Marantz 2270 Help - Garbled Audio

khanley52

khanley52

New Member
For the past four years or so I've had a U-Turn Orbit (acrylic platter, Ortofon OM 5E) and it's been absolutely wonderful.

Up until a couple weeks ago I had been pairing it with a Kenwood KA-127 receiver and it was great, but I am starting to get more serious about things and I did some research and everyone seemed to rave about Marantz receivers from the 70s, so I wound up buying a Marantz 2230 off of eBay. The seller was a respected seller of audio equipment and in the listing said he had gone through the receiver and refurbished it to spec.

Upon receiving it, all seemed well and good, but after a few hours the left speaker started to sound like it was going out. The audio started to sound quiet and garbled (just in the left speaker). Taken aback and sad that my speaker was going out, I swapped to another set of speakers I had lying around and it didn't resolve the issue. I then swapped the RCA cables to see if that made a difference and it didn't. Switched back to the Kenwood and the issue went away. Doing some troubleshooting after switching back to the 2230, I noticed that the issue seemingly went away if I pushed the Mono button. I also noticed that if I switched to FM it went away, so I chalked it up to maybe the phono input going out on the Marantz? I shipped the 2230 back to the seller in California and he troubleshooted it for a few days and couldn't reproduce the issue. I didn't want to argue with him, so I just took a refund.

Figuring maybe I needed something more powerful (he said that when he got my receiver back he noticed I had the bass cranked and that it wasn't necessarily designed to handle that much) I decided to buy a Marantz 2270. The seller of this one had also mentioned refurbishing it to spec, plus it has two phono inputs, so I figured if one ever started going out on me I would have a backup plan. It came in yesterday and is having the same issue! One phono input is incredibly quiet in one speaker, and the other phono input is having the quiet garbled audio problem in the same speaker (both issues are in the right speaker this time, although that could be that the RCA cables are swapped?). So it's either an extraordinary coincidence that both Marantz receivers are having weird phono input issues or the problem is my set up.

Do you think this could be a grounding issue on the receiver? Neither of the older Marantz units have a ground on the plug (they're just two pronged) so I'm basically trying to figure out what I can do to try to resolve the issue. My house itself is not well grounded either, as it was built in 1955 and almost all the outlets in the house only accept two pronged plugs. I've been using the little adapters that you screw into the outlet cover that allow you to plug in three pronged plugs.

Truth be told I didn't have enough time last night to do any troubleshooting on the 2270, so I can't confirm that it goes away on FM or by pushing Mono (this model has individual mono buttons for each speaker so that will be a bonus). Just noticed as I was going to sleep that it was starting to make that sound again and I got discouraged.

This is my first post, so thanks for having me. Any help or suggestions would be fantastic.
 
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Reverse the phone jack connection from your turntable and check if the issue moves from one channel to others?
 
Ok, so I've had a decent amount of time to troubleshoot this problem and here is what I've learned:

- Pushing the Mono buttons definitely makes the garbled audio go away, so it only happens in Stereo mode. (Which is consistent with the first 2230 I had which I thought to be defective)
- Swapping the orientation of the phono cable on the back of the turntable does -not- make the garbled audio move to the other speaker.
- When the garble happens I've attempted to switch to FM to see if continues across the different inputs. This test is still inconclusive, as it seems to fix itself pretty quickly after swapping inputs, but I'm leaning toward the fact that it does in fact continue happening. I'm hoping to get an aux cable to plug into my phone to better attempt to narrow down if it happens on more inputs.

For now I've just turned off STEREO and it plays fine, but obviously isn't the preferred solution. Plus it's one less sexy light glowing, which makes me sad.
 
We simply must maintain all the nice glowing sexiness.
Yes, still get the cable to test aux with.
Are you saying you need to engage BOTH mono buttons to clear the audio in both channels? I'm not clear on this.
Crazy that you seem to have the same issue with two units. And the first seller couldn't reproduce the issue. Oh well, we need to find what's up with this unit.
 
I think the thing that is strange is two different Marantz with the same problem. My 4300 had a garbled channel on the phono and it was the transistors on the phono board. I guess these are prone to failure, but the fact that the seller could not duplicate it kinda points to your turntable not liking being connected to a Marantz.
 
