my 2150 (bought back in '05) has developed a real noisy volume control. not surprising with its age, I guess. I'm wondering if I could/should try to fix it myself? remove the knob and use some of that Ratshack spray stuff? Or am I treading in dangerous water? I would hate to take in somewhere or send it away.

I have a hard time believing the RR2150 is old enough to develop a noisy volume control (assuming it has a traditional resistive volume control instead of a digitally controlled ladder attenuator like is used in home theater preamps). Unless you smoke, live right next to the ocean (Orange CA is too far from the ocean) or have some really nasty chemicals open in your house, the volume control shouldn't shouldn't develop noise for decades.

At any rate, I would try simply rotating it back and forth quickly many times and see if that reduces the noise. Usually that does do the trick unless the potentiometer is really shot.

As a last ditch effort, you can try some contact cleaner - carefully - sprayed inside the potentiometer.

However, like I said, I have never seen such a recent component develop a noisy volume control unless there is something else wrong in the circuit. In some instances, a leaky DC blocking capacitor can place DC on the pot, and this will cause noise, but with op-amp based circuits (that almost always use bi-polar power supplies), there is really never any DC that gets onto the audio path.

If what Altec offered does not work, I would call Outlaw first. They are there to help and they know their product.

If you decide to mess with it yourself, DeoxIT is the only product I'd use sold at radio shack . Don't use their TV cleaner, it leaves an oily mess.


Your 2150 "old" ? LOL !!! That's a good one I sure hope you were joking otherwise I'm afraid the "this is the digital age, so everything is obsolete in 2 years" thought process has taken over your brain !

It "should" last for decades , but hey, these days who knows .

Good luck, please let us know what happens .

-cheers

Thanks for the replies, guys. I will confess to the smoking.

It does seem to help a bit to move the knob left and right rapidly. And, at times, the noise seems to almost disappear when the unit has been running for awhile.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Well, what can I say? I've restored many, many components from owners who smoked. The insides have a layer of "tar" or whatever which is very difficult to remove. Xylene solvent is about the only thing which cuts through some of it.

I hate to see what it's doing to the insides of your lungs.....

This has been a problem for several RR2150 owners, including me. A thread on "static when changing volume" appeared in The Outlaw Saloon as early as January, 2007.

I began experiencing the problem less than a year after having bought the 2150. Neither I nor my wife smoke, and we don' "live right next to the ocean... or have some really nasty chemicals open..." in our house.

The problem can be "solved," but only temporarily, by vigorously turning the volume control knob back and forth a few times.

Then it is possibly a part reliability problem, or some design flaw such as a capacitor which should block DC from getting to the control, which isn't doing it's job.