Wishing to tap into the great & diverse expertise and experiences of this Most Wonderful of Internet Forums with Patrons beyond that which may, on occasion, be found in lesser areas of this Wonderful Web of..............okay, okay - I'll get to the point!
I've often heard of one channel of a stereo BB having a reduced sound/lesser volume than the other one and have welcomed the advice to clean pots, 'work' the controls for a while, check tape heads, check physical connections and so on. All of this is sound advice I have followed with excellent results.
I'm no expert in this area by any means and I'm guessing there could be other causes of this problem which are other than........'mechanical' for want of a better expression. I lack any real or worthwhile knowledge of electronics/electrical aspects of PWB's etc. and feel it somewhat beyond my natural or instinctive way of thinking.
What I'd like to know is:
a) How many different parts/what is the range of parts on a BB could result in this problem.
b) How likely is any particular one of the causes to be the problem most frequently.
c) Is the cause more likely to be 'mechanical' (as I've called it, above) electrical or some other cause?
I recently acquired a Sharp QT-37 with reduced volume output through one channel. Yesterday I rolled my sleeves up again and set to the task, maintaining all the usual suspects which appeared to working well anyway.
The very last thing I undertook was to apply a little Servisol to the Tape/Radio toggle button. This button only made the very smallest of crackles (and then only sometimes) but, by applying a tiny amount of Servisol to the switch, working it for a while, applying just tiny bit more and reworking the switch, it now works a little smoother and I now have perfect, balanced, stereo sound through both channels. To be honest, with my limited experience, I didn't occur to me that this particular button could be the cause of such an annoying problem!
Here's the BB in question:
This very small, but significant, component (arrowed) was the culprit:
I've often heard of one channel of a stereo BB having a reduced sound/lesser volume than the other one and have welcomed the advice to clean pots, 'work' the controls for a while, check tape heads, check physical connections and so on. All of this is sound advice I have followed with excellent results.
I'm no expert in this area by any means and I'm guessing there could be other causes of this problem which are other than........'mechanical' for want of a better expression. I lack any real or worthwhile knowledge of electronics/electrical aspects of PWB's etc. and feel it somewhat beyond my natural or instinctive way of thinking.
What I'd like to know is:
a) How many different parts/what is the range of parts on a BB could result in this problem.
b) How likely is any particular one of the causes to be the problem most frequently.
c) Is the cause more likely to be 'mechanical' (as I've called it, above) electrical or some other cause?
I recently acquired a Sharp QT-37 with reduced volume output through one channel. Yesterday I rolled my sleeves up again and set to the task, maintaining all the usual suspects which appeared to working well anyway.
The very last thing I undertook was to apply a little Servisol to the Tape/Radio toggle button. This button only made the very smallest of crackles (and then only sometimes) but, by applying a tiny amount of Servisol to the switch, working it for a while, applying just tiny bit more and reworking the switch, it now works a little smoother and I now have perfect, balanced, stereo sound through both channels. To be honest, with my limited experience, I didn't occur to me that this particular button could be the cause of such an annoying problem!
Here's the BB in question:
This very small, but significant, component (arrowed) was the culprit:
