Tuning the Vintage Marantz SR-1000 Receiver

While you're looking through your Equipment Closet you might want to take a peek at what treasures you have there. And like with most treasure you will want to do a little digging. On this thread I'm going to take you through a simple Tune up of the Classic brand Marantz. In particular the Marantz SR-1000 Receiver.
________________________________________________________________________________
"The Marantz SR-1000 receiver was at the end of the era for the great Marantz and was still owned by Superscope, some say this was the beginning of the Philips days, this product was on the cusp.

Although the build quality is probably not as high as the 22XX series it still has all the hallmark signatures and styling of the earlier Marantz products.

This unit is rated at 20 watts per channel into 8 ohms and 25 watts per channel at 4 ohms. The power meters peak at 40 WPC 8ohms and 80WPC at 4 ohms." Speakerholic
__________________________________________________________________________________


in my room

Here's how this started on facebook

"So lets say you're not the type to go all the way Tuning. You are into the whole free resonant speaker thing maybe and some of the wood Tuning products look doable. The Bare Essence and Picasso wire and cable, ok. But when it comes to the main component "the amplifier" you still want that high end appeal. You know, that one foot in the HEA door.

For me there's not a much better look than the late 70's-early 80's electronics. The receivers especially had that thing going on that said Stereo without having 5 components stacked or spread all over the place scaring off the neighbors and kids.
Some receivers you needed a fork lift so they're out, and some had too many buttons, gone. But did you know in almost every line up there are simply made super sounding units just waiting to get their Tune on? My Pioneer sx3400 is a great example.

Last week a Tunee asked me about other receivers out there that have the classic looks but still fairly tunable. I named off some but the more I looked discovered they aren't as easy to work with removing the covers and bottom plates, if they have them.
One of the features I look for, which is rare, is how the transformers are mounted and where. The 3400 has the transformer mounted on the side frame and I love it. While looking around my place and online I didn't really find that classic look with side mount and thought, maybe I should for the heck of it Tune up my Vintage Marantz and see how it does and......I looked inside.

Now I got this amp just to have that looks thing going on somewhere at my place with a few of my hippie posters up. I got it while I was comparing a bunch of bigger amps and happened to pick it up to notice it is only 14 lbs. It was so light at first I thought it was a tuner and not amp, nope it's an amp. I also did a quick compare and it sounded a lot better than the big over built boys once the Tuning Blocks were put underneath. However with everything going on it has sat on the shelf looking pretty. I could say "yeah I have a vintage Marantz" like those guys with vintage cars in the garage.

Back to the looking inside. Holy smokes, there's nothing inside and the transformer is mounted to the side frame, right where the Pioneer is. Oh I like the looks of this. Why did I never Tune this amp up before? This might make for a fun journey."

a few hours later another post

"I might start a thread on TuneLand about Tuning the Marantz SR-1000, we'll see. But for those onlooking let me give you an update.

Without any Tuning I played the SR-1000 for probably 30-60 minutes and thought "why even bother". The sound was like someone threw a blanket over the music, very uninteresting and a mix of brittle and muddy, and sounded forced. Did I really want to leave this breaking in when the Pioneer could easily kick this amps butt. But then that voice spoke and I decided to trust the Tune and see where it takes me, at least for a day....maybe.

This is when I removed the mass from the unit (some of the mass). First to go was the cover. I put the 1000 back in and noticed some of the mud had shifted positions in the frequency response. The mud wasn't gone simply moved down in pitch. I had the Marantz sitting on it's stock feet for a few minutes then picked it up and slid the LTR Blocks under, "Oh My what have we here". This is when I said "ok, I'm maybe down with this". Still not so good but I heard what I wanted to, the mechanical transfer wanted to happen.

