phono leads and inside it just goes through a cheap plastic clip lol.
I call them audioplakes. They are happy to spend thousands on interconnect and speaker cables. They would rather have five shiny pennies instead of a tarnished quarter. Just as they were duped by Mobile Fidelity, when the audioplakes thought their "great sounding" vinyl LP's they paid over a hundred dollars for were cut from the original analog master tapes and they find out they were cut from a DSD digital master tape that was made from the original analog masters.
The one I like from the "audiophile" community is directional cables. Yeah, so you want to couple an ac signal with something that works better in one direction....... ok then.
@@mistermac56 Audiophools for me 🤣
I think you are all too polite.
They are just snobs. TBH it's straightforward to discern which speaker is better but amplifiers, cd players and mini disk players it's hard to discern any appreciable difference.
Turntables, like speakers, are easy to seperate the bad or ordinary from the good ones. For many people a decent ceramic cartridge is good enough and a standard magnetic cartridge is more than good enough.
And when you are old enough to afford the crazy prices your hearing is shite so you won't be able to appreciate IF they sound any better than a good system from Sony or Dynatron costing a lot less.
The idea isn't so bad, you have the gold plated for the external connector because that's what'd otherwise get tarnished and dirty, the inside doesn't really matter because that's just gonna sit there unless you need to repair it. But yea it's probably overkill for something like this unless you live in a very humid environment, near the sea, stuff like that.
Gosh, what a tease! Thanks, as always Mark, for placing a big smile on my face. Your always-happy face is really a pleasure to watch. What an excellent example you set for all! I'm already looking forward to your next video. All the best to you fine sir.
Looks like an Emotiva / Sherbourn amp! Certainly a budget oriented chinese amplifier that has nothing to do with real Nakamichi, someone bought the brand name years ago and flooded the market with cheap loudspeaker connectors and questionable amps and such.
Correct, Chinese garbage.
Correct, it's a 'modern' Nak by another cheap chinese manufacturer. No different to the stuff being produced today under the AKAI brand, which is nothing like the quality stuff that the real AKAI made years ago. So many "quality" brand names have been taken over by chinese manufacturers and slapped on complete junk.
If you look closely you can see the tell-tale signs of the budget build quality, although this amp appears to be a little better than the usual cheap china offerings.
The real Nakamichi went bankrupt in 2002. Everything made after that date is Chinese made badge engineering crap.
Even before that date, some of the lower-level Nakamichi gear was made in Singapore/Malaysia, or in Taiwan (possibly by Fulet, who built some Proton and NAD), and then by Grande Electronics in China, who bought Nak in 2002. The name has been sold off a couple times since then.
Nakamichi died in 1998 when Niro Nakamichi left and the company was bought by Grande Holdings in China. Same with Sansui, Akai, loads of other great historical brands. Post 2000 Nakamichi's relied heavily on the name to keep up sales.
Ah, that makes sense. It looks like a bunch of Aliexpress boards thrown in a box.
Top people at Nakamichi left and started a company called Sound Sream apparently
Nakamichi still has some hits. The Dragon 11.4.6 Atmos surround system (which capitalizes on name from the coveted tape deck from the mid-late 1990s) has been very positively received. But it's also ludicrously expensive for what it is.
I remember Nakamichi tape decks from the 80s/90s were the greatest.
@@jafa1402 My dad had one. Specifically tuned to two specific brand/type of tapes. One normal and one high quality/bias/chrome. Combined with a Quad amp it sounded great.
It's not a "genuine" Nakamichi - they'd never have quality control issues like that where a connector could work its way out of the board. Sadly many well known "brand" names like Nakamichi were abandoned in the 80s and 90s and have been taken over by chinese manufacturers who rest on the previously good name to sell their junk. This amp is slightly better than most of the chinese stuff I see, so they did put a bit of effort into it but the budget build quality is still evident. I can tell that just by looking at it.
Actually, having worked on many genuine nakamichi receivers and amplifiers, I always made it a point to exercise every single connector and check them again for intermittens by wiggling them. Often I would flush them with alcohol too just to make sure they were well degreased but usually pulling them off and pushing them back on would wipe off any minor oxidation. The soldering to the pins of the connector on the circuit boards was also a common failure point on many older Nakamichis and a lot of equipment in general with these types of push on connectors. Lord only knows how many thousands of pins I must have resoldered over the years on those types of connectors!
