Rescued from Certain Doom!

[Dannii]

Some of you know that I've recently moved my home and studio to a new location and am in the process right now of setting everything up.

There is a theatre here on the same site as my new home and studio that is currently unused which I will be actively involved in refurbishing. Once that is done, it will make a great recording space for larger projects. This theatre was designed well and has great acoustics and acoustic treatment. It is currently in a pretty sad state though and needs significant work to restore it but I have the time and the owner has the funds and the desire!!

Anyway, when I first started preparing my new home/studio for the move, I spotted a 19 inch rack cabinet sitting in the yard outside the theatre fully exposed to the weather. This rack was obviously the FOH rack for the theatre sound system because it contained a processor for the Bose 802 speaker system, a cassette deck, a radio mic receiver and a Yamaha P-2200 Pro Series power amplifier.

Upon spotting it, I immediately asked the caretaker what the plans were for this rack. He basically said to me, "It's stuffed!! You can take it and see if you can make use of it if you want," which I have done.

My main interest is the Yamaha amp and the rack. Those Yamaha amps have a very good reputation even to this day for sound quality and reliability. I've actually used them on the road touring in the past and they just keep going no matter what kind of harsh treatment they endure. Given that, I figured the amp itself is probably not "stuffed" but most likely works. Seriously, they are built like tanks!

I'm in the process of cleaning it up, checking it out for obvious faults and then powering it up and seeing if any of the special smoke contained in the components escapes!! I have a service manual for it and am qualified in electronics so I reckon this will be a decent win even if it does need repair.

I figured I'd make a post about it here BEFORE I power it up and post the progress for anyone interested to follow.

My plan is to use this amp with my Yamaha RX-V1800 which is currently running my Auratones and Crown subs in a 5.1 surround arrangement (actually 5.2 because the subs are currently in stereo). The 1800 has seven channels of amplification and I'm using five of those for the Auratones and two for the Crown subs. Once I have things set up here in my new studio space, I'll be running seven Auratones and the Crown subs in a 7.1 configuration and will need an extra two channels of amplification for the subs. The P-2200 will be a perfect fit for that need.

Here's a few before and after shots of the rack and the amp.

Amp rack


Closeup of Yamaha P-2200 before cleanup with 802 controller on top
Click image for full size view


Yamaha P-2200 after cleanup with RX-V1800 on top
Click image for full size view

[xpander]

You seem to have done a great job cleaning it up. Apart from minor wear, looks like new. I'll follow what happens with it, let's hope no magic smoke escapes and it works. Did you do any recapping, any internal pics?

[Dannii]

Originally Posted by xpander

You seem to have done a great job cleaning it up. Apart from minor wear, looks like new. I'll follow what happens with it, let's hope no magic smoke escapes and it works. Did you do any recapping, any internal pics?

I haven't taken any internal pics yet and haven't started the measurement process for initial obvious faults before power up yet either. I'll be doing that over the coming week.
I'll run my ESR meter over the caps and check them out. Chances are they will actually be OK. If not, it's a relatively easy job to recap things.

The most likely source of problems would probably be the bias trimpots if anything given this has been outside in the rain. Even then though, Yamaha built these things very robustly and I wouldn't be surprised if it works as is.

I will be taking internal pics and posting my findings as things progress though. This amp has one SERIOUS torroidal power supply transformer which takes up a fair chunk of the real estate inside.

[xpander]

Yep, I bet those things were build like tanks. Will be interesting to see some pics and how it goes.

[alanofoz]

Following this with interest.

[chas51]

wow cool.
how fun.
hope you don't see any magic smoke come out of it.
I have a pre-amp that I replaced one of the tubes on (with a bad tube.......bah, humbug), and the magic smoke which came forth from my already expensive pre, cost me a pretty penny, for the repair.

[LightOfDay]

my 2€ on the Yamahas will work flawlessly. its from Yamaha!

[Pet]

Originally Posted by alanofoz

Following this with interest.

So do I!