The Marantz comes back out and I remove the bottom plate hosting the feet. Why companies can't hear the change as they're designing these things I have no idea, must never have studied physics I guess. I weighed the unit and already removed more than 3 pounds of bad sounding material. Now we're down to the frame which is actually very nicely designed and well balanced.
I put the Marantz back in the system this time with the frame sitting directly on the blocks and platform...Hello! Like I have heard so many times, the signal does not stop with the mechanical conduits passing the signal. This component has been reborn. The mud? Mostly gone. The soundstage has at least doubled and the highs have smoothed out. I'm going to let it play over night before clipping and wire ties but something is still really bugging me about the sound. Usually when I get to this stage there's a certain signature sound like the PCB is set free but I could hear this dampened sound that was right in the way of the signal. I needed to pull the receiver again and take a look. Bingo, there it was. On the bottom side of the circuit board there's a glued piece of rubber mounted so the bottom plate couldn't touch the board. If you tap on the board it sounds out of pitch and dead the closer you get to the rubber. Rubber removed and the circuit board has a nice deep tone when tapped and the pitchy sound, gone. Now lets put this thing back in. I sat there laughing after the first few notes "no one can believe this until they do it themselves".
I guess it's been playing maybe 4-5 hours and I'm going in for a listen. I'm rushing things I know but I've only done this 20,000 times, know what I mean.

Ok, came back for a second cause this is important. Without me touching the volume control through any of this just from what I have done so far the volume has almost doubled. Ok going back in."

and the last post before I started this thread

"Like a kid at Christmas I got up this morning greeted with warm tones coming from the listening area. The Marantz SR-1000 is enjoying it's new home.
When I first start playing an old classic piece of equipment the first night I usually sleep with one eye open. After a night of constant play the Marantz is barely throwing any heat at all. I can place my hand directly on the heat sink. Looks like I won't be cooking any eggs on this baby, I like that.

this is an important point

Older output stages don't like being captive without ventilation. You can do this experiment in your own home. I'll talk about that more on the thread.

Day 2 in the Tuning life of the Marantz SR-1000"

Early on in this thread I want to point out the comment from Speakerholic

"the build quality is probably not as high"

This will play into what we are doing vs what the industry has done in general. For the Tunee the chassis is merely the shipping enclosure and looks appeal.

Lets take the chassis cover off.



and without the bottom plate



Excuse my photo shopping. I wanted to use the same pic so you can have a comparison.

the top cover and bottom plate

Can we talk about heat and design for a moment.

If you look at almost all older amplifiers you'll either see the parts exposed to stay cool, or with fans, or with a cooling tool called heat sinks. Set aside all the technical talk, the reason you see this is because of a design flaw that hadn't yet been figured out. The audio signal doesn't need heat to get from one part of the audio chain to the next.

When amplifiers were first being designed they needed to be able to be shipped to their clients homes. Once there they needed to fit into some type of decor and be able to plug into the electrical system of the building. Audio components used the same in home electrical system as the other home appliances. It didn't take long for Stereos and TVs to take fashion and fit into certain shipping standards. On the home side components were made with feet and air vents so the products could be stack. Instead of letting the fair exchange of physics take place naturally with the audio parts spread out for better relationships which each other and tuned specifically for each physical environment, components where made shoving every thing in a chassis that worked for a particular market that settled on a particular size, most of the time a specific width. You've heard the phrase "rack mount".

The hunger for stereos took off so fast that the industry didn't take the time to get passed circuit design and on to the physics of a component. It didn't take long for fixing designing flaws to get put on the back burner as long as there was at least a bar set for good enough.  The event of stereo itself took listening to a whole new level so getting this concept to market could not be done fast enough and soon everyone had a stereo. That is everyone had stereo components that had not been fully developed. Engineers at that time were not up on the physics of audio and everything was about the circuit design. Design a product, put it in a cute package and get it out the door. If anyone has a question about the sound the explanation usually went measurements and tech talk without the art of actual listening being high on the list. Strange but very true. Designers didn't even understand that every time a component was moved to a different environment the physical parameters of the actual audio signal change completely. If this took place with an automobile of the day you would tune it, but there was no such thing for the mechanics of audio. Equalizers came out to help but still the actual physics was almost completely overlooked. Have a heat problem, lets add bigger fins, have a sound problem change the circuit, not able to mate with the speaker make a complicated crossover and cabinet.

Fact is simple designs have always sounded better than complicated and designs following the basics of physics have always been able to play more recordings successfully over the overbuilt designs. In HEA the reach for better sound went way of the rails and the tech talkers ended up producing their own unique language to fit the flaws and not find and execute the answers.

Does this mean audio components are poorly designed?

