Magnavox Astro-Sonic Repair/HELP!!

Hi all. Just signed up for your forum today. Discovered this wonderful website on a google search. I just bought a beautiful Magnavox Astro-Sonic Console at the thrift store yesterday. I have wanted one of these since my last one quit working, and I finally found one! It was dirty at the store but I brought it home and cleaned and polished it and this thing is just a beautiful peice of furniture. I love the sound of these things, and I wanted one mostly because I have over 600 LP's, and I love to listen to them. Anyhow, despite how pretty this thing is, it is not functioning quite right.... The speakers are only working on the right side. I put some contact spray into the volume control and the crackling stopped, but still the sound still just wokring on the right side.

I have NO TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE WHAT-SO-EVER but I want so BADLY to fix this thing!!!! The side that is working sounds wonderful, bass,treble and everything working great. The only thing I could think to do is take off the back panel and disconnect the working speaker and swap it to make sure the quiet speaker itself was good. The left speaker did work just fine when I swapped it. Another thing I noticed was that when I disconnected the working speaker, I did hear the other speaker working a little bit. I could faintly hear it. So, I turned up the loudness the whole way. I could hear a little bit louder, at its loudest it sounded maybe like a headphone speaker sounds when you take them off your ears.

Can anyone tell me how someone who is basicly electronic illiterate can make this thing work right? I want so badly to have a good working machine. Would even be willing to pay someone near Pittsburgh to help me in person if possible!

Someone just PLEASE HELP!!!! Thank you so much!!

Did you figure out this issue? I have the exact same problem.

Suggestions--if you want to find a "Pro"--number one: post your location in the "profile" section--at least-
2. Look in your local phone book, and that of the nearest big city, under "Radio-TV repairs".
If you have the same problem with both the Radio, and Turntable, you un-doubtingly have amplifier problems--caution here, as running the unit this way could lead to expensive repairs, if not fixed now-- "Playing with speaker wires", IMHO, is NOT a good idea ! Ron Rich

Yes your best bet would be to get a Professional to look at your unit.

If a weak channel occurs only in phono mode, it could be a bad cartridge. But then again, scratchy controls can make one channel inoperable. A couple of my Astro-Sonics exhibit that behavior with you have the step bass and treble controls. You turn the bass or treble to full, and one channel cuts out. That even applies to the function control. You have to rock the controls back and forth to try to loosen the crud and oxidation on the contacts underneath. I've got some Deox-It and some other stuff to clean them, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Other than that, they work fine.

Try working those controls to see if the offending channel pops back to life..you may get your full sound, and then that's at least one issue to make a Tech aware of. Cleaning the controls is not enough since these units are so old. Replacing caps and other ailing semi-conductors and testing circuit voltages are in order, and maybe some TLC to the record changer.

Maybe I should move back to Grove City, Pennsylvania. --BB


Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona