Crosley all in one stereo, cd, phono repair

[banjomaniac]

I have a Crosley Director model all in one stereo that powers on but no sound, sometimes sound comes in and fades back out. What it does when it feels like it, sound slowly gets louder, it's usually all full of static or crackles and then fades back out. Sometimes it gets real clear and sounds good for a couple seconds then fades away. I have checked all connections and tried cd and radio and phono, all the same. Volume knob is fine and tried headphones too. Thought it might be a capacitor or something but don't see and that look blown and tested several that were all fine. Do I need to trace from the speakers backwards to try and find the problem? What would cause sound to come and go? Most of the time there is no sound. Sometimes I can put my ear up to the speakers and barely hear it like it has no volume and is tiny and treble sounding.

 

[tomizett]

That sounds very like like a simple bad connection or dry joint to me.

It sounds like you have some decent fault-finding technique already but, if you've not already tried it, you could try disturbing it while it's on. Switch on and apply some signal and have a tap around with an INSULATING IMPLEMENT (like a plastic pen or a wooden stick). Obviously, keep your hands well away from all of the electronics while the device is plugged in, *even if* it is switched off. See if you can make the symptom better or worse.
Common failure points are input and output connections, volume and tone controls etc, and generally anything large and heavy soldered to a board.

Otherwise, yes, you might have to resort to tracing the signal though. This sort of fault could also be due to failing capacitors, diodes, ICs etc...
but it's always worth having a good look for the easy things first!