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Yamaha C-65 Preamp Grounding

avantbored

Active Member
Hi all,

I picked up a nice M65/C65 stack a month ago. The amp is being worked on, and I've been using the C65 very nicely with my M70.

Much of the scratchiness in the tone knobs, input switches, and volume/loudness pot has disappeared with use. But the volume knob's noise has not disappeared completely.

I flipped the thing over to loosen the cover, and found that some plastic around the screws that hold the cover to the chassis had cracked off. I remember when I had my C80, I also had intermittent scratchiness, and the plastic flanges were also cracked off there too.

I plugged the C65 back in and found that some of the noise (not all) disappears when I hold my hand on the preamp, and reappears when I manipulate the knob when I don't use my body as the ground.

The question: Are the plastic flanges the culprit, and how could I mitigate the problem?

PS. the M65 is being worked on now to remove the glue (the seller, who was selling on behalf of a client, did not quite trust me that the glue was a problem...) and offered to refund me the difference if the work order was more than a couple of hundred bucks. We coincidentally use the same person, so the work is trustworthy, but the tech also found some bunk transistors in the output stage (perhaps the result of a bad repair job in its life before me). He's still doing parts research, so maybe he's been poking around here!
 
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Just went to try this, and I literally cannot. The plug slots are asymmetrical, with the right side longer than the left. Same case on my Furman.
Well hopefully its wired correctly then. The metal covers (top & bottom) ground the rear panel to the front panel. Make sure these fasteners are good and tight on the front and rear. The plastic side panels are always broken by now. Those thin plastic flanges was a terrible idea from the get go.
 
Well hopefully its wired correctly then. The metal covers (top & bottom) ground the rear panel to the front panel. Make sure these fasteners are good and tight on the front and rear. The plastic side panels are always broken by now. Those thin plastic flanges was a terrible idea from the get go.

Besides a weird quiet warping that appears every 15 seconds or so (I think this is a problem with the transformer near me -- I've inquired about it here a long time ago), I don't have any grounding issues with other preamps. So, I'll tighten up all the panel screws this weekend. Cheers, avionic!
 
So. I don't think it's just the preamp.

I have a M70 grounded to the C65 via a ground terminal. Operating the volume knob produces static and noise, all recorded by the amp's meters. But when I hold my hand on the M70 chassis, little to no noise is produced.

Don't know where else to ground the M70?
 
Operating the volume knob produces static and noise,
Make sure the volume controls hex nut is securely tightened down to the chassis. You can access the hex nut by just removing the volume knob.

Check your solder connections on the volume control as well.
 
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Make sure the volume controls hex nut is securely tightened down to the chassis. You can access the hex nut by just removing the volume knob.

Check your solder connections on the volume control as well.

The hex nut on the loudness knob? And the flathead post? Tightened those. No change, unfortunately.

Try operating without the Furman.

No change on this either.

Check your solder connections on the volume control as well.

I'll have to bring it to someone for this. Guess it's off to the tech once I get some other stuff out of the way. Thanks for your attention, avionic!
 
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