"Hummy" Sunfire Super Junior sub: quick fix, reparable, or DOA?

A friend gifted me this beauty; he had no idea it was even in his AV system (hiding in a cabinet). It was not connected to his receiver or to power. After lugging it home (heavy little fella) and plugging it in, all I get is a quite noticeable hum. This continues when the sub cable is connected to the line level inputs; I get no actual audio output but the hum from the sub itself. There is no on/off switch on this model.

Anyone familiar with this model and/or issue? Wondering if there's anything else I can do as a layman to remedy, or if it's something better left to a qualified repair type person (maybe George Meyer in Santa Monica or my old buddy Rolf Erickson). It would be perfect for my office and even a $200 repair bill might be worth it to salvage a $1000 sub. Your opinions always appreciated!

 

I'll be watching this thread, because I have the exact same unit, with the exact same problem

Came home from work a few years ago and it was doing that. Never got around to having it looked at...

I loved the damn thing before it went belly-up.

 

http://www.flannerysvintageaudio.com/

 

Probably bad caps.

 

Likely, bad caps indeed. Often a cause of hum.

 

The same thing happened with my Vandersteen sub which I bought second hand. It worked fine for many years but then suddenly was humming 24/7. So far I've just left it unplugged and have been using my system without a sub. Not ideal, particularly for surround music that uses the LFE channel, but I haven't wanted to go through the hassle of taking out the amplifier section of the sub to send it in for repair. I've been surprised since upgrading my preamp last winter that bass on stereo sources is excellent without the sub anyway.

 

Hagstrom posted this link above:

http://www.flannerysvintageaudio.com/

Well I finally got my act together and packed up the board from my Sunfire Super Junior and shipped it off to Bill Flannery. He turned it around in 3 days, and took the time to call me, telling me what needed to be done and explained how he was going to fix it. I've had it back in the system for a couple days now and it's working perfectly. I couldn't be happier, I really missed this thing.

Anyway, I highly recommend Bill Flannery and thanks a lot fellow member Hagstrom for taking the time to post this link, I really appreciate it.

 

Hmmm, I might need to look into this. I love my Super Junior, but it had the hum, I got it "fixed", and it started humming again in a couple of years. It's been in a closet and I'm lucky I didn't toss it! Thanks @Hagstrom !

 

It's better but you trade low frequency extension for marginally better imaging. Can't have the cake AND eat it, right ?

 

I'm glad his shop worked out well for you. For those that may not know, Bill is a former employee of Bob Carver and does great work from all accounts.