Wow Mike! My drool bucket runeth over.
I'd love to hear a little about Fred's shop and some of the things he told you about maintaining your 820.
Steve,
i will do my best to list some random thoughts.....i'm still a bit rummy from 1600 miles of driving and 8 hours of training in 38 hours....not to mention the euphoria of the musical performances i am hearing.
as i'm not even a little bit of a technical person my viewpoint on Fred's shop would have limited value....but i'll do my best. the shop is a large space and there are a number of Studer products in various states of repair. Fred seems to have all the neat tools (electronic and other) to do whatever and measure whatever on a Studer. one impression i got was after seeing all the specialized Studer tools he has is that anyone DIYing an A-820 will struggle to get it to work optimally. it would be like diagnosing a modern automoble without the proper interface to the CPU. you would not know where to go next.
i was very impressed that he has documented all the things he did on my A-820.....he showed me every part he replaced (dozens and dozens) and had notes on every step he took. even bits of wire and such he had taped to log sheets.
it is not a retail space or display space and has no pretenses as such. it is a work area.
Fred was very kind to me and spent lots of his time making sure i was capable of enjoying my A-820. he started me out by explaining the basic landscape of the A-820 and some of the design features which make the A-820 such a dream to use.
-the A-820 stand does not look like anything special; but on closer inspection the mounting mechanism is over-built and has very solid 'indents' that work with swiss precision and allow you to rotate the A-820 to a number of angles....and then holds it there a solid as a rock. you can stand it almost on it's head and access the rear fuses comfortably while sitting down without kneeling and bending over. rotate it all the way over the other way and the card panel which is below the front is easy to see and read. then there is level, +7.5 degrees, +15 degrees, -7.5 degrees, -15 degrees (if you want to inspect the heads or do fine cleaning around them this is great....again, no bending over).
this sounds like a small thing but it sure made my A-820 education much easier.
-he explained the fuses and power supply failure circuts. i actaully measured each failure circut so if i ever had a problem and he got on the phone with me i would already be familiar with it.
-we spent a couple of hours on the programing tree and methodology of changing the programing. it actually is very simple and logical but i would have never been able to figure it out myself in a million years. i did set-up on 'A' and 'B' set-ups with alignment tapes. switching between equalization and set-up presets is simple.
-he showed me all the very neat tricks (well...maybe not all of them) that the transport does.....and how to adjust it with the programing. it has the shuttle and cueing wheels and they work with great precision.....it is so easy to find the beginning of the music. there is a sensor which slows the tape down as the tape is rewound and makes it simple to then use the shuttle to find the beginning.
-the pack is so smooth and flat....better even than when you first recieve new 'Tape Project' tapes....even at rewind speeds it is almost perfect. there is a library rewind and it is easy to program the speed of the rewind.
-there is a 'secret' switch which keeps others from changing the programing....when engaged any programing reverts to prior settings when restarted.
-we spent a good amount of time on the card slots and how to reboot, the correct way to pull a card out and the wrong way.
-my A-820 came with a new looking complete service manual....400 to 500 pages in a large binder. we used it for a reference so i would be familiar with it. one of Fred's pet peaves on 'The Studer List' is when posters don't even check the manual prior to asking questions.
-he explained what he replaced and what was not 100% and why it was OK. a complete rebuild on an A-820 could be over $100k and even a semi-complete reconditioning would be around $35k. basically the parts costs are astronomical.
-we spent some time on cleaning and what is important. he also said that i would never need to demag......Studer had gone to great lengths to construct the A-820 with non-magnetic materials and demaging would likely only cause harm. he also thought the ATR-102 likely did not need much demag either. i have no opinion on this other than i don't mess much with my cartridges (i own a cartridge demager as well as an Annis Hand-i-mag).
i'm just touching the surface here.....but you get the idea.
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