My Walkman was having audio issues, so I replaced all of the capacitors. The audio sounds great now, but both the left and right channels are playing through each headphone instead of being separated as they should be: Right → Right headphone Left → Left headphone To test it, I'm using a tape that repeatedly plays "Left, Right, Both." The issue occurs on both headphone jacks. The left and right volume sliders are independent. If I turn the left volume up and leave the right volume at 0, I can hear the left channel through both headphones. The same thing happens in reverse when I turn up only the right channel. So far I've checked: • Shorted capacitors: Could not find any. • Capacitor polarity: All capacitors are installed correctly. • Solder bridges: No bridges between capacitors or surrounding components. • Wiring: Double checked against the service manual and everything appears correct. • Left/right continuity: There is no continuity between the left and right channels when probing at the cassette head, aux board, main board, or headphone jack outputs. After doing some research, I found that a bad ground on one channel can sometimes cause this issue. I checked continuity between ground and the audio channels at multiple locations and did not find any shorts. The battery ground terminal has continuity to all other ground points on the unit when tested with the batteries removed and the Play button pressed in. Not sure if worth mentioning but if I disconnect either the WHT or BLU cable on the aux board, I lose audio on both channels. Does anyone have any advice on what I should check next? I've included photos of the Walkman boards and the service manual.
@febrice, have you tried tracing the signal through the signal path from TP12 and before it with a scope? If it is "merged" at TP12, and it sounds like it is, as I read from your description, just walk back testing every component on the signal path until you find a culprit. I think if you recorded, say, 400 Hz frequency on the left channel and 3 kHz on the right, it would be easier to track it on the scope, because you can see a change in sine waves.
if youre still fiddling with it id just advise you go through almost all the joints on this thing with new solder (old solder tends to get contaminated with old board residue/gunk so you need to replace it) AND use flux. highlighted a lot of iffy or downright very suspect joints i spotted, some parts i cant quite tell if they are bridged or not- but tbh one of the two on the left connecting the volume slider board might be your problem -top 2 contacts and bottom 3 should all not be touching anything next to eachother, hard to tell if they are bridged from the picture i hazard a guess your wires are all routed fine, but the sheer number of bad joints its pretty likely thats the source of your problem
@febrice These are the BLU and WHT wires you said if you disconnect either of them you lose sound on both channels ?
