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Last few days listening MiniMe with B-2 my patients was running out. With all more or less OK sound my B-2 had wondering eye about imaging. The amp has a minor fluctuation of gain between the channels and this fluctuation can be addressed by …kicking the map. I was keep hitting the amp with all my stupid force and it become to develop some odd noises – obviously it needed some service.

I kind of felt that I have finished with soldering in my live and I very intentionally do not even keep solder in my home. Couple weeks ago one audio-devil brought solders to me and I felt that I might invest some time to fix up my Yamaha B-2. So, I did. It took 2.5 hour and I re-wired the B-2 with direct paths to input out, replace most of the parts that I felt need/might to be replaced and recalibrated the amp. As the result it become superbly imaging stable, with no noises of any kind and with quite nice sound. The only things that I did not do was to un-mount those V-FET transistor and to put between then and the heat sinks the contemporary much better performing thermo compound, probably I will do it in sometimes feature. Still, I do not get as lot of power from it now, so it might stay as is for now.

I was listening the amp after the face lift and I kind of begin to like it in a new way. In addition it is a very powerful beast – something that did not experience for a while.  What would be interesting sometime is to take my B-2 in a room with more or less capable conceptual speakers that need a lot of power, driven by let say Boulder 2050 , or Halcro MC-70, or Spectral DMA-360,  or Lamm M1.1,  or MBL 9007,  or Mark Levinson 33, or Krell MRA, or Edge NL,  or Gamut S-300,  or Burmester 909, or Jeff Rowland 9T, or Bryston SST or Pass X.5 and to see how that stinky 30 years old 140W V-FET consumer amp will push up against the “industry” leaders. In face if I have the Lamm M1.1 then I would be more then enough to say what is going on. Unfortunately my MiniMe is not the “investigative” speaker but for a sake of general education and I would like to hear Yamaha B-2 on something more conventional.

Anyhow, if you are near New England, have a good acoustic system that you drive with 100-150W of power, has no problem with ego and have an interest how an old V-FET will sound then my B-2 now in a condition to show off what those amps were able to do. It would be interesting to see if we have any progress in powerful SS amplification.  I think we do and I think that Lamm M1.1 in Class A would be more interesting then my B-2 ….but I am so long off from the powerful SS amps that it might be fun to play it again as the “quest star”.

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