yeah i tried what you told me to do and it is still low volume after putting the loudness control to flat and i checked the speaker selector which was fine. but i still dont know what it could be thats doing that.
Take a look at the image below. Are the jumpers in the accessory slots as shown here? If they not present you can use a simple set of RCA cables to bridge the connection. Basically it's a main amp input and preamp output and they must be linked together for the internal preamp and amplifier to work together.
If the jumpers are in place and you've checked all connections, inputs, and switches several times (this includes messing with toggle switches and variable controls to see if they are causing the problem) and you're still coming up dry then you'll have to consider the possibility part of the amp section is damaged. Slight output would indicate what Mtry said about crosstalk. The preamp section is still going to get some level of signal to the speakers even if the amp section is not working.
In components like these the preamp and amplifier sections are often not isolated from one another. You'll notice for example on most working 80's equipment that if you're on the tape input and you have a CD player connected and playing through the CD input and you turn up the volume, you can hear the CD bleed through to the tape input when there's nothing connected to the tape input. The most annoying version of this is cheap receivers, when you switch to some input and you can hear the onboard tuner playing music.
