Meridian 101B / 105 monoblocs

[Bushbaby]

Just to give you an update, I contacted the good friend of Jeffrey and have been to see him a couple of times too. He evaluated the whole system and found that there were some minor issue with one of the mono power amps and more importantly, and significant issue with the gain from the pre amp. I am pleased to say that he has repaired it all now and has told me that it is fully working again. I've yet to set it up and give it a trial but from what he told me I'm really pleased with what he has undertaken for me.

Thanks again Jeffrey for you kindest help and I am so glad that I did not try to do any work on the electronics side. When a get an opportunity (I'm recovering at home now after some surgery nearly a month ago) I will clean up the cases just to make them look a bit tidier than they are but that they fully working again is far more important.

Best Regards

Rob

[ppppenguin]

Hi Rob, I met John the other day who said he'd enjoyed meeting you and had the amps for repair. I hope they work as well you had hoped.

I also hope that you are getting well too.

[Bushbaby]

Many thanks Jeffrey.
Yes, I am improving but I'm told it will take a little longer.

Best regards

Rob

[Bushbaby]

Hi All,
I had to add my comment this evening. I have set up the preamp and amplifier this evening (albeit in temporary position) and given it a good try. Wow, its been superbly worked on by Jeffreys recommended friend and the quality output is exceptional for such an old system (1977 plus). I'm using this with a pair of B&W 602.5 mk3 floor-standing speakers now and my upgraded (yet again) Arcam Alpha 5 plus CD. The level of detail is tremendous albeit as a 100watt amp I can only using it at just under 1/4 volume otherwise its deafening (and I don't want to upset my neighbours even though we live in a detached house). the only downside is that it doesn't have remote control but I really can be over come by this extremely small issue.
Even thought I have this system now I don't want to lose my Arcam FMJ A19 which is still a great amplifier.
Again, I can thanks Jeffreys friend enough for his terrific work and advice and so pleased that I didn't try to play around with it.

Best Regards
Rob

[Mike Watterson]

My library amp is a Rotel RA-810, maybe early 1970s? Occasionally now the Tone Defeat needs turned on/off a few times to restore a channel missing. A couple of big speakers either side of desk on top of the bookshelves lining the front of the desk.
https://audio-database.com/ROTEL/amp/ra-810-e.html
I have a USB external Soundblaster on PC (MP3, CD, DVD, Video etc), Sony TC-18SD Cassette, Mitsubishi M-F5120 tuner, Dual CS505-2, TV/Sat, and Philips Matchline CDF100 PhotoCD/CD player on it.
Bedroom is a 5 ch Fidek Fav-615 that has no decoder, so an external one is used from HDTV fibre digital audio out. It was cheap in Maplin €100. Remote is dead and unavailable.
I have a JVC All-in-one stored in the attic (separate CD and belt drive turntable) which has a remote controlled motorised volume control. Mute is cute as it winds it down.
The living room is Yamaha 5.1 system with integral HDMI switching, tuner and extra audio in. The sub woofer is an old bass guitar speaker. The others are 3 largish Wharfedale at front and 2 medium Wharfedale at the back.

A friend has a bunch of valve monoblocks on display in his big listening room, but is using some sort of silicon.

Glad you are enjoying the amps, though I'd call mid 1960s and earlier old, not late 1970s :D !

[joebog1]

And in any case, some of the earlier designs were really excellent. Once thermal runaway had been tamed ( more geranium than silicon ) and decent heatsinking had been available. some of the old amps were very good.
Even by todays standard. I made many guitar amps in the late 60's and 70's that were very reliable and very good quality ( more the design than me ). They used TO3 transistors and were mostly 2N2955 and 2N3055 complimentary pairs.
Later came MOSFETS that was another learning curve, but they truly were hi-fi and very powerful using only a few devices. Driving them was pretty tricky with large input capacitances, but that was soon overcome by using medium power
bipolar transistors, and the availability if true matched pair input transistors, with two devices in the one can. One base input was the audio input and the other base was the negative feedback, and both these transistors used a common emitter.
Performance, even by todays standards was exceptional.

So I think Rob's amp, with its overhaul, should be excellent as todays passives have improved immensely and are much longer lived and stable over their lifetime.

Cheers Rob and enjoy the music.

Joe

[Bushbaby]

Thanks Joe and Mike.
For years I've been listening to my Denon home cinema system thinking that with all of the speakers it would be so much better than listening to my original hifi system (as I first indicated I HAD a Meridian 101/103D system that I sold for stupidly low money about 20 years ago). However, listening to TV programmes, films, live sports is completely different to listening to excellent quality music stereo. I'm so glad that I've gone back to listening to music in this way again now.

Rob

[Jez]

I do repairs to gear such as this for a living and FWIW would have charged around £450 rather than £625.

[Bushbaby]

Hi All
Of not been on here for ages as I have suffered for pneumonia luckily caught early by my local A&E department but has taken a long time for full recovery.

Just an update on my system which is now very, very good. From hifi forum of which I am member, a very good colleague helped me to reconnect up the pre and power amps differently to how I had them set up as it uses the preamp balanced output (special to this model 101b). I created my own 5 pin din to din connectors which was good learning for me for very fine soldering connections. 

Given the room and types of speaker in use (B&W 602.5 S3) I decided to follow further advice and use a subwoofer to improve the lower frequency (not how loud the output would be) and bought an MJ Acoustic Pro 50 mk2 for the sum of £85 in superb condition and connected this via the 105 mono block speaker connections.  To be honest now the output sound well balanced is very well defined. I've had several improvements made to my Arcam Alpha 5 plus CD which has become far more musically defined. I think this is far better than hunting for more expensive speakers to make a difference and pay out a lot more money. Also, at last I can clearly hear drum kit cymbals BUT this also depends on the recording of the album. 

Its now time for me to STOP trying to make changes but to listen to the good system I have got. I have noticed with all the changes that the volume control of the preamp is actually lessened yet the output is greater even without the subwoofer switched on?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all

Best Regards

Rob

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