Marti CLA-40 help

[shuchoco]

Is anyone familiar with the Marti CLA-40?
It's an old [fromm 1970 i believe] solid state broadcast optical fet
limiter/compressor.
I just got one and it seems cool, but it's pretty noisy and does a kind
of LF roll off that isn't helpful and doesn't seem proper for this kind
of unit.
Is anyone familiar with this unit? if so, any insight on how to reduce
noise and eliminate that damn roll off?

thanks in advance

[Scott Dorsey]

shuchoco > wrote:
>Is anyone familiar with the Marti CLA-40?
>It's an old [fromm 1970 i believe] solid state broadcast optical fet
>limiter/compressor.

Yes. Marti will still have schematics for it. Also, it was resold by
Broadcast Electronics and they may still have docs.

>I just got one and it seems cool, but it's pretty noisy and does a kind
>of LF roll off that isn't helpful and doesn't seem proper for this kind
>of unit.

When were the caps replaced? Gear of this vintage is built with lots of
single-ended gain stages capacitively coupled with one another, using big
electrolytic caps. When those caps go bad, your low end disappears.
Shotgunning all the electrolytics out and replacing them with modern 105'C
types will help significantly.

>Is anyone familiar with this unit? if so, any insight on how to reduce
>noise and eliminate that damn roll off?

Fix what's broken. Get the schematic, replace all the electrolytics, then
see if you can align it. It should be fairly flat although it pumps like
hell on any program material.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[shuchoco]

Thanks for your reply Scott.

Not sure when it was recapped, but i'll start there.

thanks again!


Scott Dorsey wrote:
> shuchoco > wrote:
> >Is anyone familiar with the Marti CLA-40?
> >It's an old [fromm 1970 i believe] solid state broadcast optical fet
> >limiter/compressor.
>
> Yes. Marti will still have schematics for it. Also, it was resold by
> Broadcast Electronics and they may still have docs.
>
> >I just got one and it seems cool, but it's pretty noisy and does a kind
> >of LF roll off that isn't helpful and doesn't seem proper for this kind
> >of unit.
>
> When were the caps replaced? Gear of this vintage is built with lots of
> single-ended gain stages capacitively coupled with one another, using big
> electrolytic caps. When those caps go bad, your low end disappears.
> Shotgunning all the electrolytics out and replacing them with modern 105'C
> types will help significantly.
>
> >Is anyone familiar with this unit? if so, any insight on how to reduce
> >noise and eliminate that damn roll off?
>
> Fix what's broken. Get the schematic, replace all the electrolytics, then
> see if you can align it. It should be fairly flat although it pumps like
> hell on any program material.
> --scott
> --
> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."