I once had a customer that complained of a distorted sound using his turntable with a fully refurbished amp I sold. After back and forth messages it turned out his turntable had a built in preamp, which was turned on, and trying to use that through the phono section on any amp/receiver will cause issues. I can’t recall if he changed it over to the Aux input or turned off the preamp on the turntable but it all worked out.

Long shot but maybe a similar problem given 2 different receivers with same problem. Seems unlikely.
 
khanley52 said:
For the past four years or so I've had a U-Turn Orbit (acrylic platter, Ortofon OM 5E) and it's been absolutely wonderful.
sanjib said:
Do you have a clear sound in two channels from FM in stereo mode?
Click to expand...
Please help point me in the right direction. I have a Marantz 2270. I have a problem with the 3 concentric potentiometers, bass, mid and treble. I am new as a member and have yet to start a thread. I would like to but really don't know where to begin. I apologize for my ignorance. Please point me in the right direction. Thanks.



Up until a couple weeks ago I had been pairing it with a Kenwood KA-127 receiver and it was great, but I am starting to get more serious about things and I did some research and everyone seemed to rave about Marantz receivers from the 70s, so I wound up buying a Marantz 2230 off of eBay. The seller was a respected seller of audio equipment and in the listing said he had gone through the receiver and refurbished it to spec.

Upon receiving it, all seemed well and good, but after a few hours the left speaker started to sound like it was going out. The audio started to sound quiet and garbled (just in the left speaker). Taken aback and sad that my speaker was going out, I swapped to another set of speakers I had lying around and it didn't resolve the issue. I then swapped the RCA cables to see if that made a difference and it didn't. Switched back to the Kenwood and the issue went away. Doing some troubleshooting after switching back to the 2230, I noticed that the issue seemingly went away if I pushed the Mono button. I also noticed that if I switched to FM it went away, so I chalked it up to maybe the phono input going out on the Marantz? I shipped the 2230 back to the seller in California and he troubleshooted it for a few days and couldn't reproduce the issue. I didn't want to argue with him, so I just took a refund.

Figuring maybe I needed something more powerful (he said that when he got my receiver back he noticed I had the bass cranked and that it wasn't necessarily designed to handle that much) I decided to buy a Marantz 2270. The seller of this one had also mentioned refurbishing it to spec, plus it has two phono inputs, so I figured if one ever started going out on me I would have a backup plan. It came in yesterday and is having the same issue! One phono input is incredibly quiet in one speaker, and the other phono input is having the quiet garbled audio problem in the same speaker (both issues are in the right speaker this time, although that could be that the RCA cables are swapped?). So it's either an extraordinary coincidence that both Marantz receivers are having weird phono input issues or the problem is my set up.

Do you think this could be a grounding issue on the receiver? Neither of the older Marantz units have a ground on the plug (they're just two pronged) so I'm basically trying to figure out what I can do to try to resolve the issue. My house itself is not well grounded either, as it was built in 1955 and almost all the outlets in the house only accept two pronged plugs. I've been using the little adapters that you screw into the outlet cover that allow you to plug in three pronged plugs.

Truth be told I didn't have enough time last night to do any troubleshooting on the 2270, so I can't confirm that it goes away on FM or by pushing Mono (this model has individual mono buttons for each speaker so that will be a bonus). Just noticed as I was going to sleep that it was starting to make that sound again and I got discouraged.

This is my first post, so thanks for having me. Any help or suggestions would be fantastic.
Click to expand...
 
khanley52 said:
For the past four years or so I've had a U-Turn Orbit (acrylic platter, Ortofon OM 5E) and it's been absolutely wonderful.
sanjib said:
Do you have a clear sound in two channels from FM in stereo mode?
Click to expand...
Please help point me in the right direction. I have a Marantz 2270. I have a problem with the 3 concentric potentiometers, bass, mid and treble. I am new as a member and have yet to start a thread. I would like to but really don't know where to begin. I apologize for my ignorance. Please point me in the right direction. Thanks.



Up until a couple weeks ago I had been pairing it with a Kenwood KA-127 receiver and it was great, but I am starting to get more serious about things and I did some research and everyone seemed to rave about Marantz receivers from the 70s, so I wound up buying a Marantz 2230 off of eBay. The seller was a respected seller of audio equipment and in the listing said he had gone through the receiver and refurbished it to spec.

