New A-960 thoughts and questions

Here is a picture borrowed from another A 960 thread. On the board at the top of the pic, the phono switch/stage is on the right. The blue track on the right passes between the silvery/white components I'm talking about, two on the left and two on the right. They are near the front of the board and lean away from the blue track at an angle.

If this isn't the problem, I don't know what is. It's somewhere to start at least! Hope works wonders.

I've fixed a bad solder joint before, but not a trace that's broken right beside a solder joint. Time to learn I guess.

Yay!

That was it! Fixed!

I took a leg from an LED and used it to connect the leg of the component with the bad pad to the next component it was supposed to contact on the board - a bit of solder and things are working properly! So stoked!

Thanks for the help everyone - hopeful that this thread might help someone else.

Now, to vacuum the house so that my wife thinks I did something productive today, then hook everything up, listen and enjoy a tasty beer or two :beer:

silvery/white components

Click to expand...

Polystyrene film capacitor.:thmbsp:

Sleep said:

...
I've fixed a bad solder joint before, but not a trace that's broken right beside a solder joint. Time to learn I guess.

...

Yay!
That was it! Fixed!

Click to expand...

Nice to hear you found the problem and fixed it! :thmbsp:

My A-960 had the same problem, now I could have had a look around the polystyrene caps. :yes:

This series is nice, but its PCBs seem to have some fragile traces and joints, who knows why. Probably a third-part company did them for Yamaha, not sure.

Enjoy it and handle with care.

Thanks for the help gentlemen! Feels good to have it fixed. I know from the past that if I leave a project to wait too long, chances go down that I ever get around to fixing it.

The trace was broken all the way through, I guess it happens with these units as you said Karl vd Berg.

I had it running in the livingroom for about 5 hours last night, no issues with the weak channel at all. Also the issue of going into protection with the headphones on is gone.

I did notice one strange thing though. When switching loads on the phono cartridge running my Denon DL-110, a couple of times the right channel would go quiet. At first I panicked thinking the amp had somehow fried the cartridge. Anyway, it seems that if I touch the wires under the headshell while it's on the tonearm it comes back. Weird huh? Sounds like loose connectors, but I've checked and they are all on tight.

After awhile I could switch and the problem didn't come up again.

Happy so far though, looking forward to more listening tonight. The A 960 will be replacing the Marantz 2285 for awhile I think, although it has it's virtues as well.

Sleep said:

... The trace was broken all the way through...

Happy so far though, looking forward to more listening tonight. The A 960 will be replacing the Marantz 2285 for awhile I think, although it has it's virtues as well.

Click to expand...

Keep the Marantz 2285! It's a very nice receiver and reliable unit! :yes:

Oh yes, it's not going anywhere! That and my CR2020 and Sony 6060f are keepers