Anyone know anything about Hi-Fis / Hi-Fi repair?

I have a hi-fi my dad gave me a few years ago which he bought in 1989. Its a Sony one and at the time was top spec, obviously by todays standards it is poor, but it has sentimental value and it doesn't sounds bad at all, pretty good actually for checking mixes through the terrible 'grotbox' speakers.

Anyway, the CD player was broken so I replaced it with a decent Cambridge audio one. It has worked fine for two years until yesterday. Now, even when the poweramp is cranked full, the audio is barely audible and it is crackly and sounds like 'old time radio.'
I am ASSUMING it is a problem with the poweramp, perhaps age just got to it, but does anyone have other ideas? I have tried different cables but do not have different speakers to try that out.

Well...there are quite a few parts that could have blown. I don't think it's possible to spot the problem without taking the gear to a professional. Even if someone could say "it's the red-brown condenser in position xxxx that's propably burned", could you fix it yourself?

 Most likely it's an easy fix for a pro. I still have my LOVELY Luxman tuner/amp from 1980. A few parts have been changed, but the sound is still great.

Does it sound normal through headphones? Have you checked all the cables that connect the amp, tuner and CD-player to eachother.

Hey man, thanks for the reply.

Cables - I stripped it down to the bare minimum to check. CD Player, to Amp, to Speakers.

Fixing - I probably could fix myself but would be worried about electrocution. I work a lot with guitars and pedals where the voltage is far to low to hurt me etc, never worked on something that runs at mains voltage.

There is an AV shop just round the corner, might run the amp round there on monday if it looks like this is the problem.

Haven't tried the headphones, didn't think of that, will report back later when I have.

Yeah... check all the obvious things first. Good cables,,,,, sounds like it could be a shorted cable.... but if everything checks out...

Look in the phone book and find a local audio shop/TV repair.

I can understand sentimental value, but then again, a minimum bench fee will tell you if it's worth repairing or not. If it's not, worth repairing or is not repairable due to a lack of available replacement parts..... it'll be a dust collector in an attic. Throw it away.

My momma had an old Harmon Kardon stereo... when it broke down, it was trashed....

Adji


Anyone know anything about Hi-Fis / Hi-Fi repair?

I have a hi-fi my dad gave me a few years ago which he bought in 1989. Its a Sony one and at the time was top spec, obviously by todays standards it is poor, but it has sentimental value and it doesn't sounds bad at all, pretty good actually for checking mixes through the terrible 'grotbox' speakers.

Anyway, the CD player was broken so I replaced it with a decent Cambridge audio one. It has worked fine for two years until yesterday. Now, even when the poweramp is cranked full, the audio is barely audible and it is crackly and sounds like 'old time radio.'
I am ASSUMING it is a problem with the poweramp, perhaps age just got to it, but does anyone have other ideas? I have tried different cables but do not have different speakers to try that out.

Does it have those jumpers in the back from preamp out to power amp in ?  If it does you might try cleaning those or replace the jumpers with cables just as a test to make sure that's not the problem.  Another test you could do is connect the record out to something to see if you get a good signal from the preamp. If you do it's the amp section.

you can not put the speakers right into the laptop. What you can do is connect the laptop to an amplifier and an audio amplifier takes the laptop and send it to the speakers.

These are certainly valid questions, but it may be a little know-how in order to reduce them and pick up some great hi-fi bargain. In this article I will address these issues in turn, so you can save large sums to buy audio equipment.

It can be so simple fix that you need only to replace a glass fuse. Cost nothing € 0.3-0.5. (less then €1)
Check that if that is broken?