flakey carver preamp

[riglehart]

I have a Carver Ct-3 preamp I bought used. It worked ok for a few months, but now it does the following.

1) It sounds great when you first turn it on, but then I could swear the fidelity starts to become flat sounding.
2) Next, the right/left channels will "flutter" in and out. Moving the volume knob might fix it, but only temporarily. There is no static when I move the volume knob.
3) After about 10 minutes it shuts off completely on it's own.
4) If I leave it sit like that, it will flick back on again (probably after cooling off), but then turn off again after a couple minutes.

Is this thing worth saving or should I just cut my losses and throw it out? I probably wouldn't spend more than $50 bucks fixing it. Seems like I might have multiple issues here.

[Shizelbs]

I would use it as an excuse to move on to something else.

[hoosier21]

if you will only spend 50.00 to fix it, you need to move on, it will be more than 50.00 for a bench fee at a repair shop.

[BlueMDPicker]

Pop the lid and look for the obvious: cold solder joint, loose solder joint, discolored/cracked resistor, breached capacitor (usually blows a pinhole in them), scorched trace on any PCBs. It could be a $2.00 fix.

[audiobliss]

There's an electronics store that just opened here in town (called Digitronix, I believe) that I hear will give you free estimates. A friend says it's a one-man shop run by an Asian guy, with great prices, but I'm not sure how 'professional' his methods are (not business-related, but electronics-wise; there's just so cheap you can be before you start cutting a lot of corners).

Anyhoo, I thought I might take my old Kenwood to him to see what he thinks of it.

And don't ask me why I felt the need to post this. I guess it just reminded me of it. :p

[AndyGwis]

I have a B&K Pro-10MC that i purchased off ebay. I had to clean the contacts with some deoxit to keep it from flaking out as you put it. Other than the jacks, and not being able to get the power light on, it works/sounds great.

I think I need to replace a cap or fuse in mine for the power light, but not sure how to approach that. Good luck! Pop the top and see if anythings out of whack.

[sucks2beme]

If you have to pay some one else to work on it, why throw good money after bad? Broken big name audio stuff still brings a good buck on Ebay. Just
make sure to describe the problem on your sale posting. Get your money, and upgrade. I used to look for broken stuff on the bay until I saw how much it was bringing.

[Polkersince85]

Look at your power switch, too. If other equipment was plugged into it, the switch may be fried. I had a C-1 that did this and I just straight wired the switch. Like BlueMD said, pop the hood and take a look.

[marantz 2325]

get rid of that piece really find an older model marantz amp rite now ive been runnin the equ for bout 15 yrs now a marantz model 2325 rec, hooked up to a tubed marantz pre amp finally hooked up to a g.a.s. amp aka the ampzilla there was only i think bout 20 of em ever made wow powerful holy crap

[marantz 2325]

im runnin all old school stuff a marantz 2325 rec solid state marantz tubed pre amp thats all runnin though a amp called the ampzilla made by g.a.s. at full volume its peaks at bout 2ooo watts system has been line tested

[dorokusai]

I'm not aware of any original Ampzilla's that output 2000wpc.