How I don't learn from experience

On the morning of last day of the year I fixed a friend's audio amplifier, a Luxman L30.

The right channel had gone. We'd bought the replacement transistors on E-Bay. They arrived on the 30th. I'd previously looked inside the amplifier and thought "buggar me this is going to be awkward. I'm going to have to desolder four heavy duty power duty transistors just to get at the circuit board." But I'd said I'd do it and thought I'd better have a go. I was slightly worried about the job and it even disturbed my sleep.

In the holiday morning though I uncharacteristically decided to stop watching TV and get on with it. I found the solution, did the job, and got the amplifier working again. (See the end of this blog entry for details). I was so happy when I heard music coming out of both speakers.

The evening of last day of the year. The food was nice, the wine was fine, the company pleasant, but after the first hour I was bored out of my tiny mind. My fault. I'm not very sociable. I stayed awake till the first minutes of the New Year then snuck off too doze on a sofa till 2 am.

And on the morning of the first day of 2016 I found myself comparing the happiness/satisfaction of the morning (fixing an old audio amplifier) with the boredom of the evening (even the alcohol did not help much).

But I still look forward to parties and going out for meals. I don't learn my lesson, even though I experience it. The sages have been saying for thousands of years that you cannot chase happiness, it will come, if it comes, when it wants to.

Anyway, just in case someone else has to replace the two transistors (a C1626 paired with an A816) which drive the power transistors in a Luxman L-30... You can remove the four power transistors by simply unscrewing them! I'm no Sherlock, but the 8 bolts holding the transistors to the heat-sink should have given me a clue...

So old transistors desoldered, new ones soldered in and, expletive deleted, it worked...