Upon receiving it, all seemed well and good, but after a few hours the left speaker started to sound like it was going out. The audio started to sound quiet and garbled (just in the left speaker). Taken aback and sad that my speaker was going out, I swapped to another set of speakers I had lying around and it didn't resolve the issue. I then swapped the RCA cables to see if that made a difference and it didn't. Switched back to the Kenwood and the issue went away. Doing some troubleshooting after switching back to the 2230, I noticed that the issue seemingly went away if I pushed the Mono button. I also noticed that if I switched to FM it went away, so I chalked it up to maybe the phono input going out on the Marantz? I shipped the 2230 back to the seller in California and he troubleshooted it for a few days and couldn't reproduce the issue. I didn't want to argue with him, so I just took a refund.

Figuring maybe I needed something more powerful (he said that when he got my receiver back he noticed I had the bass cranked and that it wasn't necessarily designed to handle that much) I decided to buy a Marantz 2270. The seller of this one had also mentioned refurbishing it to spec, plus it has two phono inputs, so I figured if one ever started going out on me I would have a backup plan. It came in yesterday and is having the same issue! One phono input is incredibly quiet in one speaker, and the other phono input is having the quiet garbled audio problem in the same speaker (both issues are in the right speaker this time, although that could be that the RCA cables are swapped?). So it's either an extraordinary coincidence that both Marantz receivers are having weird phono input issues or the problem is my set up.

Do you think this could be a grounding issue on the receiver? Neither of the older Marantz units have a ground on the plug (they're just two pronged) so I'm basically trying to figure out what I can do to try to resolve the issue. My house itself is not well grounded either, as it was built in 1955 and almost all the outlets in the house only accept two pronged plugs. I've been using the little adapters that you screw into the outlet cover that allow you to plug in three pronged plugs.

Truth be told I didn't have enough time last night to do any troubleshooting on the 2270, so I can't confirm that it goes away on FM or by pushing Mono (this model has individual mono buttons for each speaker so that will be a bonus). Just noticed as I was going to sleep that it was starting to make that sound again and I got discouraged.

This is my first post, so thanks for having me. Any help or suggestions would be fantastic.
Click to expand...
 
Cableguy860, go to the first page of the Marantz forum and look for the blue “Post New Thread” button near the top right. Give your thread a title that points to your problem, give a good explanation in the body of the post, and post it. Welcome to AK!
 
Dingman said:
We simply must maintain all the nice glowing sexiness.
Are you saying you need to engage BOTH mono buttons to clear the audio in both channels?.
Click to expand...
No, I only need to press the one mono button to clear up the garble since it is only coming out of one speaker. And this is happening in both phono inputs of the Marantz, so I'm just finding it harder and harder to believe that it's the receiver. Something has to be wrong with my darn setup.

And my U-turn doesn't have a built in preamp, sadly, so that can't be the issue.

It only appears to happen frequently with music that is soft in nature, like piano ballads or Norah Jones type music. When it gets to a louder portion of the music it seems to "break through" and the sound comes through fine/the garble goes away (although this isn't always the case. The garble still comes occasionally during loud music, but not nearly as frequently).

Just remembered that I have the aux to rca cable, so I will test with my phone tonight and get back to you tomorrow. Really sorry for the slow responses and thank you all for your help in this! I also plan on taking a video of how it sounds so you can hear it for yourself.
 
If you get normal stereo sound in both channels for all inputs other than phono the problem might be on the left channel of Phonoboard. This series of Marantz phono board has notorious 2SC458 noisy transistors! You can ask the seller whether he recapped and changed the transistors in the phono board.
 
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So I tested with the aux cable last night with my phone and it definitely has the same exact issue. Swapping the orientation of the aux cable doesn't matter, it still happens with the same side/speaker. So it has nothing to do with the u-turn/phono stages.

Anything else you'd like me to test?
 
Plugin your iPhone directly to the left and right ports of "Main In". If you see the same problem then the problem is in your left amp boards and if it plays fine in both channels then problem in the front section and it can be dirty switches or in the pre-amp board. You have to take out the jumpers between Main-in and Pre-out before doing this. You have to control the volume from your phone. So first turn down the volume of your phone to the minimum before switching on the receiver.
 
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Most of the time balance and volume switches are the main culprit but I suggest to clean all the switches well.
 
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