sound levels messed up on hifi

oranbhoy67

Hi all I recently bought a1976 made AIWA 5080 Music centre from eBay as it was in my budget, the tape deck doesn't work and I was expecting that and wasn't bothered as I have no need for it.

I bought 2 vinyl recently though where I noticed that the sound levels weren't quite right, certain effects that should be in some songs weren't and vocals were missing in parts or were very faint, these albums were the Beatles Abbey Road & the Beatles 67-70 Blue album, I had got them cheap so I marked it down to them being cheap bootlegs

However today I was playing the Small Faces tin soldier through a CD player which I had plugged in through an aux and there was NO vocals whatsoever

I tried using different speakers tried Mono, tried fiddling with all the buttons at the front but still nothing, does anyone have an Idea what is wrong here

I am using B&M DM302 speakers but as stated I have used other speakers and the effect is the same, I will try and include photos of the front and back switches to see if that is any help



thanks in advance

Slaphead07

It could be anything. I'd start with the cartridge and it's condition. If clean check the wiring is tight - carefully! After that you're into all sorts of "not worth fixing" problems with circuit boards and internal wiring. I doubt very much if the LPs are to blame, if bought cheap probably not in great condition which adds to the possible problems but it's most likely your AIWA. Age is not their friend... quite simply they dry up.

oranbhoy67

Slaphead07 wrote: »

It could be anything. I'd start with the cartridge and it's condition. If clean check the wiring is tight - carefully! After that you're into all sorts of "not worth fixing" problems with circuit boards and internal wiring. I doubt very much if the LPs are to blame, if bought cheap probably not in great condition which adds to the possible problems but it's most likely your AIWA. Age is not their friend... quite simply they dry up.

you see i thought it was to do with the cartridge etc but then today I Played a CD thru the aux and that was worse than the Beatles songs, it was tin soldier by the small faces and there was NO vocal at all.. so it cant be the cartridge

off course that could leave the wiring

Pete67

A few questions and suggestions to try:

How are the speakers connected? Does it sound OK using headphones or do you hear the same issues? What about FM radio? Have you got the correct cable to connect the CD player to the AUX input - a 5-pin DIN to 4 by phono cable, and does the correct pair of phono plugs go to the CD output jacks on the CD player?

Turn Dolby off, and the mic input levels appear to be at max, turn to minimum. With the power off, exercise the volume, tone and balance pots over their full range several times, they often get dirty when not used regularly, and this can cause poor or low level sound.

The speaker plugs you need are these ones:



Make sure the two cables are connected the same so that the two speakers are in phase.

endacl

oranbhoy67 wrote: »

Hi all I recently bought a1976 made AIWA 5080 Music centre from eBay

There's your problem. You bought 40 year old run of the mill budget electronics sight unseen.



You might find a manual over at the Vinyl Engine. You'll have to open an account to access it, but it may help.

oranbhoy67

endacl wrote: »

There's your problem. You bought 40 year old run of the mill budget electronics sight unseen.



You might find a manual over at the Vinyl Engine. You'll have to open an account to access it, but it may help.

Im aware of that, it was from a well-known charity, it was in otherwise very good condition apart from the declared broken cassette player which I knew about, and I got it for £30 sterling , I have seen the same model go for a lot more on there, I know a turntable and an amp is the best way to play vinyl but I happen to like the look of the music centres so I went for that one

oranbhoy67

Thank you very much Pete67 for some very detailed advice I will reply to it in bold below


A few questions and suggestions to try:

How are the speakers connected? Does it sound OK using headphones or do you hear the same issues? its not the same size of headsphone jack that we use nowadays so ill have to get a converter to try it What about FM radio? That works fine , I dont often use it but its always been grand when I have tried it Have you got the correct cable to connect the CD player to the AUX input - a 5-pin DIN to 4 by phono cable, and does the correct pair of phono plugs go to the CD output jacks on the CD player?this might be the problem, I'm using one of those cables yes but my CD player doesnt have an output only a headphone jack and I was using the 3.5mm output that was on the other end of the 5 pin DIN converter cable , it worked fine on other CDs though, but there is some hum which isnt audible when the music is on, Im not too worried about playing CDs what has got me worried is that The Beatles stuff playing up on both CD & vinyl , I have no Small Faces Vinyl to test but all my other vinyl sounds fine to me

Turn Dolby off, and the mic input levels appear to be at max, turn to minimum. With the power off, exercise the volume, tone and balance pots over their full range several times, they often get dirty when not used regularly, and this can cause poor or low level sound. I will give this a try now, the dolby I assumed was only for the cassette player but I was trying anything anyway but will try exactly what you say here

The speaker plugs you need are these ones:



Make sure the two cables are connected the same so that the two speakers are in phase

]I have done this and thats the plugs im using.. thanks again it really is a bit of a learning curve but good to find out all this stuff , I was wondering what type of cable I need to go into the ground socket and if that would make any difference at all ?

Pete67

Some early stereo recordings out most of the vocals on one channel, in others words they used extreme stereo separation in the final mix. So if you are not getting both left and right channels, or one channel is going to both inputs that might explain things. I suggest you try again with a CD player with phono jacks and see what happens.

Likely to be a separate problem with the turntable, the stylus is easily damaged and wears out over time. The cartridge could also be bad but they tend to last is treated ok. The earth wire from the tonearm to the amp can be any good conductor, but as you have a built in turntable this should be wired internally. Good luck!

oranbhoy67

Pete67 wrote: »

Some early stereo recordings out most of the vocals on one channel, in others words they used extreme stereo separation in the final mix. So if you are not getting both left and right channels, or one channel is going to both inputs that might explain things. I suggest you try again with a CD player with phono jacks and see what happens.

Likely to be a separate problem with the turntable, the stylus is easily damaged and wears out over time. The cartridge could also be bad but they tend to last is treated ok. The earth wire from the tonearm to the amp can be any good conductor, but as you have a built in turntable this should be wired internally. Good luck!

Thank you , yeah I've been reading a bit about "Hard Panning" and I think that is my problem when it comes to the Beatles Vinyl, the CD issue I think was more a case of me not wiring it up properly or to be more precise the CD Player not having Phono connectors , I have simply wired the CD Player back up to their original speakers, I did do what you suggested and it made a difference, for some songs though I had to turn the aux off to hear it properly then for others turn it back to aux again, so like I said I've just wired them separately
Thanks again for the advice much appreciated !