[Stephen_Ri]

Hello, I'm driving my Audio Technica ATH-A500, which have an impedance of 64 ohms, with my early 70s Marantz 2220B receiver; lately, I've been noticing a crackling sound whenever any bassy material is played. Makes things quite unlistenable, so I've been using a discman recently instead, which does a fine job of driving the phones. My question is this: is there simply too much power coming from the Marantz for these phones, or does the Marantz unit itself have a problem? Or any other suggestions. Any responses are appreciated, thanks.

Stephen

 

[mrarroyo]

I would think you have a loose or dirty connection. Check it out it would be a simple fix.

 

[Stephen_Ri]

I did take it apart and did some general cleaning, especially around the headphone jack area; Didn't notice anything, but then I don't really know where to look. Maybe I'll buy a service manual.

 

[raduray]

Try some tuner cleaner spray. You can get it from Radio Shack. It helped clean out the headphone contacts form my Maranz 1060 Amp from the same era.

 

[Stephen_Ri]

And with this did you just open up the unit and spray in the headphone jack area? Something like this: http://www.radioshack.com/sm-tv-tune...i-2103700.html ? Thanks for the responses.

 

[raduray]

That's the guy! Just spray right into the headpone jack and plug and unplug the headset a few times to let it work in.

I've had my 1060 since college days in the early 70's, and in recent years it's driven a couple of Tivoli speakers in my office with my desktop PC as the source. In all the years I never used the headphone jack, until recently when I purchased a Senn HD-595 in anticipation of my Zen Vision M which is on order. Anyway, when I plugged in the 595's into the headphone jack, any movement of the cord or moving the plug caused crackling. Sounded like a loose connection. Since I had a can of the Tuner Cleaner sitting around, which I had used to fix a noisy volume knob on the Marantz a couple years ago, I decided to give the headphone jack a few good squirts and Presto, it worked.

Hope it works for you. Good Luck!

Radu

 

[Stephen_Ri]

I tried it; didn't work. I'm open to any more suggestions. I'll also see what the guys over at vintage Audio Asylum may have to say. They seem to be quite knowledgeable about these older units there, and are also helpful, in my experience. Thanks again for the response thus far.

 

[skyline889]

Quote:

Originally Posted by raduray That's the guy! Just spray right into the headpone jack and plug and unplug the headset a few times to let it work in. I've had my 1060 since college days in the early 70's, and in recent years it's driven a couple of Tivoli speakers in my office with my desktop PC as the source. In all the years I never used the headphone jack, until recently when I purchased a Senn HD-595 in anticipation of my Zen Vision M which is on order. Anyway, when I plugged in the 595's into the headphone jack, any movement of the cord or moving the plug caused crackling. Sounded like a loose connection. Since I had a can of the Tuner Cleaner sitting around, which I had used to fix a noisy volume knob on the Marantz a couple years ago, I decided to give the headphone jack a few good squirts and Presto, it worked. Hope it works for you. Good Luck! Radu

How did you fix the noise from the volume knob? I have a vintage 4 channel Pioneer QX-8000A and recently it's been crackling a bit when the volume knob is moved.

 

[mkmelt]

You can use the Radio Shack contact cleaner and lubricant spray or Caig's Deoxit. The parts you need to reach require removing the case to get inside the receiver. Use the nozzle extension to spray inside (one or two times each) the following switches or controls. Be sure to work the control a few dozen times after applying the spray to loosen any crud and provide a clean contact surface.

Tape monitor switch, a very common source of noise with the older Marantz units.

Volume control, balance control, selector switch, tone controls.

Apply some of the contact cleaner spray to a pipe cleaner to get inside the RCA jacks on the rear panel of the receiver.

It is also possible that you have a failing transistor in one part of the preamplifier or amplifier stage, but 9/10 times the culprit is one of the above switches or controls.

 

[sxr71]

Spray and stick a Q-tip in there. You might even see black stuff on the Q-tip if it's really dirty in there. The other thing is to dip your Q-tip in 97% alcohol and put it in the headphone jack while twisting.

Don't use the 80% stuff, you have to look around for the 97% stuff.

 

[Stephen_Ri]

Well, I did open it up completely and sprayed around. Emptied the whole bottle in there (though it wasn't my intention to do so). Darned if it didn't fix my problem. Thanks alot guys for your help. Much better than my discman.