Before we get too tough on these guys lets look at what was done well. The amplifier design itself is a marvel. Being able to play music at different volumes is nothing shy of magical. Adding some of the same designs taken from audio mixers (balance and tone controls) can be a huge plus done right. Does one need a lot of watts has been shelved and some of the best sounding components ever built may very well be the simplest model of a brand. You won't hear this from your reviewer necessarily and certainly not from the designer use to selling at ridiculous prices or even the store training to sell up. Entry level should be praised and is instead put in the category of beginner. Insert consumer joke here.

Michael Green wrote:

Lets take the chassis cover off.



and without the bottom plate



Excuse my photo shopping. I wanted to use the same pic so you can have a comparison.

the top cover and bottom plate

HI Michael I have few questions to ask :

1) from this picture is the transformer screwed to the side chassis rather than the bottom plate?

2)Mg said :

  "On the bottom side of the circuit board there's a glued piece of rubber mounted so the bottom plate couldn't touch the board."  
 
   Tj asking:

   a) Is this the reason that got you thinking on working on the bottom plate?
  b) Also if the rubber footers were able to be removed would you have only removed that rubber footers rather than removing the
      whole bottom plate?

Great, the first Q&A of the thread. Thanks Tj

Tj asks

1) from this picture is the transformer screwed to the side chassis rather than the bottom plate?

mg

Yes, a rare design feature that I like a lot. The Pioneer sx 3400 (one of my references) is also mounted this way.

2)Mg said :

 "On the bottom side of the circuit board there's a glued piece of rubber mounted so the bottom plate couldn't touch the board."  

  Tj asking:

  a) Is this the reason that got you thinking on working on the bottom plate?

mg

No, when the bottom plate is on you can't see the rubber. If components have bottom plates I usually remove them so the distance between the plate and circuit board is more, plus many bottom plates interfere with the over all tonal balance of the signal. Some components perform ok with their bottom plate left on but it depends on the flow of transfer that makes me keep the plate on or off. This particular bottom plate dulled the sound dramatically when left on and also collapsed  the stage some.

Tj
  b) Also if the rubber footers were able to be removed would you have only removed that rubber footers rather than removing the
whole bottom plate?

mg
When I saw the bottom plate was removable and tapped on it, this is when I made the decision to remove it. I did do AB test to be sure.

I'll add this quote from my facebook too

"anyone who has not seen me do my thing, the Tuning approach may look different from other tweaking or modifying. So different that the very reason I choose a component to Tune is based on vibratory mechanics and not only circuit design."

I love listening to old (matured) electronic parts. When I hear someone planning "upgrading" the parts in a component I cringe. Parts don't get to their musical peak for many years of constant play.

Tuning is about vibratory gelling and every time we add something new to the chain it changes the chemistry, literally. "Chemistry is the science that deals with the properties, composition, and structure of substances (defined as elements and compounds), the transformations they undergo, and the energy that is released or absorbed during these processes." Older parts that have matured together have a sound that is unique to them. For example, many components built around the same time as the SR-1000 have a sound that is commonly referred to as "Tube like" even though these are solid state.

The setup at this point sounds very mature. A warmth that sucks me into the stage with a nice plump body to it. Not muddy but plump and round, very pleasant to listen to. I can say this about the Marantz SR-1000, it wants and likes to be Tuned. The SR-1000 stripped of it's cover and bottom plate responds nicely to the LTR Blocks. This is not the same animal we started with, not even close, and I haven't even started. If I wanted to be a lazy Tunee I could live with this combo so far. You can tell the Rev8 is not taxing the amp at all, they're having fun playfully dancing to every note.

Here's my facebook post this morning.

11 pounds of classic music. Three days ago I started on a new adventure, Tuning up a Vintage Marantz SR-1000 Receiver.
With some of the chassis fat removed this has become a different species. No longer is there that mechanical vibratory dullness sound. Now I can hear what this receiver can do using the Tuning Blocks. Fun!
Playing another one of my favs so I can reference what's going on.

I took a quick pic of the back for you to see. In looking up this model it appears I'm not the only one playing around with it.



Even the Marantz folks had several different versions of the back plate. You can tell they were in between designing moves. It seems this was right at the time Philips was taking over.

