while you're waiting have you inspected for aged or cold solder joints?
No, the lubricant belongs inside the pots and won't hurt anything. If you try to blow it out it will just get all over everything and attract dust. Very bad advice. If there is lubricant on the board you can flush that out with alcohol or a non-residue contact cleaner.
Get out of here with that. Let me clarify since it wasn't obvious. Ideally, clean pots first with contact cleaner moving them back and forth, let dry. Then lube the pots with deoxit, work them back and forth, blow them out, clean any surrounding residue with contact cleaner since as much as half a bottle of deoxit was used. Blowing them out prevents any standing liquid issues within the pot (if it doesn't have a drain hole at the bottom) and it also has the effect of coating everything evenly inside the pot with deoxit better than just blindly squirting a few drops into the side hole of just one portion of the pot and hoping it's getting everywhere it needs to. There is a 0% chance this leaves you worse off than you were to begin with. I do this all the time and there is never an issue unless you carelessly leave your work a sloppy mess and don't clean up after yourself. There is also an aerosol version of deoxit which would have a similar effect to this "mess" I've described that Caig sells.. I doubt this is the reason there is an audio issue as it was likely cause by the odd wiring arrangement that was attempted, but in any event it's a better way to clean pots from my experience.
Yes.- Solder joints looked good, there are several components (and some screws) marked with red or black marker, maybe these were replaced. Picture attached.
- Thanks dr*audio for the tip about the insulators and grease
- Regarding the deoxit lube, there were little puddles of lube on the inside of the bottom cover where the pots are when I first opened it up. I think whatever excess will drain out, has. I've read mixed advice about compressed air, and I'll say it doesn't look nasty in there, so I'm inclined to leave it be.
- About the speakers, it seems likely that the speaker wiring was the issue, but I don't understand why. dr*audio, will your suggested setup work with the very low impedance speaker/sub combo I've got?
