reubensm
Well-Known Member
Hi all, some time last year, I had the opportunity to lay my hands on a Grundig V5000 stereo amplifier, courtesy our forum memember coaltrain. It was part of a electronics give-away. The original owner (not coaltrain) had attempted to get this amplifier fixed (it was obviously not working) and was told by the technician that its not worth getting this fixed.
I always had great respect for the Grundig brand as we grew up listening to a Grundig CR485 tape recorder which was miles ahead of the Sonys, the Panasonics and other Japanese tape recorders in its class. Here is a snap of that lovely tape recorder
Grundig Radio Boy - Grundig CR485 Stereo cassette recorder
Anyway, back to the topic. The Grundig amp was in good cosmetic condition and had some interesting features (not found on regular integrated amps) and hence it got me interested straight away. Looked like a good restoration project (if I could find the time).
After bringing this amp back with me to Trivandrum, it lay in storage for some time as we had got busy with its matching cassette deck (which was also obtained as part of the give away). The cassette deck restoration was a grand success. The time was right to take the amp out of storage and start restoring it.
On opening it up, we were amazed to see the inside, typical German engineering. Solid and heavy, a huge filter cap bank, a huge power transformer, a huge heat sink and loads of components. The amp was as dead as it gets, only the power indicator would light up but nothing else worked, dead preamp, dead poweramp, absolutely dead!!
As we discovered with the Grundig Deck which we restored earlier, finding information about the V5000 on the internet was a huge challenge as most of it was in German. Long hours spent on using google translate to make it understandable in some form. Even the schematic which we got was in German and had to be translated.
This project was handled fully by my brother as I could not spare any time on it, due to work committments and the construction of my home. The last 4 months or so were spent on fault finding, root cause analysis, component identification, component sourcing, component replacement and testing. Finally after a lot of back breaking work, the amp has started singing last week. What a journey of discovery it has been for my brother, fixing this amp. There is still more work to be done on the pots, caps and connectors but overall, the amp sounds magnificent, true to the reputation of late 1970s and early 1980s equipment. This amplifier is from the year 1981.
Here is a stock picture of the amp for reference. More on the actual restoration process with pictures, to follow over the weekend.
I always had great respect for the Grundig brand as we grew up listening to a Grundig CR485 tape recorder which was miles ahead of the Sonys, the Panasonics and other Japanese tape recorders in its class. Here is a snap of that lovely tape recorder
Grundig Radio Boy - Grundig CR485 Stereo cassette recorder
Anyway, back to the topic. The Grundig amp was in good cosmetic condition and had some interesting features (not found on regular integrated amps) and hence it got me interested straight away. Looked like a good restoration project (if I could find the time).
After bringing this amp back with me to Trivandrum, it lay in storage for some time as we had got busy with its matching cassette deck (which was also obtained as part of the give away). The cassette deck restoration was a grand success. The time was right to take the amp out of storage and start restoring it.
On opening it up, we were amazed to see the inside, typical German engineering. Solid and heavy, a huge filter cap bank, a huge power transformer, a huge heat sink and loads of components. The amp was as dead as it gets, only the power indicator would light up but nothing else worked, dead preamp, dead poweramp, absolutely dead!!
As we discovered with the Grundig Deck which we restored earlier, finding information about the V5000 on the internet was a huge challenge as most of it was in German. Long hours spent on using google translate to make it understandable in some form. Even the schematic which we got was in German and had to be translated.
This project was handled fully by my brother as I could not spare any time on it, due to work committments and the construction of my home. The last 4 months or so were spent on fault finding, root cause analysis, component identification, component sourcing, component replacement and testing. Finally after a lot of back breaking work, the amp has started singing last week. What a journey of discovery it has been for my brother, fixing this amp. There is still more work to be done on the pots, caps and connectors but overall, the amp sounds magnificent, true to the reputation of late 1970s and early 1980s equipment. This amplifier is from the year 1981.
Here is a stock picture of the amp for reference. More on the actual restoration process with pictures, to follow over the weekend.
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