Found a funky ADA 2.56i Digital Delay on Craigslist. It needs a little work but for $30 it was a good price.
I have to swap out 3 of the pots as the stems are broken. When I bought it the knobs were glued on (DOH!). I also need to replace all of the knobs. I’m thinking black aluminium would look nice. It also needs three small push button covers. I’m not sure if I can buy these or if I’ll need to fabricate some out of aluminium tubing. The input jack might need replacing as well. In all, pretty simple stuff. I think I have about $20 and a couple hours to invest in it. Outside of the minor flaws it sounds pretty good.
Good timing on this. I’ve been looking for another basic delay unit. I don’t need presets, memory or anything fancy in a basic delay. A couple knobs to dial in the timing and you’re off and running.
Update: I ended up not replacing the pots. One pot which was damaged (the main input) was a 10k C. As it turns out that is somewhat hard to find. I decided to try and fix it before I hunt one down. The worse that could happen is I’ll really destroy it and need to hunt down a replacement right?
I got out a Dremmel and made a small hole in the broken plastic stem. I gently inserted a small wood screw in the hole until I figured it was far enough in. I clipped the head off the wood screw and heated it just enough to melt the plastic around it. While the plastic was still soft I took pliers and pinched it down on the wood screw. This pushed together a few of the cracks from the original damage and also better secured the wood screw in place. Once that was done I rebuilt the width of the stem by layering heat shrink tubing over the wood screw. It took about 5 layers before it was the same width as the other stems. My replacement knobs are screw-down so this worked perfectly.
I decided this was easier then replacing the other posts, so I did this on the remaining two. Worked like a charm.
This has quickly moved up the ranks as my favourite old digital delay. The waveform selection is fantastic. It sounds clean and you can get nice long tails from it. I’ll buy another if I ever run across one.
Spec o’ rama
Delay Time: 0.31 to 2560ms
Modulation Depth: 0 (none) to 8:1
Speed Sweep: 0.1 sec to 25 sec
Dynamic Range: 90dB
Frequency Response: Dry 10Hz to 20kHz / Delay 20Hz to 16kHz
Distortion (THD) @ 1 kHz:
dry, 0dBV, 0.5% max.
wet, 0dBV, 1.0% max.
dry, +4dBV, 0.65% max.
wet, +4dBV, 1.2% max.
Back Panel: 1/4 inch phono (Input, Effect Out, Direct Out, Petal Switch)
Optional Remote Switch: Grounding terminal engages.
Power Consumption: 20 watts
Power: 120 VAC, 50/60HZ
Weight: 6.5lbs (14.33kg)
Acquired: 2010
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