Arcam Alpha+ Cd Player

[stoneditch]

Hello,

I bought my alpha+ CD player in 1991 (I think) and now one of the audio outputs is failing. I power up the player and play a CD, it plays ok for about a minute and then there's alot of noise from the left channel and stays there. The right channel seems ok but with the noise from the left it's a bit difficult to tell even with the balance turned over to the right.

Anyway I know it's old but I love it. It's the first proper CD player I have bought. My question then is how can I go about fixing it or even upgrading it in the process of doing so. I'm not an electronics engineer but I am handy with a soldering iron having fixed many a PC in my time.

Thanks
Stoneditch

 

[Mooly]

You are going to have to come up with a circuit, but a couple of things anyway.

First make sure that the fault really is on one channel by connecting each RCA output (L and R) one at a time to a single known good amp input... let's be sure.

If the fault appears after a minute or two and is loud "digital" hash then it might be worth trying dripping (not blasting) a little freezer spray on the DAC/s and any RAM chip that might be used and also on the opamps (they wouldn't cause digital type noise)

Without seeing a circuit it's impossible to help more really without actually working on it for real. A scope check working backwards from the outputs is an obvious step, also check ALL rails from the PSU not just on a DVM but with a scope too to check for noise and ripple (dried out caps etc)