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Troubleshooting Audyssey desktop speakers?

paulrudy

paulrudy

New Member
I picked up a pair of Audyssey Lower East Side desktop speakers a year ago for $40 or so. They're unexpectedly good for their size and the price.

Unfortunately, they stopped working a little while ago, and I would love any suggestions on troubleshooting. Here are the facts:
  1. They do power on.
  2. They no longer produce sound.
  3. Since they stopped producing sound, I also noticed this: These speakers have a volume knob on one speaker that doubles as a power button (push for on/off). LED light is green for "on" and red for "off". When plugged in, the light is red (normal). Pressing the volume knob changes the light to green (normal). If I immediately press the volume knob again, the light changes back from green to red (normal). But if I wait 3 seconds or longer, the light does not switch from green to red (NOT normal). But even within that 3 second window, the speakers still do not produce sound.
The speaker with the volume knob contains the brains for the set. It has 3 PCBs: One on the underside that seems to handle power and inputs. One behind the speaker, not sure what that handles. And one behind the face, with the LED, volume knob, external 1/8" jack, etc. Initially, I found a little bit of white streaking (corrosion?) on the back of that PCB. After I cleaned it with a little rubbing alcohol and let it dry, the speaker worked again for about a week. Since then, though, the same problems are present, and I haven't been able to find anything that doesn't look right visually on the PCBs.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! I do have a multimeter, but I'm a novice when it comes to using it.
 
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I had a piar of AudioEngine powered desktop speakers quit after 10-15 years. Took them to my audio tech to see if he could fix them. No luck because there were a bunch of surface mount components on the PCBs. Gave them to him for salvage and suggested he could turn them into passive speakers.
 
BmWr75 said:
I had a piar of AudioEngine powered desktop speakers quit after 10-15 years. Took them to my audio tech to see if he could fix them. No luck because there were a bunch of surface mount components on the PCBs. Gave them to him for salvage and suggested he could turn them into passive speakers.
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I wouldn't mind turning these into passive speakers since I have a little DAC, but from the tiny bit of research I did, it doesn't look like an easy job without having circuit schematics and other knowledge that I don't have.
 
paulrudy said:
I wouldn't mind turning these into passive speakers since I have a little DAC, but from the tiny bit of research I did, it doesn't look like an easy job without having circuit schematics and other knowledge that I don't have.
Click to expand...
You have to have a power amp and volume control too to go passive on them.
 
BmWr75 said:
You have to have a power amp and volume control too to go passive on them.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what the DAC has. But I got the sense that converting active speakers to passive isn't particularly straightforward. Need to figure out what parts of the wiring to bypass, etc. Advice on either doing that or troubleshooting the speakers would be very welcome
 
If the crossover is also built into the amp PCBs, it is hard, and it most likely is that way.
 
BmWr75 said:
If the crossover is also built into the amp PCBs, it is hard, and it most likely is that way.
Click to expand...
That makes sense, thanks. I'll see what I can figure out opening them up again.

I wonder if the weird behavior of the power switch seems to indicate anything in particular worth looking for. E.g. loose connnection, blown capacitor, or something else that would help narrow down what went wrong
 
Well, update: After mucking around with the power/volume PCB on the face of the unit, it works again. There must be something slightly loose, or the potentiometer isn't working quite right and needs just the right wiggle. Tried following the advice of this comment from reddit, and we'll see if that prevents any recurrence.
 
Could just be a dirty volume control. Have you tried a squirt of Deoxit into the volume pot?
 
BmWr75 said:
Could just be a dirty volume control. Have you tried a squirt of Deoxit into the volume pot?
Click to expand...
I did try that before, but it didn't make a difference. Although is there a specific way to apply it? I tried aiming it around the spot where the shaft exits the pot housing. Someone elsewhere mentioned accessing the back of the pot where there's a usually a hole, but that would mean desoldering the pot from the PCB
 
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