Hello,

My Arcam A35 integrated amp appears to have just died:

Push button, turns on, lasts about a half hour and then what I can only assume is the relay to power the main amp starts clicking. Constantly. Power light turns orange. No sound.

Now I realise that I bought this over ten years ago, and its been faultless all that time, so I think I got my monies worth out of it, but…

Is it worth getting it repaired? Can I? Where?

If not, whats good these days so I can short list a listen from the local shop.

Thankyou.

Remove lid,

Apply can of compressed air to blow ten years' worth of dust out of the heat sinks and fans,

Replace lid,

Test,

If it still fails, buy a new one; if it works, buy me beer.

(oh – unplug it first!)

Yep, I've already acquired some cans from the supply cupboard in preparation, thought that may be just too hopeful, never usually works out like that for me 🙂

If it works for half an hour and then the safety cut off comes on, it is probably overheating or drifting into a large offset voltage or something similar.

This would most likely be due to changes in components over time (or could be dirt/dust). However, it may be fixable by simply adjusting some biasing resistors.

If you take it to someone who knows what they are doing they should be able to diagnose it fairly quickly.

Even if it's not just a build up of dust causing overheating I still wouldn't rule out getting it fixed as it might be cheap to do. I've got a few old Arcam amps (mostly Alpha 5+'s) dotted around the house and the last time I had to get one of those repaired it was cheap.

On the other hand I've also got a valve Audio Note Oto that I've been meaning to get repaired as it keeps blowing valves – not looking forward to what that's going to cost.