She's alive, she's alive - my god she's alive!

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Congrats huggybear! XK-009 is one great Aiwa deck, and with dbx too!

Per information compiled by Alex (A.N.T.), XK-009 uses one LC4966 CMOS quad switch in the audio signal path, and the sonic quality of the deck can be improved by replacing this chip (IC708) with an ANT4066 chip to cut down on the harmonic distortion introduced by the non-linearity of the LC4966. This is one mod that is very worth doing, IMHO.

I am fortunate to have Aiwa decks (AD-F990, XK-S9000) that don't use 4066 switches in the audio path, but I also have a Sony TC-K707ES and a Technics RS-B965 that use 4066 (3 & 5 chips respectively). After replacing the 4066 chips with ANT4066, the sound has improved on both decks.

BTW, I just acquired an RME Fireface 400 that will be used as a headphone amp, high-quality ADC and DAC, and should allow me to feed my decks with a high-quality digital source, such as 24/96 recordings (I don't have any decent analog sources except for my cassette decks). I plan to do another round of listening to the sonic improvements brought by the ANT4066. I put IC sockets in my Sony & Technics to allow the ANT4066 to be swapped with the original 4066 chips for sonic comparisons.