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Suggestions Please-Sound coming out of one speaker

Hi Friends.
I recently moved my setup from one room to another and when I setup my turntable, sound is only playing out of one channel/speaker. I'm going to try to describe the situation and hopefully I can get a potential diagnosis of where issue could be in my system.

I connected a new Denon 103r cartridge to the four tone arm wires correct. I can't see any issues with the wire connectors on the tone arm wire and the pins on the cartridge. I have the cartridge hooked up to a OL Silver arm. This arm has the IC's connected to the tone arm wire. I connected the IC's to my Supratek Pre-amp, which has a built in phono stage. The pre-amp is a tube driven. To try and locate the issue, I switched the right and the left IC from the TT and attached it to the pre-amp switched, the sound still came from the same speaker but I would have expected the sound to switch to the other speaker. Just for giggles, I switched the configuration of the wires in my tone arm around and I got some sound from the silent speaker.

I haven't swapped the tubes in the right and left channel on the pre-amp yet. Maybe the issue could be with the tubes in the phono stage of the pre-amp. I'm going to try swapping these tubes out tonight. I hope I don't have any major repair issues, but if I do I want to make sure I can diagnose this issue.

I don't have any issue with sound coming out of one speaker from my CD player.

Any suggestions on what the issue could be?

Thanks.
dsiggia
12 responses Add your response
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lewm
13,027 posts
 
Because of the vagaries of the English language, there is always the chance I am not understanding exactly what you did to investigate this problem, but I will say it is VERY highly unlikely that all the tubes in one channel went dead coincidental with just moving the system from one room to the other. Furthermore, problems with tubes are usually heralded by funny or not so funny noises, not dead silence. Don't waste your time swapping tubes, is my advice.

You also wrote, "I switched the configuration of the wires in my tone arm around and I got some sound from the silent speaker." This is not completely clear. Do you mean to say that the "dead" speaker worked fine and the other speaker then went dead? In other words, that the problem swapped sides? But also you say that switching the ICs that convey the signal from the tonearm to the phono stage had no effect; correct? If so, then there may be a problem in the junction box where the tonearm wires terminate and the ICs initiate. Or perhaps instead of a junction box, you have a 5-pin DIN plug. There may have been an issue with the DIN plug; perhaps there is an internal short of some kind. Anyway, a clearer description of what you did and what you heard would help.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
you are actually on the right direction. keep nailing them one by one to the speakers.
good luck
dsiggia OP
54 posts
 
Jea48 & Elizabeth,
Thanks for your reply. I was leaning toward the phono pre-amp and it feels like that is the culpritt. I swapped the tubes, but felt as if this was a long shot.

Marakanetz, thanks for your help too.

Lewm,
I agree it's not easy to understand entirely what's happening here. I agree with your take on the tubes not being the issue. Regarding what I wrote: "I switched the configuration of the wires in my tone arm around and I got some sound from the silent speaker." There are 4 wires on the tonearm wire and 4 pins on the cartidge to attach the 4 wires. I know the "correct" pattern to hook these up together. When I hook these up using the correct pattern, sound comes out of one speaker, but some sound does come out of the other speaker, I would say 90% of the volume comes out one speaker and 10% volume comes out of the other speaker. When I un-hook these and re-conect using an un-correct pattern, sound still primarily plays out of the same speaker, BUT some sound will come out to the other speaker. I would say the distribution of sound using the incorrect pattern would be about 85% from one speaker, 15% for the other speaker. Using the incorrect pattern probably does not help further identify the issues, but I think it's worth noting.
dsiggia OP
54 posts
 
One other observation I noticed, any sound that was primarily coming out of the speaker that was playing very soft was primarily of the mid-range and low frequencies, I didn't hear any high frequencies coming from the tweeter.
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manitunc
795 posts
 
from what I understand, you switched the cartride leads from one channel the the next, and sound came out of the previously dead speaker that would suggest to me that the cartridge is dead in one channel, otherwise changing the leads would not have moved the sound. everything from the leads to the speaker remained the same, just the output from the cartridge was moved from one channel to the next.
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lewm
13,027 posts
 
I don't know why I am pursuing this, but Jea wrote, "The sound you said you could hear faintly through the bad channel of the phono preamp could be nothing more than cross talk from the good channel." I agree with Jea, and that was a good thought on his part (or her part). The fact that switching the wires at the cartridge resulted in just slightly more sound coming from the "dead" speaker is probably due to the fact that the crosstalk from channel B into channel A is greater in db than the crosstalk from channel A into channel B. This is commonly true unless azimuth has been meticulously adjusted.

Soooo. This means the speaker is not really "dead", because it can make sounds. It also means the cartridge is in fact fine, because it can drive the "good" speaker when its leads are switched. It also means that the OP needs to start swapping leads on down the chain of components that feed the speaker in question. At some point, the problem should switch sides, from one speaker to the other, and then the OP will have found his problem.
Post removed 
lewm
13,027 posts
 
So if the phono stage is built in to the linestage, then the thing to do to prove that the phono stage is at fault is to switch the leads between preamp and amplifier. If that switches the problem from one speaker to the other, then the fact that the system can play CDs in both channels (i.e., no problem with linestage) proves it must be a problem with the phono stage.
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