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Ibanez No.95 Renometer

Posted on 27/08/20132/09/2013 by mirosol

Just because i happen to feel like it, here’s another post for today..

Ibanez-NO95-Renometer

What is it?
Ibanez Renometer Model No. 95 EQ/Booster from mid seventies.

Got this unit in a trade some time ago. In very good condition i might add. Plugged it in and had no response. Gladly, the only broken thing was one of the battery snaps. This requires two 9V batteries, as it runs with +9V and -9V, using gorund as vref. Measured current consumption settles round 5mA, so those two batteries should last a long time. Couldn’t believe my ears how loud this thing is. The boost switches work in mouth watering manner – offering even more raw clean boost. While trying out the sliders, i noticed wah-like textures to the sweeps. Opening the box up confirmed it.

Ibanez-NO95-Renometer-Guts1

The sliders are basically five simplified cry baby wahs that are wired for cut and a boost. The print on the cover has +12/-12dB on it, but i’m having hard time believing that it is just 12dB that this thing adds to the signal. Maybe it is, but it gets multiplied by all the 5 frequency ranges. The photo above shows tha the inductors for lower frequencies are so huge that they are mounted on the “wrong” side of the board. The image below shows the smaller inductors next to the slides.

Ibanez-NO95-Renometer-Guts2

Didn’t have hard shell battery snaps with long enough leads, so i soldered the new one to the old wires and cleaned it up with heat shrink tubing. As you can see from the board photo, the part count is pretty low. Which made me question what was driving it to offer so much sheer volume…

Ibanez-NO95-Renometer-Guts3

Just one TI TL082. I heard loud effects with TL family chips, but not this loud. I could be just because of the +/- voltage swing that takes the volume to this level. I do wonder what the empty holes are for…

Oh. Once again, Dirk has a perfect schematic published on his site. His unit seems to run on JRC4558 and it has an dc jack. Neither of which are present in my unit.

How does it sound?
Clean and Loud. If it weren’t for the 5 huge inductors, this one would get cloned immediately and that clone would get a permanent spot on my pedal board. No distortion at all. Just a perfect, super loud EQ booster. Actually. I don’t know of a better sounding one to exist.

11 thoughts on “Ibanez No.95 Renometer”

  1. Monster says:
    9/10/2016 at 16:03

    Hi I wanted to know how many watts is on this? I have the exact equalizer I found it from my attic and I don’t know how many watts it’s on it for me to use plz help

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      11/10/2016 at 14:16

      Not quite sure what you mean, but measured power consumption is around 5µA, so those two batteries should last you a long time.
      +m

      Reply
  2. Szin Napalm says:
    14/06/2017 at 08:58

    Dude why dont you just add some inducters and clone it?

    Reply
  3. kg says:
    10/10/2017 at 16:36

    Hello
    Thank you very much for your website, it’s full of great resources.

    I just got a Renometer. When I power it on, no sound is coming out. If i put all the faders way up, and the boost on, i can hear the filter action, but the input signal is still very very low. Could it be a faulty opamp, or electrolytic capacitors getting old ?

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      10/10/2017 at 17:01

      My bet would be on the electrolytics.
      +m

      Reply
  4. kg says:
    11/10/2017 at 00:10

    Thank you very much, Mirosol !
    I will change them, and check if it works again.

    Do ceramics capacitors tend to get as faulty as the electrolytics ?
    No need to suspect the opamp (mine is a JRC4558, byt the way, like on Dirk Hendrik schematic)?

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      11/10/2017 at 07:36

      Ceramics are usually outlasting everything, so leave those untouched. At least for now. I’d change the electrolytics first and if that does’t help, then mesure the voltages on IC pins.
      +m

      Reply
  5. kg says:
    11/10/2017 at 15:10

    Perfect, thank you again : i will change the electrolytics and see what happens !

    Reply
  6. kg says:
    14/10/2017 at 23:15

    Hi, Mirosol, just a quick personal message to let you know that i changed the electrolytics capacitors and the REnometer works how it should : thank you once again for you input !

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      14/10/2017 at 23:17

      Good to hear. Electrolytics may be the most common thing to fail in older units.
      +m

      Reply
  7. Ken says:
    17/05/2022 at 18:00

    Hey, would you know anyone I could go to to get mine modded to take DC power?

    Reply

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