Unfortunately that's pretty much the fate of most once-big companies in the electronics sector (and elsewhere). All the German brand names like Telefunken, Grundig, Schaub-Lorenz, Blaupunkt, AEG etc. have had the same happen, where the only thing that still exists is a holding company that will license out the name to be put on any kind of generic chinese junk, and the same is the case for a ton of american brands (RCA etc) and probably plenty of british ones too, just can't think of an example from the top of my head
Seeing the very ordinary hook up wire on the inputs between sockets and board shows what a waste of money ‘audiophile” interconnect cables are! Nice video - don’t knock easy repairs always good to see inside the box!
Don't get me started!, but yeah, now if this was built like test equipment with a good manufacturer, those connector would be banned, instead firmly bound to the PCB using a high quality interconnect. There is really no help for those audiophile monkeys, they believe anything!
Hi Mark, it doesn't matter about the length of the video, it's the content that counts and as usual, you haven't let us down. Keep up the good work.
Nakamichi tape decks are a beauty to behold. lovely amp, nice fix Mark. Glad You did filmed It. Can't wait for the next one.
Yeah, though you'd think this amp was actually quite modern!
I like the easy ones. just once in a while you get lucky with a fault that stares at you.
Far better than having to remove any of the pcb's.
I feel cheated!! But since I paid nothing for the video, what a bargain!!
Ya I felt screwed but then he removed all those screws 🪛😅
@@supercompooper He should have charged by the bit rotation on that one!
An easy repair, but what an amp! It makes my Kenny from your earlier video look very domestic! Great video as ever.
This looks fairly modern. I thought Nak died in the late '90s - when was this from?
Bit disappointing that they've joined the ranks of Chinese build quality merchants who use inferior JST-style connectors then glob them down with glue to make up for the crappiness. I've seen quite a few cases of infant mortality due to these things working loose in transit, horrible things. The original Japanese ones worked.
You are right. Nak did die in the late 90s and the name has been taken up by just another cheap chinese manufacturer. The Nak of today has nothing to do with the Nak of old. If you look carefully at this amp you can see it's china junk, although slightly better than the usual junk they offer.
@@sw6188 So true! Nak tape decks were awesome!
One wonders how such a fault occurred. That plus the potential capacitive coupling between grounds makes me think that maybe Nakamichi quality isn't all it is hyped up to be. Thank you again Mark for making and sharing another interesting video.
Maybe a litz weave on those grounds to banish any coupling. Ground wires were a hasty pudding afterthought maybe? I thought a better solution would have been on the underside, with possible shielding by the caseworks, shorter wires in any event.
A grounded solid brass or copper bar to connect al those channel pcb's to, with short wiring, will do a better job. Or a ground plane construction. The way Nakamichi did this is completely bullocks.
Nakamichi is not the brand it was. The name now graces some pretty woeful equipment.
The build quality of this amp is not anywhere near the quality of the stuff they were making in the 1980's
How about a dab of hot glue on that connector? Looked like the base had been pulled up off the PCB pins. A couple of dabs of hot glue would prevent that from happening again? I'd also have done the same on the other connectors for preventative measure. But we do all like when an easy one comes along.
I wish you could fix my Sony mini system model . Mh70 the CD player doesn't work & it ejects the disc tray when not pressed.
I know nothing about electronics but can’t get enough of this channel it’s awesome. Binge watching all the videos😂.
Glad you filmed it. Nice to see inside that brute. Red circuit boards!
Wow! They even painted the edges of red circuit boards in black. Quality.
Nakamichi! I didn't know Mr. N himself died that's a shame. RIP Mr. Nakamichi.
Back in the 80's I owned a Nakamichi 482 3-head cassette deck that was wonderful. Then I bought a 682ZX that was EVEN BETTER! You calibrated the recording parameters according to the individual characteristics of the cassette you were using, which only took 30 seconds or so. This set the deck up to achieve the maximum performance, regardless of the tape used. What a magnificent unit that was! With Dolby-C & TDK Super Avilyn (SA) cassettes, switching between the music that was being recorded ONTO the tape, then playing back the actual recorded music a half second later (because, again, of the 3 separate heads), the sound quality was indistinguishable. Geez I loved that deck!
This amp, as has been said, was built after the Mr. Nakamichi era. And yes, losing a channel simply because a bloody stupid plug had fallen out would not have occurred in their heyday I'm sure. Mr. N would have rolled in his grave I'm sure after hearing what happened to this amp! Still, 'only a plug fallen out' is not that major a repair after quite a few years!
I have a Nakamichi tuner/amp (350 in the model number I think) somewhere that I was given years ago, that I must return to one day to repair.
i still have a 600 from my dad. i will not give that thing up.
