Any good idea to replace 20kohm volume pots on Altec 9440A

[Altec Best]

A good pot can improve over a horrible one. But not much over a good one. The Altec does not have horrible pots unless they are bad. You are thinking of spending money and a lot of work to gain "not much."

Check improving your source signal, clean mains power, and caps in the amp first. Your priorities are off IMHO. Lots of work for small gain, especially if any other issues. Speaker placement will make more difference than the pots will. But the way you are talking your mind was made up before you posted.

This post right here Merlin is good advice, no great advice ! I too am from the school of "If It ain't broke DON'T fix it" I could have kicked myself in the A** more times than I care to admit on this.. Messing with something for no other reason than to just mess with it... My thinking well if I replace this it has got to be better.. And 9 times out of 10 I would scramble to try and fix the changes I had done.So now if it has blown up into a million pieces ? It's staying !

I'm exaggerating a bit, but you can understand my point I hope... I mean in Crossovers,amps,etc... that are 30-40 years old and have original capacitors and such should be replaced.No question you can make an improvement there but on the inductors,L-pads,potentiometers,etc,etc.... Most of the time a good cleaning of the pots will suffice..

[MerlinVSM]

Well, as the amplifier at the moment is in bits and pieces when replacing the electrolytics (the 9800uF power cans and others) the thought came up why not replace the volume pots also.
If it to be done the time is now.

By the way one electrolytic was found not working. All replaced with ELNA Silmic II.

There are some 0,47uF /100V capacitors on the driver board which I believe are metalized film capacitors (very colorfull ones) with no name/brand.

Any recommendation also to replace these with higher quality ones as film and foil which also regarded to sound better ?


?

[Old Guy]

You have to get one idea out of your head. It is not that simple. In an amp, caps are part of a circuit. How they interact is paramount. So putting in caps "regarded to sound better' can actually DEGRADE an amp. Just use good quality parts. Beyond that if you want to spend years experimenting to get the last tenth of one percent be my guest. Not many here have worked on that amp. I have, but the same components are not available today.I would suggest searching the net for amp forums if you are that worried.

[Altec Best]

Or try and contact Iratec . He works on a lot of the Altec electronics..He may have some suggestions or the parts you need..

[email protected]

Ira Tec Pro Audio's Homepage

[MerlinVSM]

You have to get one idea out of your head. It is not that simple. In an amp, caps are part of a circuit. How they interact is paramount. So putting in caps "regarded to sound better' can actually DEGRADE an amp. Just use good quality parts. Beyond that if you want to spend years experimenting to get the last tenth of one percent be my guest. Not many here have worked on that amp. I have, but the same components are not available today.I would suggest searching the net for amp forums if you are that worried.

Thanks for info. The replacement will be limited to the electrolytics after reading the posts.

Next step will be to check the transistors and set the bias. Hope I can find out how.

Any information how this amp sound ? Is it actualy worth spending time and money on it ?

[Old Guy]

The 9440 is one of the best amps of the day. Sounds better than say, a Crown DC300A.

[tomt]

They must not have lived in San Fransisco or Seattle.

i left my lungs in san fransisco.

on taylor or powell st.

some of the sidewalks have/are steps ...

[Altec Best]

Any information how this amp sound ? Is it actualy worth spending time and money on it ?

I agree with OG.. These were excellent sounding amps.One amp in your system is enough and will sound great.They were typically rack mounted back in the day for live sound..Could you imagine 4 of these in a rack powering a stack of speakers.. Or some 210's ? Droolsville.... It is money well spent IMHO.

[tomt]

[Alien_Shore]

wow, rough crowd here sometimes.
@OP: Old amps can benefit from some refurb work, and while you want to be choosy about how far you want to go in replacing components, you can get a big lift in sonic quality or operational dependability if you fix up the right stuff. Here is a link that might help you:

9440 literature

I've not used the 9440, but I've read about it on some of the diy amp sites I visit... it is well-respected by many. Just do some searching around and you can find some help from people who have refurb'd these and put them to work in home hi-fi applications. And let us know how it works out for you. I'd like to hear one sometime.