Please help me diagnose a fault with my hi-fi!

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

On 15 Nov 2004 10:59:26 -0800, m.cinnirella@rhul.ac.uk (Marco
Cinnirella) wrote:

>Hi,
>Can anyone help me diagnose a fault? I have a separates system and
>have lately had the following problem: after listening to a CD (any
>CD) for around 10-30 minutes, the sound from the right speaker starts
>to go strange - kind of distorted and a bit like the white noise you
>get from a badly-tuned t.v. The volume level in the right speaker also
>begins to fade and sometimes cuts out completely. I am using a
>seperates system, so have separate amp, CD player, speakers, etc. How
>can I diagnose this problem effectively, so that I can deduce whether
>it's the CD player, the amp, the speaker or cabling? The first thing I
>did was check the speaker cables and interconnects were all plugged in
>properly - they were...
>
>Any advice welcome - anyone hazard a guess at which component is the
>likely culprit? I do have a cassette deck so I suppose I should listen
>to some tapes and that would at least rule out the CD player...
>
Right, listen to other sources through your amp/receiver and see if
the problem is there with those other sources. One way is to see if
it carries to other sources when you switch to them when you first
hear it with the CD player. Another way to tell if it's the player is
to swap the L/R audio inputs from the player and listen to see if the
problem switches channels. If it does, you know it's the CD player or
it's cable. If so, check the cable connections for corrosion, which
can be often fixed for a time by just plugging/unplugging the cable
and twisting the connectors.

If it's the receiver/amp, the first thing to check is dirty/corroded
controls. This is very common and is corrected with the proper
contact cleaners. Then check for dirty/corroded speaker connections.
A clue to possible speaker connection or speaker problems is if the
sound is clean through headphones. There could also be a problem with
a bad driver or connection inside a speaker.

Gary E
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