Step one: disassemble the unit.

This is the easiest of the mods. For some reason some of the Akai S-950 use a 2 pin power connector which is not compatible with a standard IEC connector and thus our standard power supply cables.

This connector belongs to bin.

You will need a good ole file tool and a soldering iron. Simply remove the old connector. Use a file tool to widen the existing hole and insert the new connector.

You will notice a small board to which the existing connector was soldered to. Add a new wire there and solder it onto the grounding hole pin. In the image above, the new wire is the black one (the one without transparent plastic insulator!), and the location for the soldering point is shown. The length should be the same as the existing two so that you can reach the connector. Then insert the new IEC connector and solder all three wires, with the new wire that you just added going to the middle pin. That’s the ground pin connection. So that from now on your Akai not only accepts common IEC cable, but is now grounded properly.

The good thing is that the holes for the screws will fit prefectly. You just need to file the existing connector hole a bit (from all sides!).

With the unit disassembled, you can do some washing now.

And with generic grey matte spray paint, you can restore the knobs to be as new. Just make sure you sand down the existing paint first. Then 5-6 light coatings from a 30cm / 1ft distance will do fine.

A proper Akai S-950 User Manual
If there is anyone looking for a user manual for an Akai S-950 that is not missing any of its pages it can be found right here: https://donsolaris.com/tmp/Akai_S-950_Manual.pdf The reason I mention this is because of the fact that all of the S-950 manuals that are online are for some reason missing / have plenty of blank pages. This one has all of the pages and no blanks! Horray.