My long-awaited PS-5500 preamp has finally arrived!

Here are some pictures, I dragged my system out to the living room for better acoustics. my room is small so the altecs can hardly breathe in it. I left the Setton cabinet in my room because it's hard to move around and is holding the rest of my settons which I did not want to move.






















It has some scuffs and scratches, but I was able to clean it up pretty well over all. It's got some of the coolest features anywhere on it--the inputs can be mixed (not the tapes though) and AUX 1, AUX 2, PHONO 1, PHONO 2 all have separate level controls so they can mixed evenly. Oh, the Microphone inputs can be mixed with the others too, they also have level controls.

there are enough outputs for 3 different amplifiers.

The sound is great too, but there is much more noise than I expected. I am going to recap it this summer which hopefully will take away the problem. My friend (who sold it to me) knows of a modification that can take away a lot of the noise, I plan on doing this.

the BIGGEST problem is with the volume and balance controls. they are combined (one knob on top of the other) and unfortunately are NOT the wafer type. The balance control is crappy because it does not completely eliminate the sound from one channel if you turn if full clockwise or counterclockwise. The volume control cuts out on the left channel between 6 and 7 on the dial--cleaning the control cut out the static but didn't fix this. I can still use it with this problem, but I hate problems like this. I want my preamp to work to it's full potential.

Because the volume/balance are crappy, I want to replace them. I'm really going to need help to fix a combined volume/balance pot that IS the WAFER type. I'll post close ups of the pot and the specs on it so you guys can help me find a replacement.



to sum it up:

I absolutely love this preamp, but it's going to need some work!

Very nice pix.
It has indeed a great looks. Enjoy your new toy.

thats one gorgeous stack you have there.

best of luck getting the issues with the pre-amp resolved.

Congrats, Henry!

Looks like you can remove the fact you're hunting for a PS-5500 from your signature now!

Congratulations of finally finding a PS 5500! Good luck with fixing or finding a replacement for the volume control.

very cool!

If you have a volume control that's giving you grief, you might be able to take the sucker apart and scrape the oxidation off of it. Then you can squirt it up and you'll be good to go.

I have a friend who is a Master Tech, and he can fix anything. And I mean anything, You should see some of the viintage train wrecks that I have given him to fix.

He has told me that he had to open up a couple of volume controls in order to scrape them. Apparently, just juicing them up is a temporary fix. The corrosion comes back and you get a scratchy control again.

Good luck and nice Setton stack!

very nice Henry! thats a different rack correct?

that's the same rack that I had posted pictures of a while back. different from the first pic, but my only audio gear rack. I need to build another shelf that the tuner can sit on. I don't want more than 2 audio pieces on each shelf, and I have THREE on the second one. that way, once the last shelf is built, the tuner and my Cambridge CD payer will fit perfectly on it.

it must be all the nice gear that makes it look like a new rack.

or the bad lighting. I took it with the flash OFF so the whole picture looks yellow&orange.

bad lighting or not, it looks great!