Turntable playing thorough one channel.

[RRSS]

Hello,
I am pulling my hair out with my turntable, and was wandering whether any of you guys could shed some light on my problem before I go bald;

I have had a Technics SL-20 for the past 3 years, when I first got it it seemed to be only playing out of one channel, so I fiddled about with the (internally attached) phono cable, which seemed to work… Temporarily…

It has now done it again, First I thought it was the needle and cartridge, so I replaced that, although that seemed to work in the past, it didn’t this time.

Last night I removed the old phono cable and re-soldered on a new one… no luck.

Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this problem?
I would love to be able to fix it myself, as I hate paying for repairs.

Cheers in advance,
Joe

[sofaspud]

Have you systematically excluded interconnects and the phono input of the amp?

[RRSS]

Yup, It is definitely an internal problem.
I swapped the Left and Right inputs into the pre-amp, and the silent channel changed sides.

[bobodioulasso]

First thing is to swap channels to sort out which of phono preamp stage and turntable is the culprit.

[sofaspud]

Seems like continuity checks would reveal the problem. You've replaced the cable from cartridge to output connectors? If so, that's a real head-scratcher.

[RRSS]

I just can't figure out what else it could be; there isn't much inside it to go wrong...

By 'cable from cartridge to output connectors' you mean one of the four thin (green,white,red & blue) wires in the arm?

[sofaspud]

Yes. Tiny wires in close quarters. There could be a break there that could be hard to detect.

[RRSS]

I had a feel of each of those wires last night to see if they were all connected, all seemed OK, but I couldn't see right inside the arm. I'll take it off tonight to see if I can get inside.

Cheers for your input. You may hear back from me tomorrow... heh heh.

[sofaspud]

I'm no expert, but my turntable has little pin connectors with clear insulated tubing on them. Whenever I change cartridges, I always get that "should have been a brain surgeon" feeling. It seems like those connectors could be easily broken but held together by the tubing. Or perhaps your connectors somehow got expanded and so don't fit the cartridge pins tightly. You should be able to "ohm out" the wire, maybe flexing the wire a little at the same time to check for intermittents. If necessary, I've used a small sewing needle as an insulation displacement probe tip. Works well.

[RRSS]

Yeah it certainly is a bit fidgety.
Do you know what those particular wires are called? Just in case I need to order one... or four.