If it’s the selector knob on the amp you could try cleaning it. You can buy electrical switch cleaner in an aerosol form. Spray it into the knob and work it throughout it’s range. YouTube has loads of videos on it. Got to be worth a go for £5 or so?

It was a good amp in it’s day and possibly still has years left in it.

I have a pair of those speakers that I bought off eBay years ago, they sound good to my ears. I have read that they are similar to some EPOS speakers, as at the time of manufacturer they were sister companies.

just reading up on it and i think im leaning towards it now, if only for the musiccast app and the multi-room. i dont need multi-room, but it seems a bit more ‘futureproof’ and means my lads can effectively have their own sound system in their rooms if they so desire, just with a family deezer account, compatible speaker and the app on their phone.

i will try sorting the amp knob out first tho, nothing to lose. the superfi lad did say tho that its highly likely its knackered, he looked into fixing his and couldnt so sold it on. apparently that amps very desirable still even when broken 😮
he was very good, googling pictures of the internals showing me the actual selector knob casing inside the amp, stating that its a common fault and a right faff to fix. people have been known to drill little holes into the casing to take it off or something like that, didnt really understand too much 😀
ill put it all back together again tho and spray with leccy cleaner, my attempt at fixing wont be going as far as drilling 😀

forgot, matey also mentioned my speakers may not sound as good with the smaller systems like the denon/yamaha due to them being 60w or something, and my speakers ideally want >100w? said those systems may actually sound better with smaller more suited speakers. i did wonder if he was just trying to sell me more stuff, but i think he was just genuinely enthusiastic and knowledgeable about his job. it was good chatting to him and he tried explaining ‘complicated’ things to me in a simple way.
he asked if i could bring em in to their ‘listening room’ to test em with different equipment, but i dont think ive got an ear for small differences like that 😀

Room will be different do not a lot of point, you need to test with those speakers in your room.

Denon amps are often quite capable.

Room will be different do not a lot of point, you need to test with those speakers in your room.

yeah tis true, i think it was just to see if i could notice the difference between different sized amps with the speakers.

found this web page which pretty much implies that cleaning the selector would be fruitless. (3rd article down)

then found this page which details the methods a couple of people have tried.

this is the inside of the selector switch that needs accessing to clean.

if im going to bin the amp anyway, i may as well have a bash at trying to cut into the switch housing with a multi-tool or something…..

forgot, matey also mentioned my speakers may not sound as good with the smaller systems like the denon/yamaha due to them being 60w or something, and my speakers ideally want >100w? said those systems may actually sound better with smaller more suited speakers. i did wonder if he was just trying to sell me more stuff, but i think he was just genuinely enthusiastic and knowledgeable about his job. it was good chatting to him and he tried explaining ‘complicated’ things to me in a simple way.

Makes sense, it might also be a current issue, as in horsepower and torque in car engines, some speakers require more current rather than watts, valve amps are known for their ability to drive ‘difficult’ speakers, despite often only putting out around 25-50 watts, like having a small, torquey diesel engine or steam engine, if you see what I mean.
Smaller boxes allow more versatile placing, and they can be shelf mounted, close to walls which gives a bit of a boost to the bottom end, some are rear-ported, to take that effect into account; large speakers are usually unsuited to being stuck in corners, close to walls, because they can be ‘boomy’ as a result.
Of course, I’m referencing info I picked up in the 80’s when I used to sell hifi, and things change, but you canna change the laws of physics, or acoustics, so I think things are pretty much the same.
Shame the fault is a switch, rather than a shonky banana plug, things would have been so much simpler…

Go to a number proper hifi shops and tell them what you would like. See what they come up with regarding tech and budget.

You can buy certain things on line but hifi isn’t one of them unless you’re prepared to make mistakes along the way.

yeah tis true, i think it was just to see if i could notice the difference between different sized amps with the speakers.

still not valid – the way your speakers drive your room may mean that your power requirements are very different from those needed in the shop listening room – listening distances, shape of room and resonances, position of speakers within the room and which resonances get excited, etc. And worse if it was on the shop floor rather than a dedicated listening room.

Some smaller speakers are often a lot more difficult to drive well than larger speakers, as long as you have the room to accomodate larger speakers. And small speakers often show up differences in amps much more readily as they have different, and deficient, bass handling and the amount of bass present makes a huge difference to your perception of the balance of the sound.

If you were happy with your Arcam and those speakers then I would get the arcam serviced, if it is old it will likely need new capacitors for example.

My amp is an 80’s Technics with some ridiculous and mostly pointless switches.
A local retired engineer serviced it and sorted out the crackling switches changed some bits and bobs and it sounds great to me( better than sonos anyway).

