Help on ancient Audionics CC-2s


Hi folks. I'm a fringe dabbler in audio---now stick to mostly entry-level, as I got cured of my audio addiction after working with Keith Yates Audio and Levinson gear in the 80s, discovering I would never stop, stop, spending or experimenting, so I quit, cold turkey. Yikes.
However, I recently picked up two of my favorite blasts from amp pasts,
Audionics CC-2s for about 99 bucks each, plus shipping, plus whatever repairs/ mods I need. Want to run them in a bi-amping situation. I'm not audio e.e. savvy to do myself---but have an excellent repair shop in my town with folks hip to Audionics, complete schematics, etc. Amps work (one output transistor replaced) but may want new caps. Any suggestions? Black Gates? Thanks much!
professor50

Showing 2 responses by lynn_olson

Hi there folks, old Audionics hand here.

First off, replace all electrolytic caps, both large and small. Electrolytics have a finite lifetime, and modern ones are more compact, more reliable, and quite a lot better sonically. The CC-2 was designed in 1977, after all. We used the best we could get then, but they are horrible by modern standards. Something as basic as Nichicons are far better.

I have mixed feelings about using bridge mode. There’s no free lunch here ... you get twice the voltage, but only half the current. In other words, that 8-ohm speaker now looks like a 4-ohm speaker to each section of the amplifier. Worse, a 4-ohm speaker now looks like a 2-ohm speaker, and I can guarantee you that the CC-2 will not like that one bit. If you want 2 channels with total separation, just use two amps with one half silent (short the input on the unused channels).

If memory serves, there are some blue tantalum caps in the signal path. Those are very undesirable sonically, but in our defense, nothing was published on cap sonics back then. If there’s room, replace them with modern film caps.

 

A few years ago, I walked into a Boulder camera store and saw a pocket book documenting a "Classic Camera Series - Nikon FE2". Hey, I bought that camera new, a month after Nikon introduced it! Not only that, it was my *second* SLR, after my 1963 vintage Pentax Spotmatic finally quit working after twenty good years.

Well, if the camera was a "classic", what does that make me?