Arcam CD repair recommendations?

[A Stuart]

A friend has a 20-ish year-old Arcam Alpha 8SE CD player, which has started producing a buzz (as opposed to hum) through the speakers, both channels.

Can anyone recommend a repairer, or any obvious investigation route.

I have confirmed the interconnects and amp (Arcam Alpha) input work normally when the CD player is replaced by tuner.

Opening up shows the power supply and most of the rest on one PCB, and a separate PCB which I take to be the "SE" upgrade DAC, but very short on labelling other than component numbers.
No bulging capacitors/discoloured resistors detectable in what I take to be the power supply area.

The buzz starts when the CD player is switched on at the wall even though still switched off, itself.
It becomes louder when the player itself is switched on.
It comes out both the gold outputs off the upgrade DAC, and the plain output off the main board.
The player still plays music. The buzz is slightly less loud than the music.
Just on the edge of audibility/imagination, there is a grainy noise through the speakers when listening to other source through another input, which disappears when CD player is switched off at the wall. Could this indicate something nasty getting along the screens into the signal earth in the amp.

There is also a slight mechanical buzz/hiss noise from the player itself. As best I recall this starts when switched on at the wall, yet CD player itself is still off.

Further to all this there is a white nylon roller presumably from the transport loose in the cabinet, yet it still plays discs, and I cannot correlate that with the buzz.

My oscilloscope measures relative to chassis/mains earth as far as I can tell, so I would be unsure how to use it on the unearthed (double insulated) CD player.

[Richard]

<< The buzz starts when the CD player is switched on at the wall even though still switched off, itself.
It becomes louder when the player itself is switched on. >>


I think this indicates a problem with the transformer itself (ie before the switch) which worsens under load of powering the player up.

Arcam themselves are/were very helpful and have emailed me circuits in the past so drop them an email see what they suggest if no-one can help otherwise

[A Stuart]

Many thanks.

Any thoughts how "buzz" signal could possibly reach output of a (presumably) unpowered analogue stage when mains switch button on CDP is off?

[Richard]

Hi, the analogue supply is kept powered up when the mains plug is in and switched on at the wall. When the CDp is switched on the rest of the unit powers up, so, something before the CDp switch or on the analogue side.

owners manual,

https://www.vintageshifi.com/repertoire-pdf/Arcam.php

service manual,

https://elektrotanya.com/arcam_alpha...wnload.html#dl

[A Stuart]

Extremely useful, thanks.
At least it explains that it is not voltage finding a way to leak from the mains to the signal output.
If it was my own I would have a go at further investigation, but not on somebody else's.