Yamaha CS80 group photo

Yahoo Groups archive

Yamaha CS80

Index last updated: 2026-04-28 23:44 UTC

Message

CS80 PSU mod-anyone ever done this?รพ

2007-11-07 by kent_spong

OK.  Well so far I have done this PSU mod on three CS80's for 
clients who wanted it done. The difference it made to the overall 
tuning of the synth was absolutely nothing. The power supply's heat 
generation effecting the voices is a myth generated by some jerk on 
the net somewhere so people would notice him. Maybe it was the same 
guy that said if you move an 80 it will go out of tune, or the front 
panel is metal and the keys are made of wood. I still get people 
phone me about getting the metal front panels of there 80's redone, 
and when I tell them it's made of plywood they tell me it's not it's 
metal because there read it in post on the net once. I have restored 
fifty four CS80's and have never seen a metal front panel yet. 

The VCO's generate their own heat as we know, but I think you will 
find the heat from the filter IC's have more chance of affecting the 
VCO's than the power supply ever will. The nearly all the heat from 
the power supply is vented out though the grills on that side and 
goes nowhere near the voice boards. I know this because I did a heat 
convection test on an early KSR80 for RLMusic about five years ago 
to find out if it was a good idea to remove the power supply out of 
the synth and place it into a 19" rack mount. The answer was and 
still is. NO IT'S NOT!  
If anything a cool breeze through the top vents will knock it out of 
tune more

Mods are about improving the function of a synth on a strictly 
personal level, but most of all it has to be beneficial to both the 
player and the synth. Most mods don't do both, even Kenton midi with 
it's midi/in only is not much use on a synth that is designed to be 
a players keyboard. But worse of all is fitting that ally plate with 
the reset and LFO switch to the CS80's front panel. Uggghhh! 
Vangelis had all of his 80's modified, but to for fill a particular 
goal and not because it seemed like a laugh at the time.

Rob's Demention C mod was done in such a way that it was compleatly 
reversible and I am doing just that to it as we speak. He wanted to 
try it and he decided he didn't really want it in the end. So no 
harm done.

Attachments

Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.