1980's technics receiver, phono input not working... Help?

So I picked up this sweet looking compact amp for a friend who was looking to get into vinyl. I believe the model number was SA-203. It was perfect for her because it was so compact compared to many amplifiers so it's easy to move between home and college, had a built in pre-amp, and being technics it's presumably of a reasonably good quality. Did I mention it was cheap?

Here's the thing though - the phono inputs are shot. Plugging the turntable into the aux it works fine but obviously this is incorrect as there is no RIAA EQ going on. I'm sure if she got an external phono preamp it would be fine and serviceable but being as this has one built in we'd like to avoid that. I popped the top and everything is reasonably clean but I cleaned the contacts at the RCA posts both inside and out anyway. Everything looks normal inside to my eyes.


Any idea why this is happening or what can be done about it?

 

My best guess is it could be anything, no help here. I’m sure a service tech could fix it and that would likely cost more that a decent inexpensive PS.

 

Bad contact at the selector switch? Honestly though, it looks like a really, really cheap unit.

Here's a PDF of it's specs.

https://www.usahifi.com/sites/defau... Technics SA-203 SA-103 Receiver Brochure.pdf

 

It's a 30+ year old cheap receiver and you're wondering why one component of it is not working?

 

I'm surprised the aux worked. What kind of turntable is it?

 

I know it's nothing super high end but it was available extremely inexpensively, and for someone's very first dip into the world of vinyl, it was between this or a Crosley - which would you choose? I think this reciever was an excellent choice, all things considered.


I have plenty of much more complex vintage gear 20-40 years old which functions perfectly (granted, it is higher end stuff) but I don't think it's really asking so much for something as simple as a reciever to be functional after some time.
The turntable is of a similar vintage - it's a p-mount semi-auto technics. Nothing special but it's decent enough. Unsure of the model but we put a new cart on it and it seems to be performing just fine.

My best guess - the phono stage really needs a recapping. The aux in works fine and presumably will do so for some time so we'll just add an inexpensive pre-amp for the time being.

 

Ok, vintage turntable. Reason I asked is because AUX will expect line level input which a vintage turntable will not put out. Figured it might be a USB type turntable which does do line out in which case maybe the phono input goes into some kind of protection mode when it notices that the levels are too high.

Odd to hear absolutely nothing using the phono input. Any hiss, crackling, hum in either or both channels? If you hear nothing I would agree that the selector switch is something to check out. Aside from that, I bet this amp relies heavily on ICs to do its work, so one may be bad.

The forum to ask about troubleshooting would really be audiokarma. They do this sort of thing all day long.

 

I don't recall any sort of noise. I suspected the switch as well but it seemed to be fine, cleaned it anyway just to be safe. If it makes any difference the AM function is similarly silent, and fm there's no antenna so who knows but it may be non functional too. I won't worry about it too much, the aux is fine for now. Thank you for all the help

 

I got one of these used for my mom. She wanted something not black, and not a digital station selection, and this unit fit the bill perfectly.

Sound quality was rather great, and in its day it was not a cheap unit, but a quality unit by the great classic era of Technics.

My mother passed away and I now have it back, it's in storage now, soon to be used as a computer to speaker solution, as I am about over computer speakers even the good ones.

This receiver and a pair of newish small Klipsch speakers is what my desktop PC (and Mac) audio sound monitoring will be about. The slimness is what is so attractive. It's not the amp I will use for needle drops but I should do a couple of albums to CD-R on it to better examine the sound quality playing back on the big rig.

Nice piece of gear too bad your phono input is not taking.