SA-X was better and only a little bit more than the SA. For the $1 at the time extra cost the performance increase was substantial. I know I extensively used both and stopped using SA's even if they were on special. I still have the Akai GX-7 3 head which I used these on. I can't bear to part with it. I also have a 6 head Akai GX-635d reel to reel which is just a joy.
Not intersting? Never seen an amplifier like this before. Odd: 7 channels...
AV, surround sound amp, 7 channels speakers.
Nakamichi made some very nice equipment.
And some scrap, like the sound space 3 😂
And then also there’s this?
Yeah, I remember amps like the PA7E, it was amazing, still sad I sold it
@@jean-philippefahrni8415 , The Niro brand mini systems were also complete crap and they all failed prematurely due to crappy capacitors. There was no doubt that it was all over for the original nakamichi company when they started building junk like the Music Bank and Soundspace series aimed at the Sharper Image customers.
@@WeinStefan32 I've repaired a number of PA5 and PA7 amplifiers. There were A versions and series 2 versions and also the E version of these and each had their own unique issues but the one common problem was that they all ran quite hot and the solder joints would break down, and the foils would delaminate from the circuit boards, as well as drying out capacitors prematurely from the heat. The driver and especially pre driver transistors were undersized for the job and ran quite hot and so we used to upgrade to larger more rugged devices and add heat sinks. The virus and DC offset trim pots often cracked and became intermittent or drifted in value and setting and so I would use install 20 or 30 turn replacement trimpots in order to keep the bias setting stable.
Nope, was still worth watching😊
I know the feeling when we used to get a "just re seat it" and it worked😊 on an Aircraft, I'm a retired Aircraft tech. (Must be ready by Morning 😢) , an extra brew rather than none at all 😂 Thanks Mark for taking me back 20 years 👍
Hahaha. Re-racked LRU IAW AMM (insert manual and chapter here) All ops now check normal. I’ve written that in logbooks many times!
@@Fireship1 Me too ✋️ further air test required, no fault found, satis , 😊, and invariably, it was okay 👌 after.
This looks like an emotiva amp, modular
Nakami(China)... 😁
“There is even an extra foot in the middle… it knows it’s overweight”. Lol
Hi Mark your still a fascinating guy to watch sort things out, no matter how esy. Thanks 👍
Can you help……
I’m looking to get my Gilbert gramophone fixed and serviced.
Can you help
I’m in Mid Wales
Can you help ?
Oi, Mark! Don't hurt your back, lad. Heavy iron's what did me, so it's a care to yank the amps around. Lucky to be standing, right? All the best...
Emotiva OEM Poweramp, labeld with Name Nakamichi.
Nakamichi is now only the Name for some China Products.
Old Naka's Tape, Tuner and AMPs was Great Qualify Products with massive Chassis. The biggest power amp was designed by Nelson Pass in the 90 th.
REPAIR COST BREAKDOWN:
Terminal reseat: 1.50
Screwdriver wear and tear: 455
Mr Nakamiche was trying to find a name for his new cassette player. Then his wife said my mother's coming around tonight. Light bulb moment
I’m on a run of easy fixes - i can feel an absolute bar steward coming soon.
An absolute fudge king bar steward as well.
Thank you for being so modest I'm a hobbyist electronics man and you always present evreything new and old with same passion and even show you getting electrocuted every once in a while. Then you throw an amp like this in. A lot of people obviously hold you in very high regard but at the same time with no pretence you make theese wonderful videos that make what you are doing understandable to the common folk. Thank you however I now 'NEED' a spectrum analyser is there any chance you could have a word with my missus because the bench top LCR meter I just bought did not go down well.....
I have a hp 3561a searching for a new owner 😅
Please do not tempt me the sofa is not as comfortable as the bed and been there for a week already on the back of the LCR meter.
I've ended up with a few decent pieces of hifi because I bought them cheap as 'broken' and found they only needed cheap repairs.
Thats how I got both my Adcom amps. The 5x5 series have internal fuses you can't see unless you take the cover off. Both of mine were DOA, but fired right up after the fuse was replaced. I toned them and tired to find whatever caused the fuse to blow in the first place. That was years ago. Still pounding the ground with my JBLs all this time later.
Yes! A new video! 🙂
This is not Nakamichi as many will remember, with the great cassette decks, rather the name and branding that was bought and reused.
These were not actually that good. We tried that and the matching AV pre in a home cinema 7.2 set up and it was very underwhelming.
They were rather cheap, despite the claimed RRP, continually on discount, around £500 per unit if I remember may even have been less, certainly not a high end product, just a cheap, around 100W claimed per channel, and later rebranded as Iota, which still are available today for a dumb price of £1300 when they couldnt sell em for £500 without faults and returns.
A lot were bought simply due to the old name and what looked like a great quality unit, until opened and the amp modules seen, the things were brash and ran out of steam and I am sure the AV processor had a few issues with software and updates, many of them developed faults or simply failed when used in long sessions.
But the biggest seller was balanced cables and fancy looking binding posts. At the time it was massively discounted with what turned out to be a fake RRP, so you were seeing what looked like a massive high grade AV power amp with many high quality connections and what many wanted, XLR.
These quickly were sold on, they were fetching around £350 second hand back then, replaced with Denon DN500AV and a brace of Yamaha power amps that outperformed the Naks with no effort.
A local band I followed back in the late 70's had a Marantz power amp that they ran their audio thru. On the front, it had one large knob. That's it!! All the mics & instruments went thru a mixing board and then to the power amp. Don't know what the max power out was.
Great! If you had not decided to video this repair I would never got to see what it looked like inside! I'm happy! Thanks.
Mark is amazing. Love watching you work, very talented even with "easy" problem solving!
Love what you do. Really interesting and relaxing. Thank you.
Dreaming about a room with all the best from 70-90’s Tandberg.
On the door in it have a sign; No SMPS Allowed!!!!
Even phone chargers will not enter!!
Hi I'm from India and a fan off your channel I've watched a number of your videos and you make it look so easy... I have a question for you... Have you worked on tube or Vantage tube amplifiers..
I'm very glad I found your channel. You're an absolute Jack of many trades with an astounding set of machines and skills. Congrats! subscribed, of course.
Interesting. Certainly some effort has been made to make something half decent. It's trying to look like quality even on the inside but those connectors give the game away as those crazy ground wires. The lab tested ruthless quality of real Nakamichi ain't there. If it's not made in Japan it's not Nakamichi. Just the brand being used to separate nostalgic punters from their £££. The amount of classic brand these days being used for Chinese tat is staggering
I don’t think they ‘demand’ gold plated anything, it’s the manufactures who think there’s a need for it. However, as an audiophile myself, I do expect a connection which doesn’t degrade too much over time so I use cables mainly with nickel plated plugs which don’t cost an arm and a leg. Some audiophiles are proper nerds and will believe all what the manufacturer will tell them. One just has to have a listen and judge for yourself.
oh my god you are a real machine, doctor of electrical engineering hats off. where is your workshop located? what is your address to send for service??
I love watching you, you are funny and professional.!
First impression when you took off the lid: bunch of Aliexpress boards thrown in a box. Not quite bad given the choice of components and configuration, but definitely not Japanese Nak.
what a lovely piece of kit - what would this amp be aimed at - orchestral music or very loud rock music?
A great channel Mark...I wish I knew something about electronics like you do...this channel is a You Tube Hidden Gem!
It's a power amp 'aimed at' AV use, obviously.
@@BTW... For the Loud TV crowd. They should've sent that ground fix back to the engineers for an intelligent re work.
Its a 5.1 meant for surround sound as in TV and Video.
"It knows it's overweight".. That was worth the price of admission right there
so the inside cables are just normal wire and the sockets outside are golden connectors LOL .......
For such a high-end amp, I wasn't impressed by the "Wrist Slasher" cable ties!
Hello, I watch your videos and I admire your talent and your level of knowledge, I am also dedicated to repairs but only at the user level, doing small restorations of audio systems from the 90s. Your lab is tremendous, with everything a technician would want. I currently have a Sony TC-U6 cassette deck in my collection and I would love for it to go through your workshop and be repaired with your seal of quality, but I am from Chile and we are a bit far away. Greetings and thanks for sharing your great work and your knowledge.
That amplifier is beautiful, I want one
There's iota, tonewinner, and emotiva.
Same oem
Oh, the good ol' "knacker-me" equipment.
I have a paradigm amp i need repaired it goes to a studio sub 12. Its a older sub but i like it and i would like to get it repaired at a decent price. Or get some advice on if i should just use kt as a passive sub?
But then i would have to get 2 amps because the sub is dual voice coil. To run it properly well not even properly because no home theater subwoofer amps i know of are 3600 watts
Film everything even if its an easy repair. I always learn something. Thank you for all your videos.
