Vintage gear coming to the house

[Ovation]

Well, seeing as I'm an historian AND I have to spend way more time than I used to in my home office AND I have a spare amp but no pre-amp lying around AND I want to improve my home office audio options...I decided to pick up a used pre-amp. Found an inexpensive Yamaha C-45 pre-amp (circa 1985) in fine condition. No remote (not because it was lost, but because it never had one--old school. :T ).

I didn't strictly "need" it. But then, who in this hobby "needs" most of the gear they buy? Will check back in when I've had time to move stuff around and set up my new 2-channel rig.

Here's a link to a photo of my pre-amp (it arrives tomorrow).

[kmak]

Nice!

[Ovation]

It arrived today (a bit late, but I'll blame COVID-19 for the mail delay). Everything works great. Super clean (not quite new but certainly doesn't look or sound 35 years old). Have only given it a brief go-around to confirm all things work. Biggest unexpected (and positive) surprise is the quite powerful and super clean sounding built-in headphone amp. All in all, well worth what I paid (240$ CDN--would have been worth the same in US$ for its condition).

[Ovation]

My 80s era Yamaha C-45 pre-amp (bought it used nearly a year ago) has mysteriously developed a problem that I hope would not be too expensive or complex to fix.

The input selector switches are a push-button design (the buttons are angled and are mechanical--in normal use, they click when you push one--the photo in the link in the first post of the thread shows it). As of about a week ago, almost all of them are only sporadically responsive. I have to push them several times to get them to actually select the input. Two of them appear worse than the others. If I press down from the top of the square button to the bottom (drag my finger, really, more than push), it makes a "sproing" sound very much like those springs on floorboards behind doors that kids like to fiddle with. What I don't understand is that this problem was non-existent when I received it. The pre-amp otherwise works perfectly (no static or other issues with knobs, etc.) and it has sat, undisturbed (apart from normal--and rather infrequent, sadly--usage). Nothing has been dropped on it, no one has used unnecessary force on the buttons, or anything else. I am puzzled both about how this problem arose and what I could do about it.

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions? I will likely seek out a local repair shop that specializes in older gear, but I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone else has had a similar issue.

[Alaric]

I have a Yamaha service manual for the C-45. It's a whole 1.55 MB .pdf file. You're welcome to it if you'd like. Even if you aren't going to open it up a repair shop might find it handy for fixing it for you. If you're interested PM me your email address and I'll send it to you, or I can post it as an attachment-I think. I'll try that first in a separate post.

[Alaric]

yamaha_c-45.pdf

And I do believe it worked. Here you go, one Yamaha C-45 Service Manual.

[Ovation]

[ATTACH]31006[/ATTACH]

And I do believe it worked. Here you go, one Yamaha C-45 Service Manual.

Much appreciated. :T

[Alaric]

Glad I could help. After losing my favorite (and main) pieces of gear to basic failures I hate to see someone else go through it. If memory serves (Hit or miss as age descends on me) wkhanna has a guy in his town who, by all accounts, is a wizard with gear of that vintage. It's funny how we can get attached and emotionally invested in a box of wires relative to another box of wires but we do, and it's part of what makes us...special. And not special like my mom said! :rofl:

This is the community stuff I've missed in my life. I'm glad I lived long enough to appreciate it with time to do something about it.