Scott 340 User manual

Mapleshade • 1100 Wicomico Street • 5th Floor, Suite 535 • Baltimore, MD 21230
410-867-7543 • [e-mail] • www.mapleshadestore.com
SCOTT 340 AND 340B
OWNERʼS MANUAL
PERFORMANCE AND DESIGN
As part of the extensive sonic upgrade of the 340, all front panel controls have
been bypassed except for Tape Monitor, Input, Loudness and Power (Power
On/Off is the furthest right switch).
INSTALLATION TIPS
INPUT CONNECTIONS
To set up the receiver, connect any line level source interconnects (e.g., CD
player, cassette player, etc.) to either the Extra (4th pair of RCA jacks from the
right when looking at the back of the chassis) or the Tape In RCA jacks (5th pair
from the right). The upper jacks are all left channel; the lower ones are right
channel inputs. To play the source connected to Extra, switch the Input selector
knob to Extra and switch Tape Monitor to Out (NOTE: when Tape Monitor is set
to In, ALL other inputs are turned OFF, including the FM tuner). To play the
source connected to Tape In, set the Tape Monitor switch to In.
If you wish to use the superb phono section of the 340, connect your turntable to
the MAG HI inputs (2nd set of RCA jacks from the right). Gain of the Scott phono
stage is sufficient to play any moving magnet cartridge or any high output-moving
coil (i.e., 1 mv or more output rating).
SPEAKER CONNECTIONS
To connect speaker cables on the 340B, Hot (red) goes to one of the upper row
of speaker terminal screws marked 4, 8 and 16. Pick the one closest to the rated
impedance of your speaker. (Reading from left to right, the upper row of screws

Mapleshade • 1100 Wicomico Street • 5th Floor, Suite 535 • Baltimore, MD 21230
410-867-7543 • [e-mail] • www.mapleshadestore.com
is 4, 8 and 16 for the right channel, then 4, 8 and 16 again for the left channel
speaker.) To connect the Ground (black) of your speaker cable, connect the right
channel ground to the leftmost lower row screws (marked 0). Connect the left
channel speaker ground to the 5th from the right screw terminal (also marked 0).
To connect speaker cables to the Scott 340, Ground (black) goes to the leftmost
screw marked 0 (upper one is left channel ground, lower one is right channel).
Hot (red) goes to one of the three screws marked 16, 8, or 4 (reading from left to
right) – whichever one is the correct impedance for your speaker.
If you have spade lugs too big for the screw terminal, bend one leg out of the way
and just put the other leg under the screw and tighten. Do NOT let the speaker
lug or wire touch two adjacent screws.
ANTENNA CONNECTION FOR TUNER
The tuner section requires 300-ohm antenna lead (looks like a flat plastic ribbon
with 2 conductors and 2 small spade lugs as terminations). If you already have a
75-ohm antenna (these use a round coaxial cable with a round, screw-on BNC-
type connector), then you need to get a Radio Shack 75-ohm-to-300-ohm
adapter. If you have no antenna currently and donʼt need a rooftop antenna for
weak signals, then we recommend a Radio Shack folded dipole for $5 or so (this
is the flat wire kind of antenna you can thumbtack to the wall). We recommend
lightly taping it to a long thin dowel (52 inch) to keep the antenna wire straight
and horizontal; this allows you to turn the antenna so that a) in fringe areas, you
can find, by ear, the direction of strongest signal or b) in urban areas, you can
find the direction of best suppression of multipath interference (multipath is the
most prevalent cause of sonic degradation of the FM signal).
WARM-UP, BREAK-IN, AC POLARITY AND VENTILATION
Whenever you turn on the receiver, it takes about 20 minutes to get full sonic
performance. As delivered from us, the receiver takes at least 50 to 100 hours to
break in and demonstrate 100% of its potential, due to all the new components
we install.

Mapleshade • 1100 Wicomico Street • 5th Floor, Suite 535 • Baltimore, MD 21230
410-867-7543 • [e-mail] • www.mapleshadestore.com
We recommend using the receiver in an open rack rather than a closed cabinet,
for best cooling and tube life. If you use a closed cabinet, make sure there are
plenty of ventilation holes in back, 3 inches of overhead clearance, and leave
doors opened when playing the receiver.
The receiver is somewhat sensitive to AC polarity, so after plugging it in and
listening, reverse the plug orientation in the wall to see whether the sound gets
better or worse. Once youʼve established the best orientation, mark the plug with
magic marker.
FURTHER SONIC UPGRADES
Even though your Mapleshade-modded Scott 340 will sound better, as delivered,
then almost any combination of separate tuner, preamp and amp costing $10,000
or up, you can still improve the sound quite a bit further with some external
tweaks such as the following:
1. Use our SilClear Contact Enhancer to treat all the tube pins, the RCA input
connections, the speaker connections, the AC plug and the fuse (not to
mention the further improvements youʼll get by using the SilClear on all
your other components. Youʼll be startled by the gain in transparency and
brilliance).
2. Mount the Scott on three of our massive brass footers, preferably the
Original Triplepoints or, best of all, our Megamounts. Bass will be
dramatically tightened and deepened; midrange detail and treble clarity
will be significantly enhanced.
3. To double the effect of the brass footers, mount them on one of our 2 or 4-
inch maple platforms with Isoblock suspension. If you are mounting the
Scott on a glass, metal, granite or concrete shelf, consider this step
essential for achieving great sonics.
4. Install one of our Clearview AC Power Cords (preferably the MK II) using
the simple-to-install AC Power Cord Kit that requires no soldering or

Mapleshade • 1100 Wicomico Street • 5th Floor, Suite 535 • Baltimore, MD 21230
410-867-7543 • [e-mail] • www.mapleshadestore.com
receiver disassembly. You will find the improvement in dynamics, detail,
bass tightness and treble extension most satisfying.
5. To gain even further warmth, bass extension and harmonic detail, install
our Tube Anchors in the following priority order: the two 6U8 driver tubes
(use the Type A-U.S. Tube Anchors), the two 12AX7 phono stage tubes if
youʼre using a turntable (use the Type A-U.S. Tube Anchors), and finally
the four 7591 output tubes (use the Type C-Sov. Tube Anchors).
6. Put a Heavyhat weight on each output transformer to add another 30% to
the improvement you gain from step 2.