Alas, my Yamaha R-300 went down

CucamongaDan

CucamongaDan

Active Member
Thursday night, when I turned it on it made a popping noise but played normally. Last night (Friday) it made the same pop and made no more sound. The lights are on but no sound. I checked the connections and swapped speakers, then when I tried again another pop, sound for about a second, one more pop, then nothing. I looked inside and there's no obvious signs of anything bad.
The pop I'm talking about sounds like what you might hear through the speakers if you plugged in an input with the receiver powered up. This is the same receiver I got on Ebay & got banged up on the way here; I had to replaced the volume and loudness controls before it worked right. Here is that thread:http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=97380&highlight=yamaha+r-300
It was sounding great and it looks all-original inside; I'd been using it a few hours a week, never real loud.
So I'm wondering if anyone could tell me some likely causes of trouble or some basic trouble-shooting steps I might be able to take.
Thanks in advance,
Dan
 
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Well, nobody was forthcoming was any surefire easy fixes for this inept cheapskate so I'd been looking for additional receiver(s). In the course of hitting the AK classifieds, my local thrifts, yard sales, Epray, I added a control amp and a bunch of speakers but the right receiver hadn't found me. I did buy a Vector Research VR-2500 off Ebay but it came DOA- same symptom as the Yamaha, powers up but no sound at all. Fortunately the seller was nice enough to do a total refund and tell me to just keep it. So I had 2 functional and 2 non-functional vintage receivers and I'm feeling guilty about my credentials for the AKVRCC having lapsed.

Anyway I was doing some housecleaning yesterday and the nonfunctional receivers really need to go in the garage. I proceed to give them a final internal look and last chance to work. The Vector Research still didn't work. The Yamaha still didn't work.

As I'm looking at the Yamaha I'm always fascinated by the big aluminum cooling fin thing to which the black thing that says "STK 2030 stereo power amplifier" is attached. I'm looking at it wondering if the white stuff where its attached is adhesive or corrosion and I finally noticed the solder connections on the back of the circuit board were cracked. So I plugged in my soldering iron and reflowed them, and 10 minutes later the R-300 was back in business.

What a joyous day! I hooked up some speakers and listened to it the rest of the day as I was working in the garage. I listened to the baseball game (its the best AM tuner in our house) and about 6 or 8 albums I had handy on my MP3 player. Now I'm back to deciding where I want it back in the house. Can't decide whether I want it in our small living room or the bedroom. But anyway I love this thing, its not very powerful but enough, and the sound is just so clear and natural... "Natural Sound" as an appropriate slogan.
 
I'm looking at it wondering if the white stuff where its attached is adhesive or corrosion
Click to expand...
That white stuff is heatsink (heat transfer compound).Glad to see the problem wasn't to serious...Enjoy..:thmbsp:
 
CucamongaDan said:
Well, nobody was forthcoming was any surefire easy fixes for this inept cheapskate so I'd been looking for additional receiver(s). In the course of hitting the AK classifieds, my local thrifts, yard sales, Epray, I added a control amp and a bunch of speakers but the right receiver hadn't found me. I did buy a Vector Research VR-2500 off Ebay but it came DOA- same symptom as the Yamaha, powers up but no sound at all. Fortunately the seller was nice enough to do a total refund and tell me to just keep it. So I had 2 functional and 2 non-functional vintage receivers and I'm feeling guilty about my credentials for the AKVRCC having lapsed.

Anyway I was doing some housecleaning yesterday and the nonfunctional receivers really need to go in the garage. I proceed to give them a final internal look and last chance to work. The Vector Research still didn't work. The Yamaha still didn't work.

As I'm looking at the Yamaha I'm always fascinated by the big aluminum cooling fin thing to which the black thing that says "STK 2030 stereo power amplifier" is attached. I'm looking at it wondering if the white stuff where its attached is adhesive or corrosion and I finally noticed the solder connections on the back of the circuit board were cracked. So I plugged in my soldering iron and reflowed them, and 10 minutes later the R-300 was back in business.

What a joyous day! I hooked up some speakers and listened to it the rest of the day as I was working in the garage. I listened to the baseball game (its the best AM tuner in our house) and about 6 or 8 albums I had handy on my MP3 player. Now I'm back to deciding where I want it back in the house. Can't decide whether I want it in our small living room or the bedroom. But anyway I love this thing, its not very powerful but enough, and the sound is just so clear and natural... "Natural Sound" as an appropriate slogan.
Click to expand...

I think bad solder joints were a Yamaha trademark on a few models. My C-80 preamp gave some weird symptoms until a good tech finally ID'ed the problem as cold solder joints. Haven't had any more problems for years now.
 
Well, any suspect solder joints probably weren't helped by its trip from Arizona to our house. It arrived in a well-used, rumpled carton about 1 inch wider than it and several inches taller. It was wrapped in at most 2 layers of the small bubblewrap and had a few pieces of crumpled newspaper on the bottom, more on top. There was a tear in the corner of the carton nearest the volume and loudness controls, and circular imprints of the knobs in the cardboard. One of the feet was pushed up so hard the end of the screw perforated a circuit board (fortunately in a non-critical area). I guess its a miracle the thing works at all.

Well now that its working I'll pick a good spot for it & not move it around any more. I'd been taking it outside to do the audio on our backyard movies, and had hauled it up to the local school a few times to use in a volunteer program I do for third graders. Better use something a little less irreplaceable for all that moving around.
 
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