Onkyo T-407 tuner, I can't seem to get anything that works 100% lately.

hemiram

Active Member
I bought a very nice almost mint looking T-407 tuner, that appears to be very well taken care of, it was even packed well for shipment!. Every button is still working like new. It pulls in stations that my receivers ignore, but the left channel is dead or down tremendously compared to the right. Seems like it was working a little when I first fired it up, but then it's almost totally dead. If I turn the balance all the way left and crank up the volume, I sometimes can hear it, barely. The right channel sounds better than anything I have here (on FM). I hope I just cracked a solder joint when I pushed on the new RCA cables I bought from Monoprice. They are super hard to get plugged into it. I haven't taken it apart, yet, to see if it's something obvious. It definitely is going in and out of stereo, so that's an improvement over the last one.


Does anyone have a schematic for this tuner?
 
Or if the Tuner is that good you might consider getting it rebuilt to sound even better and have a real keeper....
 
Update. Yesterday, I got a recapped Onkyo M-508 amp, and when I hooked it up, one channel was dead. This was with a 1 meter Blue jeans interconnect. I had used a 2 meter Monoprice cable when I tested the Onkyo T-407 tuner, which had a dead channel too. Turned out, of 4 NEW interconnects I had bought over the last month, 2 were bad. So, both the amp and the tuner work fine. I've never had a totally dead interconnect cable in over 47 years of buying them. Crackly? Sure, but not dead, and to get two of them at the same time is crazy. From now on, the VM comes out and all new cables get tested. I had major stress going until I swapped the plugs around on the M-508 and the other channel came to life. Lifting the M-508 didn't do my back any good either, but those pretty green meters made me happy:
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I sure wish my phone could take a decent pic!
 
I just had a couple of theirs delivered a couple of minutes ago! Just a coincidence, I ordered them before I found out about the two bad ones. I like to keep at least 4 new short ones in reserve, even though I have a tub full of them going back decades. A lot of them are resoldered "gold" Radio Shack ones from the late 70's. I never throw a cable out, except I tossed these two latest bad ones, as it's not worth sending them back.
 
I've had real good luck with some AntiCable interconnects I bought a year or so back.
 
Other than it seems to run pretty warm, which from what I've read, is normal, I like it's looks and sound both. Ideally, I would like the LEDs that run the meters on the "green side" dimmed down about 30%. I might do that eventually, when the incandescant bulbs on the red mode die and are replaced with LEDs. I do plan on taking off the wood panels and touching them up and doing any repairs needed to make them look great again. A friend of mine has offered to make new ones, if I supply the wood. I think some Oak or Maple panels would look nice.

Seems like it's just cleaner than the amp in my Yamaha STR-7810. I'm sure once I put up my surrounds, running the fronts off the M508 will let the 7810 have some reserves on the surrounds if needed.. I don't think the meters are very accurate, but I see swings up towards 60 watts when playing music at a moderate volume. Any higher than what I was running today is inviting my neighbors to start crying, and I don't think the 7810 was really happy going that high anyway. The surrounds won't take much power, so the 7810 should be happy doing them. And if not, another amp can be easily added.
 
I checked the idle current and it was at 15mv, dead on. Exactly 15mv. I bet that took some patience. I don't have a dummy load so I didn't check the meter adjustment. I don't want war with the neighbors, and cranking out a 1khz signal at 12.65 volts will be quite loud.
 
I checked the idle current and it was at 15mv, dead on. Exactly 15mv. I bet that took some patience. I don't have a dummy load so I didn't check the meter adjustment. I don't want war with the neighbors, and cranking out a 1khz signal at 12.65 volts will be quite loud.
Plays hell with your ears, too!
 
I would be more worried about my neighbors crying about it then my hearing.

Between years and years of hearing nitro Funny Cars and Top Fuel cars up close without hearing protection, (it was just considered a wussy thing back then), and this guy blasting my left ear in the car every time I put it in park, I'm shocked my hearing has held up at all: He was LOUD. And he did it every single time. Usually right between my left ear and the window glass. He would scream, and then jump around in the back of the car and sometimes come up into the front and scream some more. My left ear only goes to 17K, my right still tops 20K. Not bad for an old guy.
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I have a couple of the original woofers too. Mine are quiet in the car though.
I have a T-407 as well. Rather good tuner but trying to second guess the computer is frustrating. Like to shut that part out. Even the owners manual is complicated. Why did we build it that way ? Because we could.
 
When that dog went, I replaced him with silent ones too. A whole different attitude. Neither one was scared of fireworks or storms and didn't care when I got out of the car at all. Like Gus above though, they would eat the glass when they saw a horse.

I haven't hooked up the T-407 since my M508 showed up and took it's place on the shelf. It does seem to be overly "buttoned". Even the memory setup is odd, Sounds really nice though. I need more shelves.
 
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