05/14/2026
Restoration on a 1977 Yamaha CR-2020 receiver, a total beast packing 105w of power per channel. With great power comes great heat output, and these units unfortunately were known to blow up. Unbeknownst to the owner, this unit definitely exploded at some point in the past and was unfortunately fixed up by a real hack - and now I had to save it (seems to be the theme of 2026).
Power and main amps were recapped (with a grossly overpriced and under specced ebay kit which I would highly recommend against). The lytic board ended up having a hold burnt through it because the previous shop ignored the service warning to upgrade the resistors. This was restored with some clever use of silicone, kapton tape, solder, and high end resistors. New transistors were also installed and the lights redone. (Note: They aren't this green in real life, my camera just really boosted that hue for some reason)
Glad it was saved in the end because I nearly had 8 heart attacks taking this apart and finding a new fire to put out (literally) every day.
