So this has happened to me more times than I can remember. Somebody tosses a piece of junk or another out on the street. I pick it up, hoping that this time it will work “out of the box”. Sometimes it does, and the rest of the times are when I feel like my life is ruined. No, not because whatever piece of junk is a broken piece of s**t, but because I have, just have, to fix it. This kills me sometime. The repair won’t necessary be interesting, the usefulness factor is usually very low and most importantly, it holds up time for projects that I actually want or even need to do. The latest acquisition was when I was walking home from work, and outside one of the shops I pass by, an Onkyo Power Amplifier is tossed out. Remote and all. I walk in to the place, ask the shopkeeper if he is tossing it out, and he supplies his blessing. All the way home I could think of nothing but excuses for myself and my wife, regarding why is it okay to bring another piece of junk home. “It’s because I want to give a test-run to my oscilloscope (another 35+ year old piece of equipment)”; “It will be fun”; “I might learn something from it”.
So here are my responses to my own excuses:
- The oscilloscope works nicely, and it’s pretty cool, but still, better used elsewhere.
- It wasn’t fun.
- I learned something from it all right. I’m an idiot.
Basically, these are my responses considering that my workbench looked like this for two weeks

To clarify, We live in a 50 square-meter apartment. Any and every excess piece of equipment is noticed and has a direct impact on living quality. Not to mention that this workstation is my go-to music listening post (when the living room is taken), programming station, news reading station (I like it more than my smart phone) and most importantly, Aliexpress crap ordering place. In addition, although I consider myself a good debugger, this process was for shame. Started off by turning it on. Okay, good start! Continued by checking the power supply. First problem there, burnt fuse. Again, good job! Then it starts to toggle on and off. Here is where I probably started to mess up. I disconnected every connector on the board, but the plastic was old so they all broke. It took a few days, but I managed to find the problem. Re-connecting all the wires took forever because I had to re-solder everything (idiot) and Hoozah! A working amplifier!
But what was it for? First, I bought a new NAD amplifier about a year ago. I’m fairly happy with it. Second, it wasn’t even that much of an Audio Amplifier. I mean, it did play whatever I plugged into it, but no distinct sound features. Just flat out sound.
Which again, brings me to why. You can argue it keeps the brain sharp, it’s fun or whatever. But it is what it is. I’m part of the obsessed species. I see a problem and I must fix it. Whomever of you out there which have the same issue know what I’m talking about. And this kind of people will keep doing it. And keep thinking about the problem when they are at work, chatting with the Mrs. and taking a shower.
Don’t feel bad, just know you are not alone. The only unsolicited advice I can give you, is that twice a year try and throw some s**t out. It clears room in your heart for other junk to fix!