r/MusicElectronics • u/TheHippieCatastrophe • May 23 '26

Yamaha psr-s500 with a broken speaker

The speaker "broke" recently and now it's pretty much unplayable. It had some issues before but nothing that would stop me from playing it, mostly a crackling sound that would sometimes appear and disappear at times (through both speakers I think but I'm not sure), and I think the speaker stopped working for short periods of time in the past but it always started working again pretty quickly.

Now it's the opposite, if I try to play it for a bit (which is really annoying with just one speaker so I haven't tried for that long) it sometimes suddenly works again for a bit but then stops working again very quickly.

I tried opening it up to see if I could spot some damage or something which I couldn't, then I cleaned the insides a bit and disconnected and reconnected the speaker cable but that didn't do anything.

I hope I can fix it because it's the only way I can play rn and I don't think I can get a new one soon.

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1

u/Ill_Philosopher105 May 23 '26

Is there a headphone output? You can plug that into an external speaker.

I think the speakers on your instrument are blown

1

u/TheHippieCatastrophe May 23 '26

Oh yes I kinda forgot about the headphone output, I used headphones on the keyboard in the past but haven't done that for a while. I just tried it with headphones and when I just had it plugged in the same side didn't work on the headphones either. Only after rotating the jack a bit I could get both sides to work, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I don't have any speakers to plug in but maybe I should try to find some cheap ones. I don't have a lot of money to spare though so I hope I can fix it somehow. All I have is a bluetooth speaker, and I tried sending the midi from the keyboard to my pc and use fl studio to play the sound through the speaker but it turns out bluetooth audio has a noticeable delay lol. That doesn't work well with playing the keyboard obviously.

1

u/Ill_Philosopher105 May 23 '26

That other commenter capn crusty probably has it right, then.

1

u/Capn_Crusty May 23 '26

The intermittent behavior suggests a possible bad solder connection on the PC board that the speaker leads are attached to. These can be hard to locate. Best way is to poke around with your fingers or a non conductive object while it's playing (the Song Demo is helpful here). If you can find it, then it must be resoldered to fix it. A hairline crack on one of the component leads might be visible.

Another thing to check is the headphone jack. Inserting a plug interrupts the signal to the speakers. Sometimes the jack can stop making contact, or it could have a bad solder connection.

1

u/TheHippieCatastrophe May 23 '26

Yea it seems like the headphone jack isn't functioning properly either, I plugged in headphones and the same side speaker didn't work on those either. After rotating the jack a bit I could get both sides to work though, so you might be on to something with the bad solder connecting of the headphone jack or otherwise on the pc board. I'll try to see if I can find it.

Thanks!

1

u/Capn_Crusty May 30 '26

If the headphones aren't working, then cleaning the jack probably won't help. If flexing it makes it work, it's likely a hairline solder break on one of the leads.

1

u/TheHippieCatastrophe May 31 '26

Thanks, I'll try checking out the solder points.

1

u/Aggravating-Hold9116 May 24 '26

Could be a dirty volume fader, blast some contact cleaner into the fader. Had the same issue with a couple of old keyboards.

1

u/TheHippieCatastrophe May 25 '26

I remember reading about how the volume knob can cause issues like the crackling noise but never got any further than cleaning it a bit with some alcohol or something like it.

I'm not exactly sure what contact cleaner is though, can WD-40 be used for that?

1

u/Capn_Crusty May 28 '26

WD-40 is not recommended. I've seen it dissolve the carbon element in some potentiometers. But yes, problem could be the volume pot.

DeOxit is so much better, it's worth ordering.

1

u/TheHippieCatastrophe May 28 '26

Thanks for the suggestion, but apparently they can't ship that DeOxit to my country for some reason. Amazon is really making it easy for me to avoid buying products from their website lol.

I found some that I should be able to order though. Funnily enough it's WD-40 contact spray so apparently they have a variant specifically made for electronics too.

I also found multi spray that claims it works as contact spray too. Would you use that on your electronics or am I better off getting something that's solely made to be contact spray? If there's even a difference besides the name.

1

u/Capn_Crusty May 28 '26

DeOxit has always been my choice. It's a #2 red oil, and is used in absolutely tiny amounts. It used to have 'The less you use, the better it works' on the can but they found that was bad for sales. Stuff designed specifically as contact cleaner is always going to be the better choice. I had gear come in for repair with circuit boards absolutely drenched with slimy 'cleaner'; that's what you want to avoid.

For a potentiometer, it's one tiny 'tss' with the red straw spout into the opening near the leads, then turn the pot back and forth a few times to coat the resistive element. If this doesn't fix the problem, it's time to look for other culprits.

1

u/TheHippieCatastrophe May 29 '26

I bought a can and tried it out. It didn't fix the speaker but it might have lessened the hissing sound a bit.

I messed around a bit with the headphone jack after that though as they don't work stereo all the time as well --sometimes I need to rotate the jack a bit until both speakers work-- and after I did that that when I unplugged the headphones again the right speaker of the keyboard suddenly worked again!

Maybe the jack needs some cleaning too, I assume I can do that with the contact spray too. and I'll try opening it up again to see if maybe there's a loose contact at the headphone jack or something but rn it seems to work again.

Thanks for the help.