I would fix up the amp and plug Alexa or your choice of streaming music into it.

hmmmm okay, thanks chaps. must admit id like to keep the amp but im not wanting to throw money at a problem thats difficult to fix and may become expensive. add to that my method of listening is more modern now (streaming) and i just thought its time to bite the bullet and move with the times……

what i plan to do tomorrow is use either a multi-tool or a battery operated ring cutter we have at work and try and cut into that selector box ^^^, open it up like a tin can and clean it out 😀
not really sure how easy thatll be but i figure theres nowt to lose.

I would fix up the amp and plug Alexa or your choice of streaming music into it.

what would be your choice of streaming, chromecast audio? or is there something better that maybe streams both wifi and bluetooth with good quality?

cheers

I was lucky in having the audio engineer on hand, maybe worth a google around youre area someone may do similar work.

If not that denon amp looked pretty good to me. Regards source I’m not sure whats best I dont like apps find them a faff. I have a CD player to listen properly and Alexa using amazon music for background or party music.

I like Alexa because I prefer talking to tapping, anything else seems old fashioned!

ill have a play with it myself mate, always more satisfying if you can fix something for nothing and learn something while youre at it.

if i cant get into it with a multi-tool or ring cutter i may change my mind 😀

had a google of ‘deezer vs amazon music’ to see if im missing a trick and i could get the same sort of quality and range of music from amazon but include prime into the mix for the same money, but it seems deezer and spotify still seem better regarded than amazon.
im also the opposite to you in that id probably feel a bit daft shouting “play x-ray spex germ free adolescents” at a box on the side, id rather just tap tap tap on a phone or laptop 🙂

thanks

id probably feel a bit daft shouting “play x-ray spex germ free adolescents” at a box on the side

Alcohol seems to cure that. 😉

I would try them all all, on trials if possible until you find what works for you.

I would still get it properly serviced if it is getting on in age – a mate has some lovel very-expensive Spendor floorstanders but they don’t sound great at all as his old Talk amps need a service.

well i rang a local hifi shop who said theyd charge around £60 to have a look at it and see if its serviceable, but said that even if they managed to desolder, clean up then resolder, it may only last a few months and they dont sell them any more. so that made up my mind, no chucking money at it, ill try meself or scrap it.
heres the ‘before’ pic, selector switch is the silver block top left.

tried a ring cutter first, didnt cut the mustard, kept stopping as not enough power. tried a multi tool which still took a fair bit of effort to get through the substantial stainless steel cover. eventually split the cover and peeled it up from the back to expose the contacts.

and thats where it stops for now as i forgot to bring my electrical cleaner to work with me, dohhhhh. ill see if i can borrow some from a mate, if not itll be 4 days til im back home again. plan is to somehow soak the contacts whilst continually moving the selector switch. havent sussed out the best way of doing that yet 😀

right, home now and put it all together and its not working properly, but…… id like to check a couple of things with you first before i scrap it?

whats happening is no sound to LH speaker in stereo. but…. there is sound in mono, which suggests its not a speaker fault.

also at the back of the amp there are speaker connectors for SP1 and SP2. ive got mine in SP2 and the SP2 button pressed in on the front. thats almost certainly right but i just wondered if there could be any chance of them working in SP1 (whatever the SPs are)

clutching at straws i know, the only other thing i can think of trying is swapping the 2 speaker wires around in the back of the amp for the LH speaker.
you know how you used to have a black line on one of the strands on speaker cable, i never really knew what it meant but i assume it meant the cables should go in one particular way round. well both my strands are plain white, so could that cause a ‘mono but not stereo’ problem if they were wrong way round?

problem is exactly the same if i try red/white plugs in all the different inputs, cd, tuner, tape etc.

ill probably p1ss about with it for a bit longer before giving in but just after some ‘hifi savvy’ thoughts on possible reasons for speakers having mono sound but nothing when switched to stereo.

thanks

I had a crackly amp that had selector issues. I sprayed wd40 into the moving bits and it fixed it, completely unscientific approach. Worth trying before shelling out.

s’wat ive been trying with electrical cleaner mate ^^^ 🙂

ta

If the speakers are connected the ‘wrong’ way round then they will just be out of phase, so bass performance will be cut a lot and the midrange/treble will sound ‘phasey’. It won’t go mono.