1952 Saul Marantz sells his first audio product, the "Consolette" pre-amp
1964 Marantz acquired by Superscope Inc.
1966 Beginning with the Model 25, and then 22 and 28, Marantz starts manufacturing its products in Japan through a partnership with Standard Radio Corp.
1974 A manufacturing plant is opened on the Péronnes-lez-Binche site, Walloon Region, Belgium
1975 Standard Radio Corp. changes its name to Marantz Japan Inc.
1980 Superscope sells the Marantz brand to Philips Electronics

Here's a view of the SR-1000 sitting on the Platform and LTR Blocks.



Thinking of playing the Marantz another day and then snipping the wire ties. There aren't a lot of ties to snip.

The only scare I've had so far was this morning when I heard a distortion from the right channel. Of course my mind did that "oh no" but quickly discovered a dirty volume pot. A couple up and downs and all was good at TuneLand again. Overall I think someone took pretty good care of this unit. Watch now it will shut off

Legend (Poco) is sounding very musical with this stage of Tuning. I can really hear the transfer of the units frame to Blocks then to Platform. I wonder how many people try to tweak this receiver with the bottom plate on? Big mistake in my book, this baby has enthusiastically come to life since letting it stretch it's mechanical wings. That transformer mounting is awesome.

Throughout the day the bass has gone from plumpy to plumpy tight, and there's tons of it. Still shocks me sometimes to see these little amp sections produce big bass. Goes to show you how extremely overbuilt some products are. I was also thinking while listening earlier that this particular unit has never been set free until now and is no doubt finding tones it never knew it had.

I've only played 3 cds so far and this last one started off weird in the first pass but by 2nd pass the SR-1000 found it's settling rhythm and has expanded wonderfully ever since. The inner detail has already found it's nice halo space within the soundstage with a surprising amount body and pace. I should also mention though that last night when I was playing "Blue Oyster Cult" the mid background vocals on "Don't fear" were excellent!

I usually wouldn't change CDs this quick but this amp has me curious about a couple things and I may need to switch over to the Pioneer sx 3400 to see what's up. Need more rooms

here's what I'm now playing, taken from my facebook page

Overnight I started on cracking the chassis screws and getting rid of the wire ties.



When you look at the unit without the cover and bottom plate you see the chassis frame that holds everything together. A part (cap resistor whatever) is attached to the board. The board is attached to the frame and the frame is hosting all the extras, like face plate, cover and bottom plates.

When you attach a part to the board, the board and the part become one in performance. What the board sounds like the part now sounds like. The board is now attached to the frame, and what the frame sounds like the board and part sounds like. It's one big or small vibratory mechanical network.

When you crack a screw (placing the screwdriver in it's slot and barely turning the screw to the left) you're allowing more of the vibratory energy from the part and board to flow into the frame. Picture a volume control for the mechanics of that particular physical area.

Note for first timers: go slow so you can hear what is taking place. You might want to crack a screw and let the unit play for a couple days till the vibration settles into a flow. Every component you Tune will have it's own transfer flow so don't assume every component will Tune the same or sound the same as you Tune.

How do you know you're heading in the right direction in setting the vibrations free? The easy sign that the vibrations are starting to expand is an increase in volume. For example with the Marantz SR-1000 I've already needed to turn down the volume 2 clicks on the volume control, that's a lot of gain.

Now, while you're doing this freeing up things are going to sound weird, like out of pitch until the vibrations start to gel. Don't let this bug you, it's just the audio code (signal) telling you the signal fundamentals and harmonics are in motion and haven't settled into an In-tune cycle of repetition yet. The frequency response will either settle with the general sound shifting up or shifting down. If you loosen a screw and a couple days later the sound has shifted up this means that you have vibratory blockage somewhere in the unit. Don't panic lol, loosen the next screw in line and let it settle. Soon you will start to hear the flow of the unit as a whole working together. Again I'm taking you through this in lightening speed so try not to rush. This is an art of patience.

It's time to talk about setting the wires free but we also need to work on the vibratory flow and transfer.

Just like with the screws being cracked, allowing the energy to flow, the components must end up sitting on something and that something also becomes part of the sound. For example if you put a piece of rubber under the component the sound will sound absorbed "rubbery". Try different materials and you'll hear the effect. I'll get more into this later but what I'm using with the Marantz are my LTR Tuning Blocks sitting on one of my Platforms.

