This is topic Kintec Processor repair. in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Freddie Dobbs (Member # 915) on 08-21-2001, 09:10 PM:
I'm looking for some one or company that can repair kintec 1003 processors any info would be helpfull..
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 08-21-2001, 10:47 PM:
Seeing that Kintek is out of business, you may be screwed. You might be better off finding a used Dolby or Ultra as it may cost less than what someone might charge to repair the Kintek.Aaron
Posted by Freddie Dobbs (Member # 915) on 08-22-2001, 06:09 PM:
Araon, I kinda figured that, I was just looking to get lucky.. thanks..
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-22-2001, 07:35 PM:
You're bettter off by far to throw it away. Kintek stuff was sooooo much trouble you'll just never know.
If you are shoprt on $$ to replace it get a used CP-50 or Ultra Stereo. Ya can find em here in the equipment for sale section or on E-baynow and then.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Freddie Dobbs (Member # 915) on 08-23-2001, 11:31 AM:
Thanks Mark, I think thats what I'll do....
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 08-23-2001, 12:09 PM:
We had some Kintec stuff (KT-804's and their amplifiers.) Worked OK. Always loosing those seperate "pink-noise" generator modules, though. It was fine for our "less than 50 seats" screens.I always feel a little bad when a company goes under. No one wants to loose their job.. I'm sure some Kintec engineers worked late many nights to get products to market; It wasn't their fault they were probably told to design a cheap processor.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-23-2001, 03:22 PM:
John,
The stuff Kintek cranked out was not exactly cheap nor poorly built. I'm not exactly sure where their problem lied but I think a major fault they had was in the QC area. It seemed to be non-existant for some reason. I don't even want to get into how many of their exciter supplies cause me and a theatre chain owner soooo much grief back in the early 80's. Kintek simply could not make them work reliably. We eventually took them all out and replaced them with Kelmar supplies never to have any major problems again.
I have a friend that worked for UA theatres a while back and they had the same sort of grief with the center surround processors. On one job only 2 out of 12 worked out of the box! Kintek was also either a part of DBX, or they owned DBX....can't remember which way it was though so I doubt that there was a shortage of good design engineers.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 08-23-2001, 05:55 PM:
Kintec was part of DBX at one time....when the product first came out we did a demo for cinema owners ( late 1970 ? )in the Orlando, Florida area with Dan Taylor ( who has been part of the Sony family for years....he left early ). It was impressive for the time but even then
DBX marketing has selling the same "Noise reduction / Stereo boxes to the high end audio stores ( take off the yellow face / replace with a black DBX stylecase ) for less money!!!! We have some of these boat anchors ( processors / amplifiers ) which will probably go the e-bay/dumpster route........Another Alumni of the company...Sandra Fuller...now with BrightStar Cinema Supply in New England.
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 08-23-2001, 10:17 PM:
There is a saying in the quality control industry: "You can't QC in quality afterwards." If things (like the exciter supplies) failed often, I would have just have to conclude the things were just not that well made. I've gone through several MIL-spec inspections at a company I worked for. We had to track reject rates for our product, subassemblies and even individual IC's. The actual reject rate of decent quality, properly stored electronic components is quite low. (Although, we mostly used digital logic type IC's, not analog stuff.) I'm not saying that QC'ing a finished product is unnecessary, but it's sort of too late by then.
Only two of the 12 worked out of the box?! Holy smokes! With delays on a job like that, an installer could loose money if that many don't work.
Don't be surprised if the DBX engineering group had nothing to do with the Kintec group. The electronics company I worked for was owned by a $500 million a year parent company, yet gave us *no* resources. When I did engineering design, several times I was told; "Those parts are too expensive; find another way."
Posted by Stefan Scholz (Member # 147) on 08-24-2001, 03:42 PM:
David Blackmere, owner of Kintek was the brain behind dbx. D avid B lackmere...
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 08-24-2001, 03:49 PM:
Actually when it was a BSR company (the parent of dbx as well) there quality control was okay. It was after that it went downhill
Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 08-24-2001, 04:07 PM:
That's Sarah Fuller at Bright Star. 
Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 08-24-2001, 04:15 PM:
Sarah is a very good friend....we saw each other last week in Germany.
Now this Sandra is just my fingers ( with my brain detached ) typing on my laptop in some hotel room at 1 a.m.........
Richard Fowler
TVP-Theatre & Video Products Inc. www.tvpmiami.com
Posted by Stefan Scholz (Member # 147) on 08-25-2001, 02:42 PM:
THe products had some highlights. The optical preamp was audibly superior to the Dolby CAT 108c and even the Cat240. I did never like the Dolby preamps, as one of my processors at university said, when watching the schematics "Does anybody build this? It's horrible..."
The Kintek's hf correction was much cleaner, but it's history now. The rest just does something, and the 804 could do quite ok... if correctly set up.
And theese easy to loose pink noise sources really enabled to the the matrix, as it was fed before the decoder in 2 channel. And it was free with every processor.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 08-25-2001, 06:56 PM:
Kintek was the first company to treat the solar cell for what it is a current device and design a true constant current preamp which is why they were so clean sounding. Even a small reflected impedance causes distortion of a cells out put. I often feel the preamps on the LED readers should go back to that design.
On the pink noise through the matrix I felt was a bit bogus for they had the NR circuitry after the matrix so one was eq'ing a ver processed noise source
Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 08-25-2001, 09:18 PM:
Actually Freddie there is a CP-50 for sale on ebay at this very moment - click here an all right deal too. A decent "upgrade" in my opinion 