Query about 4400 top cover – grille exposes internals – is this correct?

[Stephen Taylor]

Hi,

I’ve just re-assembled a 4400 after restoration.  When I was giving it a final clean I noticed that the top cover does not completely cover the internals – the first section of the grille is open – see photos.  I assume this is intentional for ventilation/cooling but wondered if anyone else has noticed it on a 4400?  I restored a different 4400 a few months but the cover on that was pristine so I left the cover alone after putting it back on and so may not have noticed the gap – I don’t remember seeing it anyway.  I’m toying with the idea of adding a strip of rigid plastic sheet to the underside of the top cover in order to protect the internals from accidental spillages etc.  Can’t decide if this is a good idea or not.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I’d like to hear them.

Thanks,

Steve

[hcraig244]

Ive still got a couple of these, please don’t ask me why two, and as can be seen both leave ventilation space beyond the cooling fins and into the power amp section….so I would say yours is normal ;¬)

[Stephen Taylor]

Thanks very much for getting back to me – I thought that would be the case (no pun intended) but great to have it confirmed.

Never seen a walnut case before (I assume it’s walnut) very nice indeed.

Cheers

Steve

[hcraig244]

Ahh……well, thereby hangs a tale….when I was in the “4400” phase of my addiction I would buy any lost cause that appeared on ebay. I got a lot of pleasure from the repair and restoration of these units and chronicling the progress in the workbench forum of the old site, always received a huge amount of support and advice from the other members. The unit above came to me totally trashed and was described as “requires attention” which made me smile. The electronic repairs to the unit went well but the case ends and top where beyond reasonable repair and had to be completely rebuilt, never having attempted such work I decided to use a “ash burlwood” veneer on top of plywood…..it’s not a perfect finish but I like it. As a result, and unlike most of the others I acquired at that time, I’ve kept it…..

[Stephen Taylor]

It looks great!  They are quite satisfying to work on, mainly because to me it feels like they’re balanced on a knife edge.  The first one I worked it looked like the output transistors on one channel had gone O/C, then someone had replaced the fuses with higher values which completely burned some of the copper, then they’d patched the copper with what looked like 16AWG which then fried most of the driver transistors after which they put it in a cupboard.  Once you get them working though they sound amazing.

Anyway thanks again for the info – put my mind at rest.

Steve

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