Uh oh... I think my cherished Technics SA-8500x is slowly dying. Suggestions?

[cash68]

When I play things in quad, or just mirrored stereo, the left rear speaker is always quieter, and lately at high volumes, it just sorta 'dies'. I turn down everything else, and the rear left is still playing, but quiet, and without much bass. If I leave it off for a long time, it'll come back at moderate volumes... any ideas?

 

[Lucanu]

Maybe it's time to do a full restoring, change most of its capacitors and look for cold soldering.

 

[ClarkNovak]

Yeah, sounds like one of the big filtering caps. If it was a power transistor, the symptom would be total channel loss. A dying capacitor slowly leaks charge resulting in the symptoms you're describing.

 

[Decoder Man]

I have had a couple of units, over the years, with similar symtoms and the problem turned out to be a resistor.

 

[cash68]

Shitty. :|

So...uh.... do you guys have any suggestions on where to send it? I have the manuals, and MAYBE the schematics.

 

[cash68]

Okay, I watched a movie last night, and it was weird..... now the volume kinda fades out.... then comes back every once in a while...then fades out again.... then comes back.