In article , RJH
wrote:

Also loosely intrigued that you would let somebody else loose on a
design you must know more about that most (anyone?!). Is that because
he's maybe more up to date? Better at say soldering? And/or you have
better things to do?

Well, we probably discussed the changes/fixes in more detail than most of
his customers. :-)

Alas, I don't trust my eyes/fingers/judgement as much as I used to. Afraid
I've developed a tendency to clumsiness and muddle. I'm still happy to work
on simple circuits and ones I don't mind trashing and having to redo. But I
didn't want to end up doing more harm than good to my 626s. Particularly
for the set Ted owned before me, which was the 'best' in many ways despite
being an early version.

In addition both sets had problems with failing meters, etc. So really also
needed some mechanical TLC and parts I lacked. I've never been any good at
mechanical issues.

Mike also could offer doing his mods which I decided to try because they
seemed like the kind of thing I'd have done at the time if things had gone
differently back in the days when the sets were being made. I was curious
to hear the results. Now pleased I did. :-)

And in the end I decided it might help others if I had Mike do this and I
could write about it. That might help others in a similar situation. Having
been though the process I'd now happily recommend it on the basis of
experience.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 03 Aug, wrote:
And in the end I decided it might help others if I had Mike do this and
I could write about it. That might help others in a similar situation.
Having been though the process I'd now happily recommend it on the basis
of experience.

Should have also added:

For years people have been contacting me to ask if I can repair/check their
old Armstrong sets. I've always then had to explain I don't do this, and
suggested they try Mike or AHVS as the best places to go.

Having done that so often it seemed a good idea to finally practice what
I'd preached. :-)

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Just to let people know I've now put up a webpage

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong...airandmod.html

on this. Even managed to take some photos of the result. :-)

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 14:58:01 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Just to let people know I've now put up a webpage

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong...airandmod.html

on this. Even managed to take some photos of the result. :-)

Jim

An interesting quote from that web page:

"Although I'm not a very good photographer, you can see it now looks
like new. No sign of it being 40 decades old!"

I don't think any of us realised just how long Armstrong have been in
the Hi-Fi business. :-)

--
Johnny B Good

On 10/08/2015 20:22, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 14:58:01 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Just to let people know I've now put up a webpage

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong...airandmod.html

on this. Even managed to take some photos of the result. :-)

Jim

Very interesting, thanks.


An interesting quote from that web page:

"Although I'm not a very good photographer, you can see it now looks
like new. No sign of it being 40 decades old!"

I don't think any of us realised just how long Armstrong have been in
the Hi-Fi business. :-)


I did notice that but didn't like to say :-)

The left hand 'Armstrong' lettering on mine is illuminated - can't quite
tell on yours, it looks to be painted, the same as the logo.

I think those are good photos by the way - reminiscent of a 70s brochure!

--
Cheers, Rob

In article , RJH
wrote:


The left hand 'Armstrong' lettering on mine is illuminated - can't quite
tell on yours, it looks to be painted, the same as the logo.

It is illuminated, but may not show up clearly. Limitations of my skill
sic as a photographer. cf below.

I think those are good photos by the way - reminiscent of a 70s brochure!

Inc. our 1970s furniture. 8-]

I was trying to get images that approach the ones in the old 600 range
publicity shots, etc. The process gave me a *lot* of respect for the
photographers back then! I'm a lousy photographer, alas.

A snag was that my camera is very 'automatic' so gives you *no* option to
manually focus. At low light levels it tends not to focus well. So I have
to take many shots, then some are fuzzy, some are better. Fortunately,
digital cameras mean it is cheap and easy to take lots of photos, then
discard most of them.

I spend about two days experimenting with lighting conditions, etc, to try
and get photos that appeared as close to "what you see" as possible. The
main difficulty was getting the light level 'just right' so you can see the
tuning scale illumination without the rest of the scene being too dark.

A second problem was reflections in the glass of the tuning display. I
ended up with a black jersey over the back of the chair to which I'd fixed
the camera. This blacked out the area being reflected.

The stereo LED is also 'burned out' in the photos. i.e. it looks like a
small white light surrounded by red. But to the human eye is is just bright
red, however it saturates the camera.

BTW one of the pix showing the whole 626 is actually two joined photos.
That allowed me to zoom in and get more detail to start with. Then played
with GIMP to fiddle the results together. If you look you can see the join,
but it seems minor enough to pass muster.

The zoomed in pic of the tuning scale, etc, is one of the paired images.
Didn't put the other on the page, but can do if it seems worthwhile.

One trick which was suggested to me was to take one photo with no added
light, so only the lighting of the 626 itself would show. Then take another
with reasonably high lighting to make the set sharp and clear. Then
'PhotoShop' (GIMP in my case) the tuning scale and meters from the first
over the second. Apparently the magazines do this routinely. But I found
when I tried it the result looked obviously like a composite. So seemed
un-natural, and might make people think I'd "fiddled the images" to make
the unit look better than it really now is.

The truth is that it looks better than the photos I could take! And sadly
you can't hear what it sounds like from the photos... I'm currently
listening to a string quartet on R3 FM via 626 + LS3/5A's. Really nice. :-)

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article , Johnny B Good
wrote:
On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 14:58:01 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Just to let people know I've now put up a webpage

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong...airandmod.html

on this. Even managed to take some photos of the result. :-)

Jim

An interesting quote from that web page:

"Although I'm not a very good photographer, you can see it now looks
like new. No sign of it being 40 decades old!"

I don't think any of us realised just how long Armstrong have been in
the Hi-Fi business. :-)

Apologies. Someone else pointed out the error this morning. Now fixed.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Tue, 11 Aug 2015 11:21:39 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article , Johnny B Good
wrote:
On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 14:58:01 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Just to let people know I've now put up a webpage

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong...airandmod.html

on this. Even managed to take some photos of the result. :-)

Jim

An interesting quote from that web page:

"Although I'm not a very good photographer, you can see it now looks
like new. No sign of it being 40 decades old!"

I don't think any of us realised just how long Armstrong have been in
the Hi-Fi business. :-)

Apologies. Someone else pointed out the error this morning. Now fixed.


I realised what had happened (I've done the same myself). It's a case of
"Changing Horses In Mid-stream" where you intended to type 40 years and
then decided the phrase 4 decades would be better, forgetting to remove
the now unneeded zero.

I bet you proof read it and *still* managed to miss it, eh?[1] :-)

[1] I often spot such errors (and ommissions) when proof reading but I'm
all too often dismayed by the number of such Es & Os that *still* manage
to appear in the final 'publication'.

--
Johnny B Good

In article , Johnny B Good
wrote:

I realised what had happened (I've done the same myself). It's a case
of "Changing Horses In Mid-stream" where you intended to type 40 years
and then decided the phrase 4 decades would be better, forgetting to
remove the now unneeded zero.

Yes. As I wrote I was dithering between "for four decades" and "for about
40 years" and ended up writing a mashup of the two. 8-]

I bet you proof read it and *still* managed to miss it, eh? :-)

Sadly, yes. I followed my usual practice of leaving the draft for a day or
two for my brain to clear, then going though it two or three times looking
for mistakes, tweaking the phrasing, etc. Managed to miss it. I also missed
another error that Mike Solomons noticed immediately I'd put up the page
and told him.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html