[Chocaholic]

In 1975, after saving paper route money for some time, I bought my holy grail at the time...a Sansui AU-717 integrated amplifier. Now, at age 60, I experienced the first hiccup. The thing must weigh 70 lbs, sounds amazing and has been bulletproof for 44 years.

Woke up yesterday jonsing for some Lee Michaels. Spent 20 minutes digging through racks of albums, found it and fired up the turntable only to have sound come from the right channel only. Checked several inputs as well as A and B outputs...left channel, dead. Damn!

Hauled it out to the workbench, did a web search and had it fixed in 5 minutes. There’s a switch on the back to separate preamp and power amp in case you want to use them independently. Apparently that switch gets crusty over time. A squirt of contact cleaner and a few fast actuations and she sings like new again. Never even had to remove the cover.

What did we do before the Internet? Listening to a Ron Carter LP as I type. Life is good...my beloved AU-717 is back in the rack.