You might say to yourself "snip the wire ties, really". At first look wire ties look harmless, how can this change the sound of a component?

Any mechanical conduit hosting an electric signal is by nature live. Live enough to shock you, no but live enough to allow the Earth's electromagnetic field to be a part of the audio signal. When you break down the physics of the Earth's energy it brings you down to some basic interacting fundamentals. I always tell people to do a quick study of the "4 fundamental forces". These are interactions that exchange meaning to each other and every thing within the planets atmosphere.



Wires are natural energy antennas. Your audio signal runs through them and together with the Earth's field around them. Like with the mechanical system of your component, wires are also mechanical.

This part of the Marantz is highly Tunable I have found by moving the wires even slightly.



Even after a little settling I can change the performance at will by moving any of the wires coming from the transformer and the jumpers.

MG said :

"How do you know you're heading in the right direction in setting the vibrations free? The easy sign that the vibrations are starting to expand is an increase in volume. For example with the Marantz SR-1000 I've already needed to turn down the volume 2 clicks on the volume control, that's a lot of gain.

Now, while you're doing this freeing up things are going to sound weird, like out of pitch until the vibrations start to gel. Don't let this bug you, it's just the audio code (signal) telling you the signal fundamentals and harmonics are in motion and haven't settled into an In-tune cycle of repetition yet. The frequency response will either settle with the general sound shifting up or shifting down. If you loosen a screw and a couple days later the sound has shifted up this means that you have vibratory blockage somewhere in the unit. Don't panic lol, loosen the next screw in line and let it settle. Soon you will start to hear the flow of the unit as a whole working together. Again I'm taking you through this in lightening speed so try not to rush. This is an art of patience."

Tj

This is the most important note to take home to any tunees who are going to tune thier screw boards. When the first time I did this I was shocked on how big the stage grew on the magnavox cd player. Next was that gel of instruments it was like everything snapped into focus. It might sound slightly edgy but after a day of settling everything just sounded beautiful. Thanks Michael for taking the time to explain this step it is going to be a big help for me when I start to work more on the rotels .

A question for Michael is there any particular step you would approach when tuning the transformer?

Tj asks

A question for Michael is there any particular step you would approach when tuning the transformer?


mg

"What is an audio transformer?

An audio transformer is an electromagnetic device that is intended to isolate an input circuit from an output circuit and provide filtering to a signal that passes through it. It is an audio device because it is designed to operate on signals with a frequency spectrum in the audible band of frequencies (typically around 20Hz-20kHz).

How Audio Transformers Work

A transformer isolates input and output because its AC couples (there being no DC signal path), the primary circuit by coupling its energy across to the secondary through induction by the alternating current creating a changing magnetic flux. This changing flux induces a varying electromotive force (voltage) in the secondary winding connected to the other circuit. This makes them useful between amplifiers and speakers.

Audio Transformer Design

Isolation has the effect of removing the DC term on the input from the signal on the output. Input signals can also have different impedances on the inputs of the transformer (unbalanced) that can be transformed to a symmetrical output impedance (balance). A balanced circuit is less susceptible to noise if it is coupled onto both output conductor circuit paths equivalently (common mode noise). This transformation can contain a change of the ratio of the current to the voltage by designing the audio transformer to have different primary and secondary windings (step-up and step-down). As there is a fixed relationship between voltage, impedance and current (V = I . R) than this transformation has the effect of changing the effective impedance of the source signal as seen by the load. By making this source impedance the same as the output load impedance, the circuit is said to be matched.

Audio transformers operate in the audible signal range where there is considerable noise in the environment from sources like mains power and inverting power supplies. This noise can easily couple into a transformer and produce an effect that may lead to hum. As a result, audio transformers typically have magnetic shielding to protect against this noise coupling into its circuits.

Audio transformers can introduce noise and distortion due to their non-linear effects. Low-level signals do not energize the magnetic core linearly, or be so high in level as to saturate the magnetic cores ability to contain the changing flux. These effects introduce harmonics and other products that distort the signal. High frequencies can also be attenuated by stray capacitive or leakage inductance effects and distort the signal."
____________________________________________________________________________

Before the world of dampening transformers the designs were more in-tune to work with the open Earth electromagnetic field. For Tunees this is good news when Tuning an amplifier transformer in more of a free resonant approach.