The SP1 and SP2 are probably just for two sets of speakers, I would have thought SP1 was the normal ones to use, so you might as well try it.

yeah, been swapping speaker cables about, SP1 and 2, nowt changes, the LH speaker has nothing in stereo, only mono whatever i do. i dont think theres anything left to swap about, have to accept its borked :-/

shame, as i like to resurrect dead things and save a bit of money, doesnt look like ill be successful in this case.

thanks for your help chaps.

sadexpunk – Member

whats happening is no sound to LH speaker in stereo. but…. there is sound in mono, which suggests its not a speaker fault.

Unlikely to be a speaker fault from the sounds of it. But sure fire way to check is to swap the speakers around and see if the fault stays on the same side.

also at the back of the amp there are speaker connectors for SP1 and SP2. ive got mine in SP2 and the SP2 button pressed in on the front. thats almost certainly right but i just wondered if there could be any chance of them working in SP1 (whatever the SPs are)

All this means is that there are outputs for 2 sets of speakers (SP1 being one set & SP2 being another set). Presumably you have 2 sets of speaker connections on the back of the amp, labelled SP1 & SP2?

A simple thing to try would be to swap them over to SP1, flick the SP1 switch & see if that works. I don’t know the architecture of an amplifiers design to know where the signals get sent & split, but trying this would only be 5 mins work.

clutching at straws i know, the only other thing i can think of trying is swapping the 2 speaker wires around in the back of the amp for the LH speaker.
you know how you used to have a black line on one of the strands on speaker cable, i never really knew what it meant but i assume it meant the cables should go in one particular way round. well both my strands are plain white, so could that cause a ‘mono but not stereo’ problem if they were wrong way round?

It won’t make any difference.
The terminals are coded red & black and wires normally have an identifier on them, so you wire both speakers up ‘the same way round’.
Each speaker doesn’t care which way round it gets a signal, but when you have a stereo pair you want them to be wired in the same way.
This means you have both speakers ‘in phase’. If you wire one speaker the other way round (so they are ‘out of phase’), the sound will likely be tinny & lacking in bass.

But sure fire way to check is to swap the speakers around and see if the fault stays on the same side.

that was the final thing i could check, just done it and as expected the speaker on t’other side works now so its the amp.

ah well :-/

thanks

well, ive been too busy lately to give any more time to this, so its about time i got sorted!

one thing i was thinking…… the favourite so far was the one advised ^^^, the yamaha CRX-N470D at £260, as it seemed to tick all the streaming options in a modern stylee.

now when anyone asks what tv to go for, the advice is nearly always to forget the streaming stuff and just get the best picture. could that apply here with music too? so get a decent ‘basic’ amp but utilise the modern attachments such as chromecast audio?

jus’ wundrin before i click ‘buy’ on something.

ta

ill try a bumpity bump for the audiophiles……

sadexpunk – Member

now when anyone asks what tv to go for, the advice is nearly always to forget the streaming stuff and just get the best picture. could that apply here with music too? so get a decent ‘basic’ amp but utilise the modern attachments such as chromecast audio?

I think the reasoning behind not worrying about the smart stuff with TVs is that it generally goes out of date on that particular TV in a couple of years and you end up with a load of obsolete apps. So, better to just get the TV you want & stick some kind of smart solution onto it; whether that be Amazon Fire/Chromecast/Now TV etc.

But, buying an ‘streaming’ amp isn’t quite the same (I don’t think, anyway). You are effectively buying an amp that is Wi-Fi enabled and can connect to a device, grab the music from it & play it.
I don’t think there is anything to go obsolete as such. You rely on the NAS drive/laptop/tablet etc. to grab the music from so that is the thing that will need to be kept up to date.

Hopefully there’ll be someone along soon with more experience of them than me, to back-up or rubbish my theory! 😆

i see what youre saying, but for ‘amazon fire/chromecast/NowTV’ you could read ‘chromecast audio’ for an amp couldnt you? i too dont know enough about these sort of things, but as the chromecast is on its v2 these days (i think), couldnt the chromecast audio (or any wifi receiver really) just get better and better with newer versions over the years and be cheaper to upgrade than the amp?

like i say, dont know the answer really. id like whatever i buy to have its own method of playing deezer say, so i could start playing a playlist and leave it/go out the room/to the shops etc and leave it playing for others in the house if my phone isnt within wifi reach. much like the tv chromecast, it opens the app, plays, and you can do what you like with your pc then until you stop casting.

hope thats not toooo confusing…..

apologies for the bump, but im just about to press ‘buy’ on that yamaha ^^^ for £260.

before i do, could i just check that im not making an expensive booboo? yes im sure its good value for what it does, but do i need it?

as dab and deezer will be our only music sources these days, i just need to make sure there isnt something cheapo-cheapo that i can plug my chromecast audio into thatll sound the same?

