r/audiorepair

I have a vintage Onkyo A-8017 integrated amplifier that needs some refurbishing. I’m wondering whether it’s worth getting it repaired or if I’d be better off looking for a newer amplifier.

The main purpose is to power my JBL floor-standing speakers, along with a powered PSB subwoofer.

Does anyone know of any good service centers in Bangalore that specialize in vintage stereo equipment?

For everyone looking for advice, it is evident that there is a dearth of experts available to assist anyone here, so here is some basic advice that might give you a fighting chance.

1. Be sure to go out and try to find Service Manuals and schematics for your gear. They are out there, you just need to browse for the right .pdf. Get your owner's manuals as well because they can answer basic operational questions.

If you do not know how to read a schematic, you really do not have much business cracking open your device if you do not have some basic electrical engineering knowledge.

2. YouTube is an amazing resource with real techs showing you their trouble shoot processes. You do not need the EXACT model number to get an answer because a lot of the circuits and designs have a great deal of commonality.

3. You will need some basic tools like a Fluke Multimeter. There are rather inexpensive capacitor testers out there that are not much money. AliExpress is a great resource. Be sure to research the tools, though. Get crowdsourced opinions from those who have taken the arrows already.

You will need a proper soldering iron station with temperature control for more sensitive work. Also needed is solder, flux, and desoldering braid. Good news: Harbor Freight, AliExpress, and eBay have very inexpensive tools out there. This is not like in the '80s when I worked for a local electronics distributor while in college, and you had to buy expensive pro tools from legacy makers.

I presume that you will have the other basic tools already. If not, hit Reddit and YouTube to research a list of basic hand tools you will need. Go hit the internet and find out.

There are also a hell of a lot of old oscilloscopes out there, and for audio, you only need one that generally needs to go no more the 20kHz for the most part. They are so bloody cheap; it is crazy. Or you can buy a probe with a USB interface for your laptop for a digital oscilloscope. But I would prefer a proper scope for my home bench. You can get an old Tektronix one, way better than the ones I had on my bench in high school and college, for nothing- 3 magic beans! It's crazy.

4. When you are tackling an issue in various products, you can also leverage AI to create troubleshooting steps if you correctly prompt very specific symptoms and work down your checklist.

That is all. This is not rocket science, but, like they always say at Microsoft, "use your fucking resources". There is not a lot of handholding in that organization. If you do not know what you are doing, you have to do the research to answer your own questions and figure it out yourself. Capiche, paisano?

One last bit of advice. Do not get over your skis. If you are not up to getting your hands dirty, there is no shame in that. Once I could afford to pay someone to wrench my car for maintenance, I gladly give up that crappy work up to the experts, and likewise with a good electronics tech. They get their pound of flesh because they are SMEs (Microsoft speak for Subject Matter Experts). Most every repair that comes across their bench is something they have seen before, and they can get 'er done with minimal drama, as opposed to an old dog like me who has not worked on electronics at the PCB board level since my high school and college days. My troubleshooting skills are rather soft, and I know what I can handle and what I generally cannot. I leave the heavy lifting to the experts. They are worth every penny. Get referrals from your local HiFi shop.

Go forth on your troubleshooting odysseys.

Hi all,

I have been slowly gravitating towards doing my own repairs/ restorations but still very much a newb wet behind their ears, so apologies if these are frustratingly basic questions.

I have been sprucing up some little self contained cassette players for my daughter and working on one for her upcoming birthday. This one is one of those old 80' tan and brown Fisher Price numbers- thhe kind we all had; if you are as old as I am. ( I painted it pink and purple for her- lol) anyway ,The pinch roller started to seize up and make noise after I had spent a good amount of time cleaning it so I worked it back and forth a bunch of times and it seems to be functioning as it should now. It had been playing fairly well before I started to clean it so wonder why it would have started to seize up. My assumption is that it has to do with the grease/ oil on the shaft of the roller being gummed up over time but I don't really know. My instinct is to put some oil on to the shaft but my other instinct is that this is a bad idea if I am not going to take it apart and clean it first, right? As far as I can tell I would have to dismantle much of it in order to free the roller shaft for cleaning and not sure if I wouldn't rather approach that skill building exercise on something else junky I'm not giving to the kid in a couple days.

My other question is about the motor noise, which becomes very pronounced when making a recording. The motor sound is not nearly as present when playing back a prerecored tape.

The replacement belt I put on is too tight, I am fairly certain, it's the biggest one from the grab bag I had. I ordered the proper size ( hopefully) and it's coming in the mail. AI tells me the loud motor noise when recording is due to the belt being too tight causing the engine to strain, is this a possibility? AI also says it my been build up on the recording lever arm. Also a possible cause? Obviously, I am not taking AI as gospel but it has helped point me in the right direction in previous cases; helpful for me as I learn on the fly, but it has also offered me some wildly incorrect assessments- lol.

