It’s official: I’m an EE

A month ago, I inherited a stereo receiver/amplifier from Karyna. She got it from Craigslist, and it was starting to ‘go bad’—some crackling, and other non-niceties in the sound. She got a new amplifier from her parents, and decided to give me this one. As for what I’d do with it, I’m not too sure.

So I ordered a service manual from stereomanuals.com. Despite their horrendous website and slightly cryptic e-mails, I managed to get the right service manual. And it is beautiful. They do a bang-up job on reproducing the manual, and they are rather prompt in shipping. So, I highly recommend them—in spite of their horrible website.

Now, I’m looking at the circuit layout, the block diagram, and everything; thinking to myself: damn, that’s complicated, but I could make that! It’s obvious now that I’m ‘in love’ with circuits. I have a specific task that’s interesting to me, and I am thinking about how to build it.

Anyways, I need to spend some time with my receiver/amplifier and figure out what’s wrong. By looking at the block diagram, I’ve realized that I can cut out 90% of the circuit, as it is obvious it has nothing to do with what’s wrong.