i understand i have to have an amp of some sort for my MS50 floor standing speakers to plug into, but i just need it confirming that the yamaha will give us the best bang for buck and i dont just need some small piece of kit for pennies that will sound exactly the same……

could you put my mind at rest please? 🙂

ta

Well you need a new amp so you won’t get one for pennies even without all the extra facilities the Yamaha offers. If I was in your situation, that Yamaha would be the sort of thing I’d look at. A cheaper option would be a second hand amp but if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for it can be a bit of a minefield. Buying something with the streamer built in like the Yamaha would mean you could get rid of the chromecast too and have a (hopefully) simple, all in one setup.

thanks, thats confirmed my thoughts, ill go ahead and buy it.

cheers

Oops, probably missed it.

The Yamaha is a good unit and you’ll be happy I’m sure.

The only other one near the price is the below, but it doesn’t have the features and built in stuff.

http://petertyson.co.uk/index.php/denon-d-m41dab-rcd-m41dab-hi-fi-system.html?gcpd&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_77u_YWC1wIVERQbCh2iygfhEAAYAiAAEgK4NfD_BwE

In relation to the TV analagy, I agree and only buy a TV based on its ability to display TV. The audio is handled elsewhere, as is the processing and handling of what ever streaming / source etc we choose to watch.

I’d likely be the same with amps, and get the best audio quality (and power needed) that I could for the money, with other boxes doing the streaming into it etc.

Having said that, if you are not chasing the nth degree in everything and conveneance is important, components with bits built in are not exacty bad.

Interested in how you get on with the Yamaha as I recent got a Marantz CR611 network cd-receiver… (for £300).

It’s a bit a beast and I have problems trying to play stuff off the laptop as with 4g wifi I don’t have a ‘home network’ to connect to/through… 😳

Think it would stream easy enough though.

Having said that, if you are not chasing the nth degree in everything and conveneance is important, components with bits built in are not exacty bad.

convenience definitely key, ive spoken with the salesman who insists itll be fine, im just a bit wary of having to go through the dedicated ‘music cast’ app for deezer rather than deezer itself. he insists its intuitive. i just want to open deezer, select a song/album/playlist, hit ‘select’, and bingo its playing.

itll be interesting to compare the different methods…..
1. deezer through the music cast app built in to amp.
2. deezer through the chromecast audio which will be plugged into an input.
3. deexer through tv/chromecast where tv also goes through a different input

bit late if i find out i dont need the built in stuff tho, but if its a decent amp i spose theres nothing lost.

Interested in how you get on with the Yamaha as I recent got a Marantz CR611 network cd-receiver… (for £300).

ill report back when i get it next week.

well im back home this morning and have set it up for a play.

sound is good altho id like it to be a bit more ‘bass-heavy’ so could shake the walls if i wanted to 🙂 had a look at the settings and bass and treble were set to 0 so i set bass to 10 (max) and treble to 9, also selected some enhancer setting, made a bit of difference but not as much as id have liked. if i crank it up it does get really loud so im happy with that, altho most of its use will be background radio (6 music).

i spose not being bass heavy means that it feels like the sound is ‘cleaner’ than usual, not even sure what i mean by that, im no hi-fi buff but everythings quite clear and the volume knob has a lot of range to go from low to high. just be nice to have a simple setting to bounce the house around tho.

hows that for a ‘hifi thickies’ review! 😉

connectivity is good, i was a bit apprehensive about the musiccast app but its intuitive and most pleasing of all is that deezer is a quick click away on the mobile app, so its easy enough to use that rather than the deezer app on my phone.

itll be interesting to compare the different methods…..
1. deezer through the music cast app built in to amp.
2. deezer through the chromecast audio which will be plugged into an input.
3. deezer through tv/chromecast where tv also goes through a different input

1. good
2. cant tell the difference between that and the app so have disconnected the chromecast audio now as not reqd
3. again, no noticeable difference, but i use the chromecast anyway so will leave that in tv and go through phone/cc/tv/amp should i ever feel like looking at the record sleeves while the musics playing….

i have one issue at present and thats the bluetooth connectivity. should never need it if wifis running but thought id try it anyway for peace of mind and its shocking. stop-start, music speeds up and slows down, its unlistenable.
the units in a wooden hifi cabinet but the antennas sticking out the back, ive tried putting my phone up really close to the front, the back, inside the unit, doesnt make any difference, its sh1t. (another professional review 😆 )

only other thing to try there is take the amp out the cabinet and stick it on top and see if that makes any difference but as i dont really need bluetooth im not sure i can be bothered right now.
id appreciate any advice on that from any bluetooth experts?

thanks