Don Richard Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Quite often here people will ask for help concerning poor sound quality. They will describe their system and components and the problem that they are having. In order to locate the source of the problem a logical, systematic method of troubleshooting should be employed. One way to locate a problem is by prior experience. If one hears a noise in their system and the last dozen times that happened it turned out to be a bad tube, try that first. If that does not solve the problem then a step-by-step troubleshooting procedure is called for. There are four basic steps, followed in order, that will lead one to the source of the problem: Inspection - Look at the equipment. Are the pilot lights on? Are the wires connected? Is one channel affected or more than one? Elimination - If the lights are on there is a high likelihood that that piece of equipment is plugged in and power is present. If there are no lights then check the power cords and voltage. No voltage? Check the breaker. Isolation - If one channel has the problem try swapping sides and see if the trouble follows the swap or stays with that channel. If a chain of equipment is involved like most component systems, several swaps may need to be done in order to determine which piece is faulty. Of course, always turn the power oiff whenever connecting and disconnecting components. Pinpointing - When the problem has been traced to say, one of the loudspeakers, then go through the first three steps on the loudspeaker itself. Look for broken wires, loosen and then tighten all connections to break any corrosion, possibly swap parts with the good speaker to see if that fixes things. If the crossover seems to be the problem, then repeat the first three steps on the crossover until the bad part is found, then replace the part. This final step will surely require some electrical test equipment along with the knowledge to use it, so for some it will probably be better to send the crossover in for repair. This writeup is not intended to be a complete guide on fixing all things. It's purpose is to describe the logical steps that will lead one to the cause of the problem. The more background knowledge that a person has the quicker the problem can be solved. If you get to a point in the troubleshooting process where you are in over your head, then post what you have done here. There is quite a bit of expertise here on all things audio and you will get good answers that will solve almost any system problem. What you don't want to do is to randomly start changing parts without checking anything. Lots of money can be spent that way and the problem still won't be fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ69 Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Good write-up Don. I'm reminded of the time I couldn't get my system to play, I broke it down completely and still couldn't figure it out. It took me two days to find the problem. The commercial CD I was using, had a first track video file on it. The CD player would "play" it but no sound would come out, you had to play track 2 to get the album to play. Darn computer geeks. Who would do that to a music CD? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 17, 2011 Author Share Posted February 17, 2011 Those doggone rascals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davecv41 Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 The first guy to listen to my '66 Khorns didn't like how one of them sounded so he passed. The wife of the original purchaser had a portable CD player connected from the headphone jack to the RCA inputs of an Onkyo receiver. Turning the plug of the offending channel cleaned up the sound. I've been enjoying them for the last 20yrs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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