That is a really weird but really interesting amplifier, it has nothing in front except for the switch
なんすか？これ。 HTAをやっていた 昔のナカミチアメリカの設計ですか？
I know this is a Japanese product but is the board inside made in China? Because thats usually what it means in car audio amplifiers. Red is china
I’d be charging a quid a screw. What a beast
I still have a Nakamichi cassette player from 1978.
I’m really enjoying your videos and choice of repairs to share. Also, I wish I was as jolly as you (I mean that in the most respectful way!)!
Is this Nakamichi amp still on sale? I’ve never seen a Nak multichannel amp like that before
"It knows it's overweight" 😅 brilliant
Put the Arabic translation engineer in the movie, thank you😢
Thats one beefy amplifier 🎉 it look very strudy
Can you PLEASE start doing collaborations with Techmoan? Watching him try to fix things is genuinely painful. He needs you, man. 😂
In his latest Patreon video Techmoan explained why he has very little interest in partnering with anyone to help fix stuff that he can't.
Hi there - how can I play Region 1 discs on this machine, is there a hack please?
Yea but, sometimes its those easy things we miss! Good example of that... Cheers!
Nice dig at the surround sound mob :)
Just subscribed because I have the same Oscope you are using in this video
Was actually really nice to see faults can be really easy to fix. Although it makes you wonder how the connect moved!
Hi. we wiat your new video. Thank's your works.
What was that distortion on the waveform at 1:15 that Mark was not worried about?
Hi Mark I really enjoy your videos and learn a lot from you! Please keep uploading your repairs and restoration projects as you do a terrific job at educational videos! Great job 👍
Only recently discovered your channel Mark. Watching your videos is just the best way to chill out! I only have a very basic knowledge of electrical things, but your videos are just brilliant. I need more uploads though because I've been hinge watching your content. Thank you for your videos. You're is now my go to channel. Love all of your videos and content.
5:32-5:37 How to repair AVP1, short version
Am I the only one droolig all over the keyboard?
You cant beat a Nakamichi make as they say dont make them like that any more hahaha
In nice to see the easy ones too as it shows it not always needed to have a ton of tools to fix things , thanks for shareing.
i understood nothing but still found it interesting. 😄
Wish I'd kept my Nakamichi tape deck :(
Sucks. Nakamichi is piece
of junk. / Just fix it,
and throw it away.
Ho, ho, ho, ho.... 😂👍 😂👍
Hi Mark
I have a question for you. I have an Denon amp with a fixed power cord. I wish to convert the fixed power by unclipping the cord from the internal board (easy part) then snipping at the appropriate length and soldering to an two prong IEC inlet. I then clip the the internal connector back in and fix the new inlet to the chassis of the amp. I have done this before this giving me a removable power cord. My question is the 0.75mm (2) power cable is double insulated bare copper at 20 awg. Can I replace that with 16 awg tinned copper?
The amp in question is an Denon PMA800NE.
The power that will feed the amp will be a MCRU cord at 14awg but as I understand the amp will only draw what it needs so I don’t have an issues with the exterior gauge.
Please do more av receiver repairs i would love to see them 😢
Nakamichi hasn't been Nakamichi since the 90's
It's time for a decent microphone!!
Hello Mark, I have a question? Which liquid do you use for PCB in your ultrasonic machine?
Kind regards, Bas from Germany.
I hope you're getting sponsorship from Aldi?
Great vid lad....can I ask what this amp would generally be used for?
home theatre
I could have fixed this one! 😄
Recently discovered your channel new sub thanks.
Nothing wrong with posting a simple fix.. in fact its just as important to the complex fixes if there are any electronics techs and DIYers trying to learn fault effecient find process..
I struggled when started this game in the 1980s. I always went for the complex way. Lol then my boss sat down with me and said. "Always start at the power supply 9 times out of 10 most you'll find the problem from there". Sure a gross over simplification but it forced me to do the most basic chks first and it worked.
Love your stuff keep em coming 😊😊
You forgot to change the sticker to a green one 😊
Your intro always makes me cringe when you get that jolt. Watching I feel like an apprentice all over again. Glad I found your channel. Excellent work as always.
When you start showing how many screws to take it apart, I'm yellin' at the TV, check the board, check the board! Good Lord Man, easy stuff first.
First time here - I Enjoyed your video it was very clear , educational and you have a positive personality good work Mark. Hello from Ontario Canada. Unique amplifier as well. I never see Nak stuff around these parts and seems to retain the ethic they put into the familiar tape machines.