Back into cassettes with an AIWA HS-G35mkII & Koss A-2B/8551. Anyone ever repair the Koss A-2B/8551? Volume issues on the left channel, but can correct by increasing Left to 9 and Right to 3 to get equal volume. So hack but someday want to get it fixed.
Welcome to the forum! I'd first try some DeOxit on the volume, years ago ARKAY used to hang out here all the time, maybe he'll show up someday. He wrote a nice little guide to cleaning knobs and dials. https://audiokarma.org/forums/threads/the-idiots-guide-to-using-deoxit-revisited.207005/ I really like the little Koss's but I've never opened mine. I've got it sitting next to some tiny Walkmans and it looks great with them.
I had one as a teenager, I thought it was really cool back then. I seems so compact compared to the Red AIWA. I'll try the link for the deoxit. The red AIWA does have a whine sound in the audio.
AIWA's have capacitor issues and that might be making the whine, check around here for relevant threads on the subject.
Welcome! That Koss A-2B is interesting, never knew Koss ever made a cassette player. Per previous recommendation, DeoxIT Fader F5 first. Otherwise, it could be a whole plethora of things from failing electrolytic caps, failing amplifier on one channel, failing carbon track on the potentiometer, etc. Do you have a service manual with schematics? Cheers. Norm
Koss had at least two players, I feel like this little one looks like a Sanyo MG but it might be private labeled with some other AKA's running around. My memory is not as good as it used to be.
The Sanyo M-G1 shares alot without Dolby Noise reduction. Not my Sanyo just something I saw on Ebay, notice this red is different than other red ones, Ebay listing is really costly. Koss made 3 gold color cassette players: A-2 no Dolby 1982 A-2B with Dolby 1983 A-3 with Dolby and AM/FM tuner cassette and controls all moved to the side and the size is drastically increased, 1984 or 1985. Then they went to the cheap black plastic ones after. Koss also lost alot of money on the 3 gold color cassette players, Sanyo was the OEM. Fisher also had a similar looking one with OEM being Sanyo.
Great post Paulpoco, I thought I was remembering correctly. One of the reasons why I like this forum is to exercise my brain on stuff like this. I need to keep a look out for the chunky version with the radio cartridge, that one has a cool unique look to it.
