This is an interesting thread in that I had planned to send Halcro a PM asking who he was sending his DDs to for repair.
I once did a global search for 2SK147 (a low noise FET). At the time they were, as Lewm said, available if you searched for them. The hitch was that you had to buy industrial quanties, minimum of 100 pieces (IIRC), at whatever price being asked. In fact, there are companies who specialize in finding and stockpiling obsolete chips.
That said, I have seen techs with amazing knowledge, skill and training, struggle for months trying to fix audio esoterica from the Japan Inc heyday. So, just because we are not electronics experts, that doesnt mean repairs on such gear is necessarily simple or easy for the expert.
One thing we might do is get together and identify a tech that has the skill to fix and keep these pieces running - and then give him our buisness. Sure the original chips might die but their final function is generic. Perhaps a such a clever tech can often design a circuit to replace the dead chip from the signal and PS input to that chip to where the dead chip rejoins the circuit.
Mike
I once did a global search for 2SK147 (a low noise FET). At the time they were, as Lewm said, available if you searched for them. The hitch was that you had to buy industrial quanties, minimum of 100 pieces (IIRC), at whatever price being asked. In fact, there are companies who specialize in finding and stockpiling obsolete chips.
That said, I have seen techs with amazing knowledge, skill and training, struggle for months trying to fix audio esoterica from the Japan Inc heyday. So, just because we are not electronics experts, that doesnt mean repairs on such gear is necessarily simple or easy for the expert.
One thing we might do is get together and identify a tech that has the skill to fix and keep these pieces running - and then give him our buisness. Sure the original chips might die but their final function is generic. Perhaps a such a clever tech can often design a circuit to replace the dead chip from the signal and PS input to that chip to where the dead chip rejoins the circuit.
Mike