Sony HCD-RG440 crackle

[Fluor]

Hello, my Sony HCD-RG440 has not been used for the past 16 years. Now its doing some crackling sound, but not always. It changes with turning off/on. I tried contact cleaner, but no change. Does anyone have an idea why?

 

[Eppie]

When you say that you tried contact cleaner, did you just remove the knobs and spray in the opening, or did you take apart the system and actually spray inside the switches? If it is the switch contacts, jiggling the switches should have a similar result with the crackling. Sometimes switches need to be disassembled and cleaned manually or inside an ultrasonic cleaner, if that's the cause. Cold solder joints can also lead to intermittent problems like that, but that requires taking the system apart and doing some proper diagnostics and repair. How difficult that is depends on the internal design.

 

[Fluor]

I didn't take it apart, just sprayed inside spring clip speaker terminal and subwoofer port.

 

[Eppie]

That likely won't do anything to help. You need to get the contact cleaner inside the switches and controls to reach the actual contacts. You can move the controls around to clean out a bit of the dust and if the contacts are dirty you may hear some crackling. If moving the controls and switches does not cause any crackling, but you get noises at random, then it is more likely either a faulty component or some cold solder joints inside, in which case it needs to be serviced.

 

[lovinthehd]

@TLS Guy reminded me recently that some gear doesn't have controls that contact cleaner works with. Not sure about this unit having such. Cleaning the speaker terminals and sub port as said not likely to be of any use.

 

[Fluor]

There are no analog switches and controls. The same buttons on the front panel and on the remote control.

 

[TLS Guy]

There are no analog switches and controls. The same buttons on the front panel and on the remote control.

You won't fix that. It could be anything, from a bad cap that has leakage current to a bad noisy semiconductor device. Only putting it on the bench and instrument testing will solve it. That will for certain cost more in tech bench time than the unit is worth. So basically you put up with it, or junk it.