I'm servicing a JVC RX-807V receiver. After about 5 minutes of warm up, the left channel starts to get distorted. Injecting a sine wave into the tape input shows the top half of the wave is getting clipped. This only happens when the SEA equalizer is enabled. Intermittently, the same problem will happen on the other channel. When I tested it extensively last night, it was only the left channel having the problem. I've narrowed the problem down to the ENC-093 pc board. You can have a look at the schematic here.
I took some voltage measurements of IC 503 which is a dual op-amp:
Before the left channel starts clipping, pins 2 and 3 are about 2.0 and 2.4 volts respectively. Pin 1, the output, is at 3.0 volts. When the clipping happens, pins 2 and 3 are about 6.7 volts, and pin 1 is at 12.0 volts. The working channel has its own interesting measurements. Pins 5 and 6 are about -4.0 volts and pin 7 is about -4.5 volts (there is no distortion with these measurements in the right channel.) The input to both channels is clean at IC503 even when the output is distorted. I want to replace IC 503 but before I do, I'd like to know.
What is the function of the JFET, Q553? the source(?) goes directly to pin 6 which is the inverting input of the right channel of IC503. I would think that since this is a stereo receiver that there would be some symmetry to the opposite inverting input, pin 2, of IC503 but instead pin 2 is wired back to the drain of Q553 through an RC network. The gate of Q553 is -10 volts instead of +10 volts because Q551 and Q552 apparently are switched off. I believe there is an error in the schematic that shows C516 connected to pin 6 of IC503 rather than pin 7.
Thanks for your replies.