I first suspected the strangely "loose" volume pot. I changed it with a bulky ordinary 10K stereo volume pot but didn't get any change. Still distorted, "hissy", "scratchy" sound. Oh btw, the pot seems fine internally and the "loose" feeling was because the volume knob has been broken internally. I repaired it later with some epoxy glue but I don't know this repair would last. Ordered a new one from Aliexpress - there was only a single guy selling it $11 per piece - total ripoff but I want my PCBs repaired complete and as original as they should be. Anyway, if anyone is interested, the part for the original volume pot for the CPS3 is; ALPS RK09 I'm not sure about the dimension though. I'll let you know in a month!
Anyway, I then suspected the electrolytic capacitors but just felt too lazy to change all of them because my automatic solder sucker just died on me and since the line-out is OK (there are also electrolytic caps on the line-out part as well), I just thought the caps might be still OK... I mean, if some are OK the rest might be OK too (very lazy thinking I know
)My next victims were the sound amplifier IC and the two 0.15uF polyester capacitors. The amp IC and the two polyester caps are the only components directly connected to the JAMMA edge (L and 10). I already ordered the amp IC (which was ridiculously cheap - $1 + VAT
) and the caps locally online.Tomorrow when I get the package and have time to replace the suspected components I'll let you know the results. But in the meantime, if you have any other suggestions, I'd be glad to listen...
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