When someone reads me they will see I have certain bias when it comes to the sound of transformers. Many of the early designs are more open sounding than the designs that started to use a more dampened approach. The reason for the more dampened approach is because engineers found a problem with placing transformers too close to the other parts. This goes back to that overcrowding/overbuilding of electronic parts in component chassis. The more electronic conduits you put into a box the more you need to either remove the transformer from the other parts or shield (dampen) the transformer from affecting (infecting) the other parts. The shielding of transformers has a flaw and that is when you dampen the transformer you also dampen audio signal.

Fact is, audio performs better when there is space vs a packed box and when their is low mass vs high mass.

I gravitate towards smaller transformers and easy to drive low mass speakers because the overbuilt approach is never ending with trying to compensate for the basic design flaws of overcrowding. One would think audio designers would be better trained to not create problems that have to be fixed by even more problems. How big does an amplifier have to be to produce the full audio range with dynamic fundamental and harmonic structures? Not very big as we can see in the newer amplifier designs.

Entry level designs of the 70's-80's are usually fairly empty boxes with only the basics being charged by a smaller transformer with less electromagnetic generation. Running a free resonant low mass speaker with one cap as I am there's no need for a huge power factory creating tons of noise that ultimately needs to be filtered out. The goal is a simple one, effective efficiency. The less stress you put on an amplifier the more efficient a free resonant speaker can become. And a speaker that doesn't require much pull from the amp gives a far bigger soundstage with lots of harmonic freedom.

By mistake or design the typical size of an entry level audio component of the era I'm Tuning with the proportioned parts and space is closer to mechanically and field correctness over the models with "more". Simply put this means a basic model amplifier will outperform a complicated one and able to play successfully a wider range of music.

I know this must sound weird for the listener who has bought in to the buy up program but the simpler the design the better the sound. By saying simpler I'm also saying less mass. Which brings us back to the question "is there any particular step you would approach when tuning the transformer?"

The first step is know the mechanical basics and the fair exchange of energy that takes place between a transformer, it's job, it's effect on other parts and it's environment. For example, pulling an overbuilt amplifier off the audio rack and loosen the chassis screws and put the amplifier back in the rack will make little difference to the sound. If we don't know how that amplifier was built and the things that cause signal blockage we might end up choosing an amplifier to work on that is too much trouble. It may have too many mechanical design flaws and fix its to mess with.

What I see a lot (most) times is the listener starting to work on a product that is already so screwed up from the mechanical and mass side of things that it's not really worth messing with. A much simpler design can easily outperform it, so it's important to do the choosing part of the equipment based on physics and not brand, cost and review hype.

so let's go back and look again


Now we see the electrical / mechanical mingle

It has been a delight listening to the Marantz SR-1000 so far. At this stage of Tuning it has excellent detail, very low bottom end and fun to listen to. In some ways it reminds me of the MA-700 also by Marantz, but the 700 takes it much further.

Saying this, I have hit a brick wall that is not uncommon to me. Faceplates in this era (late 70-80) are oh so beautiful and I always say I'm going to leave the faceplate on but in time my ears get the best of me and the plate comes off to find a certain gel in the soundstage and tonal harmonics. After a quickie of removing the next layer I'm putting the faceplate back on the 1000 but believe me if I had more listening rooms that plate would be bye bye. Maybe someday I'll make a faceplate wall for the sake of art, kind of like folks with their license plates.

I've had quite a few Pioneer SX-3400 at different stages, all the way down to no chassis frame at all. Comparing the levels of stripping the mass and Tuning up the transfer takes tons of time and a lot of patience (a lot of patience). I've done it so much I can almost predict what will happen at each stage for any amp.



The Marantz SR-1000 intrigued me enough that I wanted to put the 3400 back in and see if my thoughts are accurate.

I can say this, the Marantz SR-1000 is a completely different animal stripped even to the level of down to the faceplate. It responds excellent to the Tuning Blocks and beats up on High End Amps (blanket statement) with their chassis on. Will I get rid of the 1000's faceplate? That completely depends on space and time. Time because of how long will it take for each stage of the chassis frame Tuning to settle (this isn't an over night thing for me). Why am I making this statement? Because I believe the Marantz SR-1000 has Tuning potential and I want to get to a place where I can really be methodical about this unit. It's important to me to find amps that can still keep their looks and be fairly Tunable.

