Posted by LutherG (A) on October 03, 2012 at 22:18:24

In Reply to: RE: Well said. Could not agree more with posted by Sondek on October 02, 2012 at 13:05:25

That's a beautiful system and of course, the speakers are what I hope mine will be again soon... :D

My apologies for lack of responses the last few days. I'm finishing up my parents' house and am about to put it on the market so I'm in my final push to get this done.

I emailed Roy at Sounds Like New and received a response. It'll be $800 to rebuild the interfaces and he was not a fan of all the extra capacitance added... I remember by buddy Ernie telling me he'd once sent them back to Acoustat and one of the guys there really giving him a hard time about the added caps but Ernie always said they sounded better that way and I have to say they sounded awefully good!

Here is what Roy (who apparently used to work for Acoustat) said about the panels: "For the panels, you can take them out of the frames, take off the 3-pin plug and either gently hose the panels down on both sides.... or submerge them for a few minutes in bathtub.

You can use a gently soapy water.... then rinse. Shake out the excess water or use an air compressor ...gently... to blow out the excess. Then they must air dry for two weeks before reinstalling into the frames.

Take care to re-connect the three wires of each panel in the correct order to the 3-pin plug. Washing panels per the above was how we told folks to do it when they asked us at the factory."

Of the interfaces, he had the following to say:

"Your interfaces are easily, the worst I have seen. I would have to rip out everything and start over. Those grotesque capacitors and other ADDED parts must go. I cannot tell from just photos, what else might be needed. The cost will be $800.00 prepaid including return shipping by personal check or MO, included in the shipment if you want me to restore... to much better than new....the pair of interfaces.

All work is by appointment only.

If the two LF transformers are damaged, another 300 dollars will be required to be sent ...later....to cover those. Since flooding occurred in 1994 it is possible all of the transformers have dried out and may be OK.

Your interfaces are the rare elongated box type MK121-1.

We called them Universal Interfaces and very few of them were made. Finding replacement interfaces of this type would be nearly impossible."

I'm very tempted to send the interfaces to him to rebuild. I have found a schematic of these interfaces and so with that, I think I will first put the interfaces on a Variac and slowly bring them up to full voltage and see how things measure to verify the transformers are at least not shorted anywhere... I'd like to see if these will work again before dropping the money to have them rebuilt though I don't doubt what Roy said he could do with these.... I've got to sell this house first before I put that kind of money into these interfaces.

Plus, I want to see how the panels will turn out. I asked Roy if he could do anything to repair or rebuild a damaged panel and am still awaiting a reply...

Anyways, I'll definately be back on this project very soon. If any of you have any thoughts about anything in this post I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.

I wish you guys all the best, and thanks very much for all of your posts and photos! I'm really jazzed about getting these going again. At least now I know that I have Roy as a resource so, if worse comes to worse, I know he can completely rebuild the interfaces... should the need to do that arise...

So, on to the panels...

Cheers,

Luther