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My amp suddenly going silent when volume knob touchedi have a ordered

I have a pre owned Rotel RA1070 that’s been working fine. Tonight, twice, I’m listening to jazz, wife sleeping, so I go to turn down volume a touch. The minute I touch the knob the sound goes dead. Amp, CD okay running, cables fine, speakers brand new MA Silver 2 .
I turned off the amp, waited 10 seconds, turned back on, everything running, sounding normal. Later on, I get up to turn down volume, same thing, sound goes dead. What’s happening? Seems to happen when I touch the control, before I even turn it down... Almost like a mini shock
sifter

Showing 2 responses by mofimadness

mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
4,152 posts
 
Static is causing the IC logic chip to shut down.  Power cycling the unit is resetting it back.  Try some anti-shock spray or grounding yourself before you touch the unit.
mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
4,152 posts
 
I was in the high-end audio business for many years.  This has happened many times in my experience.  Especially this time of year when the furnaces come on.  They tend to produce more static electricity in the air then at other times.

Also, if you are wearing socks, they will pick up the static from the carpet and pass it through you.  I have solved this by wearing rubber soled slippers or spraying the carpet with an anti-shock spray or grounding myself, (touching a metal post on my rack) before I touch the unit.  Any unit that uses some type of a logic chip can get zapped whether it's for volume or switching or DSP functions.

We had a thread on here several years ago about this same thing, but I can't find it at the moment.

I've also never heard of using tuner/contact cleaner to solve this?  If you had a scratchy or noisy control, yes, but not this particular problem. 
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