Lazarus Short
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2003
- Posts
- 3,366
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Almost a year ago, I stupidly killed my Cyrus 2 amp. I unplugged the tuner, thinking it was the turntable, and plugged it back in...while the amp was playing. Did I say "stupidly"? There was a thump, and then silence. I popped the hood to find that the heatsink was VERY hot. Dead, very dead. I had paid a lot of money to have the thing repaired, and then went on to recap the preamp section myself. What to do? It sat for a long time, and then I began to think - why not turn it into a preamp?
I turned the idea over and over in my mind, and eventually I did open it up and take a look at the underside of the PCB, where I could see the volume pot connections. Yes, it should be feasible. So...I soldered a pair of IXOS component video cables (with one set of plugs cut off) to the legs of the volume pot. It's just a matter of deciding which leg is the positive, which one the negative, which one the left, which one the right. Happily, L and R were marked, and it was easy to see which leg was for negative. I did the soldering, put everything back together and hooked the Cyrus "preamp" to my power amp.
I should say at this point that I had been using a Marantz tuner/preamp, the kind set up for multichannel use. There was something I did not like about its sound in stereo, though it was not a cheap component. With the Cyrus in its place, the magic I had heard when using the Cyrus as an integrated was back - smooth and sweet, but with transients that thrilled. The Cyrus is still there in my main system and I almost wish I had killed it sooner, or made it into a preamp before I invested in those expensive repairs to the outputs.
So, what do you do if you have a dead integrated? If it has pre-out and power-in, you've got it covered. Otherwise, see if you can solder in output cables like I did.
I turned the idea over and over in my mind, and eventually I did open it up and take a look at the underside of the PCB, where I could see the volume pot connections. Yes, it should be feasible. So...I soldered a pair of IXOS component video cables (with one set of plugs cut off) to the legs of the volume pot. It's just a matter of deciding which leg is the positive, which one the negative, which one the left, which one the right. Happily, L and R were marked, and it was easy to see which leg was for negative. I did the soldering, put everything back together and hooked the Cyrus "preamp" to my power amp.
I should say at this point that I had been using a Marantz tuner/preamp, the kind set up for multichannel use. There was something I did not like about its sound in stereo, though it was not a cheap component. With the Cyrus in its place, the magic I had heard when using the Cyrus as an integrated was back - smooth and sweet, but with transients that thrilled. The Cyrus is still there in my main system and I almost wish I had killed it sooner, or made it into a preamp before I invested in those expensive repairs to the outputs.
So, what do you do if you have a dead integrated? If it has pre-out and power-in, you've got it covered. Otherwise, see if you can solder in output cables like I did.
