Re: Sinclair Z12
I have a pair of Z12s that I got second hand with a Stereo 25 preamp. They're not quite identical, one had Lemco electrolytics and the other unbranded, one PCB brown and one black, the transistors were slightly different too. My first challenge was to make them work, which involved changing a few bits; unfortunately this resulted in a couple of tracks peeling off the PCB. Attempts to reinforce suspect sections caused the PCB to curl up. Maybe the board material was substandard too.
Once they were 'working', I decided to assemble them with the preamp into a compact, Sinclair-sized box to use on the boat, because they would run directly from 13V DC. I modified a Japanese HiFi tuner to do likewise, and set about finding a suitable pair of speakers. The next time I powered the Z12s up, at least one transistor was bad...
At this point they were demoted to the status of curiosities rather than amplifiers and have remained as such, although I did eventually repair the faulty module and have powered them up not so long ago.
Z12 advantages: Size
Z12 disadvantages: Performance, Reliability
A feature-set shared by many other Sinclair products!
Yes I love Sinclair stuff, amplifiers that oscillate and computers that overheat, calculators that give wrong answers, it's all part of the fun.
Lucien
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