I am thinking when given the time that I should at the verybleast clean and re-lubricate the capstan. Does that usually want a grease or is mineral style oil the move there? Or does it change deck to deck?

Any other advice? I am getting kind of hooked on doing this stuff, as well as with my own audio recording gear ( never hated old foam so much as recently). I really do not need a new hobby as I am stretched about as thin as can be between work, family and trying to find time to record music but the heart wants what the heart wants, right? I think I just hate the feeling of having a broken tool and having that helpless feeling like "why the hell do I not know how to fix this, am I an idiot?" And once I started to be brave enough to crack some boxes open and poke around I'm starting to really enjoy the process; as little as I know.

Thanks again in advance for any help or suggestions. You guys have helped me on a previous issue I jad with an old compressor and I was blown away with all of the incredibly thoughtful responses. What a great community.

Cheers.

I've been spending the last year or so doing a lot of work with tape players. I'm pretty darn good with the mechanical side of it but even after going through a lot of basic information about components and how they work, I still struggle with electrical stuff.

For instance I have a boombox where a few diodes broke while cleaning up corrosive glue. Got replacements, powers up, cassette player runs and sends a signal but the radio board won't power up.

The schematics show two pins going to the board should have 5v but they're putting out .22v instead. Traced back the tracks and it looks like the am/fm switch only powers the radio board in FM mode. Even then it still only gets .22, not 5v. the schematics just say "5v"

I also get the speaker pop but no sound from cassette, and when I meter the channels I am getting some small AC on one channel and nothing on the other.

I also need to do signal tracing from the cassette to see whether it cuts off entirely and I'm seeing noise vs an unamplified signal on the less busted channel, but honestly I feel like I am spinning my wheels.

I have a couple other projects with similar issues. Struggling to figure out where to focus my efforts as I try to translate schematics to what I see on the board.

Is there something I am missing that I ought to go back to basics and study, or is it one of those situations where going slow and steady, keeping at it, and persisting till I get to the answer is the only way?

Feeling kinda discouraged, not gonna lie. I'm gonna keep at it because I do think that frustration tolerance and working through seemingly hopeless situations is how you learn, but I'm also doubting myself and wondering if I need to go back to basics and review the electronics book I chewed my way through, maybe do some practice calculations on ohm's law or something like that, idk.

Thoughts? What did you folks do when you reached that point in your self-guided, self-taught journey for those of you who, like me, never had anyone willing and able to teach you?

Not sure what the issue is here, it's not the tonearm. When I use a splitter in between the problem is "solved" but obviously not ideal. My receiver has a dedicated phono input. Ive also had the same issue connecting an old TV with RCA outputs into this receiver. Do I need to buy a phono preamp? Sorry I'm pretty new to this hobby.

edit to add: I have the same issue with sound only coming out of one speaker when I plug it into the CD input of the receiver. so this tells me the issue may be with the turntable...​

I have a vintage cd player (Pioneer PD-6700) and I wanted to upgrade it with external dac (SMSL SU-1).

First I had really bad connection. Audio was cutting out and input indicator was blinking.

I had only one old and cheap optical cable. I switched its direction and it did start working better but not perfect.

I went to buy new cable (also cheap), First it had again very much cut outs but when I blew the output connector with compressed air and got things working.

But now I noticed i still get few cut outs per album so problem still exists.

Is there a way to safely clean the optical output? CD player is decades old and I think optical out was never used before. Or can optical output just wear out and signal becomes too weak. Or are cheap cables just garbage?

I just got a walkman from my dad, the model being a D-EJ360 from 2003 and for some reason the batteries drain while I'm not using it. I changed the batteries played for like 2 hours with no issues and after that I turned it off, by pressing the stop button. The next day when I try to use it again I get a Lo batt error and had to change them again. This has happened both times I changed them, any tips?

Also I know this is not related but someone might know, for some reason when I use my overear headphones the sound is quite low and doesn t reach the same levels as when I use my IEM.

First time AVR repair attempt for me

Recently had a thunderstorm come through, and although my receiver and TV were connected to a surge protector, they both got jacked up when lightning struck nearby and tripped my GFCI.

My Onkyo receiver powers on and i can change the inputs, however nothing displays to the TV. I know the HDMI port on my TV got messed up, and other devices work on other HDMI ports. However the receiver does not display on any HDMI on the TV.

I was thinking about ordering a defective/no power Onkyo of the same model on eBay and swapping out the top board where all of the HDMI connectors are on. Is there a chance something else needs to be swapped out too?

Thanks!