joebhold 34 Posted February 21 Posted February 21 (edited) Hello Everyone- My day job is scientist helping doctors and nurses treat blood cancer patients. Enjoying music of all kinds is my relaxation. I grew up in the 70's my trusty Pioneer SX-424 and EPI Microtower 2's which I still have. My friends had better, AR-3a, AR turntable, EPI 100, 9090, etc so I knew there was better out there. Always had fascination with electronics and through work learned to build analog circuits from a PhD electrical engineer. In the last 10 years or so was able to build out a workbench at home, start small, and still today with humility I continue to learn. My last success was restoration of a 1960 Harmon-Kardon FA10 Sonata mono tube receiver. Not into high dollar stuff, just quality units I have come across and carefully restored. My main system is simple, based around an Alesis RA-300, Altec Lansing 1432A EQ and DLK 4's that cost me maybe $200 and a lot of quality time. Anyway, a TFM-45 fell into my lap that probably just has bad solder joints but it is such a nice piece (although someone "restored" it 6 years ago). Having had a Phase Linear 400 at one time, I'm a sucker for rack mount amps with big VU meters so I was hoping to get some help from the experts on this beautiful Carver! Edited February 21 by joebhold Typos 8
Sk1Bum 10,875 Posted February 21 Posted February 21 Hello joebhold and welcome to thecarversite.com. Glad you found us. The TFM-45 is a very popular amp here, and I too like the big meters. I have 4 M500t's. Good luck with your TFM-45 project. Once you get to Novice status, please consider posting pics of your project in the Amp Repair section of the forum, and feel free to post pics of your system in the Members Systems area. We all like pics of all kinds of stereo and home theater gear. 1
Community Admin AndrewJohn 9,914 Posted February 21 Community Admin Posted February 21 Welcome @joebhold, so glad you found us. Looks like your Carver luck is with you. That TFM-45 is highly coveted (I have two). I love EPI speakers, too - and they are sleepers. Burhoe designed those to drink a LOT of power, and I've driven every model of the first edition (from the little gold/yellow catalog of the 70's from EPI) with Carver clean power, and they sound great - I've rebuilt dozens of those 8" woofers, and even replaced some drivers with Huw's really nice replacements over at www.humanspeakers.com . Carver and EPI go well together. On the TFM-45, that is odd that it was "restored" only 6 years ago..., typically, a full restoration (replacing consumables, repair any faults, make all adjustments (bias, DC offset, etc.), and applying all the outstanding service bulletins typically will set that excellent amplifier up for another 30 years of flawless service. If you know who did the work, you might want to go back to them and see exactly what work they did. For example, Nelion Audio in Michigan, gives their work a 3-year warranty. I have amps Greg at Nelion did for me almost 10 years ago, that are still going strong. I hope you find it is something very simple to fix. And, FWIW, we have the owners manual and the service manual, and some service bulletins here in our Manuals Library (seem menu at top of home page). If you are inclined, start a thread on your project to put your TFM-45 back in service! Again, welcome to the site! Glad you found us and we love pictures..., in a few more "likes" to your posts, you'll pass the "spam" threshold and can upload pictures of your gear! (or your in-progress TFM-45 project). 1
3M_Audio 1,770 Posted February 21 Posted February 21 Welcome @joebhold! Sounds like you have some nice gear and good fortune for you with that TFM-45 - nice amp. Looking forward to pictures and updates on your work. 1
joebhold 34 Posted February 26 Author Posted February 26 Thank you everyone for the warm welcome. What a difference from those Facebook groups I waste my time looking at! I'm still researching the very awesome and helpful threads here and the service manual to decide what to do. The person I purchased it from for $150 said it worked fine until he moved to a new house, so its possible it's just some cracked joints. I'll start a thread on the project shortly.
Receiver2000 3,464 Posted February 26 Posted February 26 Oh.....I waste alot of time here too joebhold. Hahahaha. 1
joebhold 34 Posted February 26 Author Posted February 26 I've made my first post over in M-4.0t (also TFM-4, TFM-42, TFM-45) repair Help and comments appreciated!
stereo_dog 896 Posted February 26 Posted February 26 Welcome to Carversite! The TFM-45 is a good amplifier. 1
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