Now before I go any further, I know a lot of you like the idea of getting something cool looking (highendish) but are also on a budget. Let me encourage you not to be afraid of purchasing inexpensive amps because your pals have expensive systems. The boat anchor products are easy to outperform and when you strip away their mass usually don't perform nearly as well as the basic receiver and integrated amps .

I bring the Pioneer back into the picture at this point because I had this model stripped and Tuned go head to head with some of the big boys personally. I don't want anyone to think this is talk without walk which is what you usually get in magazines and HEA forums. Not because they are wrong but because they haven't reached the level of Low Mass Tuning yet. What we (the Tunees) want to do is help you find some of the great Tunable amps out there so you can make your own fun happen. But more, to help you discover the "method of Tuning" and all you can do with amps to take you to that next and even ultimate listening level for you with your sound.

This is a nice move it will be great to hear your views with comparison on pioneer 3400 and marantz 1000.

A question for you Michael how do you decide where to place your tuning blocks under the amps? Is there any specific clues or do you place them randomly under them listen for the changes heard?

Tj asks

"A question for you Michael how do you decide where to place your tuning blocks under the amps? Is there any specific clues or do you place them randomly under them listen for the changes heard?"

mg

These days (because I've been doing this for so long) I start with one of three placements and go from there. I'll do a drawing and show what I mean. Good question!

This is based on the Marantz SR-1000 and Pioneer SX-3400, both having the transformer in the same general area.

This nice a good start for me to try out too. Any special cues that you hear to know if it's going the right way when you place them? Like do you hear soundatage expanding or if the imaging is getting better to know you are heading in the right direction?

Tj

This nice a good start for me to try out too. Any special cues that you hear to know if it's going the right way when you place them? Like do you hear soundstage expanding or if the imaging is getting better to know you are heading in the right direction?

mg

The LTR (low tone redwood) Blocks are part of a whole method of Tuning that involves the entire audio spectrum of The Audio Trilogy. The Audio Trilogy has 3 parts Electrical, Mechanical and Acoustical. These 3 parts interact within the housing of the Four Fundamental Forces. Meaning "everything affects everything else". When we make a mechanical change we are also making an electrical and acoustical change. With that being the case the most important thing to study, learn and practice is the art of settling.

Settling begins with any change to the system. In some ways it's an Audio Code adjustment (new path) for the signal to mature in with all the pluses and minuses added in. Minuses being the lack of harmonic support and the pluses being harmonic balancing which causes the soundstage to expand out and fill in.

There are many tricks and cues to this. For example if we had a perfect Tunable Room we would be able to set the speakers up with almost any stereo setup (far, mid, near and extreme near field) and get a huge 360 stage. This result is automatically encoded in every stereo recording that uses the pan method. If we were in one of my studios I could sit us down in the control seat and show us "pan". So that's the number one cue "all recordings are by physics a 360 source when recorded and played back in stereo".

Most people setup their systems to be able to see the image in front of them but actually a recording is 360. Somewhere between the headphone stereo setup and the frontal audiophile setup is the answer for everyone and they are probably all different and unique to the listeners ear, body and preferences. So it's a big playing field and learning how to get the results we want is what gives us the magic we're looking for in playback.

The first thing I do when sitting down to a system to Tune is not look for that perfect sound for me but how big can I open up each recording. If I can make a system free resonant enough to put on a recording and leave it play and each time I come back to listen the recording has grown in size, range and fill in, I'm on the right path (this can be recording dependent) to the system settling. If a recording can open up to the point where it reaches the same size as the recording itself all the variables will fall into place. Like tight bass for example. If you open up the soundstage so big that the harmonics align your bass will go from big and wooly sounding to very round, tight and full of body, like a pressure punch. BTW this happens at every volume all the way up to room pressure peaks.

So lets look at either or both the Marantz and Pioneer. Their chassis frames are similar with the Pioneer being slightly lower mass but same basic shape and they both have side mounted transformers. Same idea can be used for bottom mounted transformers.

Listen to this change.



Keep in mind that the next recording you play may require a different block setting.