Hi! So I'm a bit new to the whole walkman thing but I just got my first yesterday, a WM-2. The belt had been replaced and really in excellent condition. Today, though, seemingly out of nowhere, it started making a popping sound while playing. It still works totally fine, but at regular(ish) intervals it makes a sound that resembles surface noise on a record. This happens with every cassette I've played. It also comes mostly through the right channel. Any clues on where to even start to figure out where its coming from would be appreciated. Thank you!
This is a capacitor leaking on your board. If you don't wish to replace a capacitor a short term solution i have found to work is to clean the pcb. In a similar way to this: (skip to 2:35) You need to hurry however the more you wait and the worse the leaking will get, it happened with my aiwa pc202 until it stopped working.
I don't entirely doubt what you're saying, as you definitely know more about capacitors than me. However, the person I bought it from seems to doubt it. He says that because the capacitors are ceramic and not electrolytic they probably aren't leaking. Any thoughts?
If it's a crackling sound, it's usually caused by bad grounding or contacts- not capacitors. Check those first. Capacitors is not the fix for everything. The WM2 has electrolytic capacitors, but the through hole types of this era rarely leak, and is unlikely to cause crackling or popping. Next check if the popping sound changes with motor load or speed. (put your finger on the capstan flywheel), or if the motor has no load (remove belt). This is to rule out mechanical static sources.
I agree with Bub, popping sound is typically a bad grounding: check the screws holding the pcb, one of them is grounding the whole circuitry and if contact is not optimal, it will cause pop/clicks. Check also the solders of the shielded wire going from the head to the PCB, it can happens that a wire is actually broken but it still make somehow contact with the head.
