The Akai took a lot more time than I would have expected. I thought its old, should be simple and not hard to fix. It also just go two ICs and they are little amplifiers for the pre-amp. Little did I know before I started about Sanyo LD3141. They are quite simple in their function and they are unfortunately know to fail. There is no easy replacement and I was forced to spend $AUD 45. on a single chip with 9 legs. I paid $AUD25 for the whole deck!
The issue that persisted after swapping all (!) capacitors was that the deck only plays on the left channel. There is nothing on the right. I took out all transistors on the board and checked them in my tester – they were all fine. So the LD3141 was pretty the only usual suspect left.
After swapping it over with my replacement, the other channel came to life. But it would drop-out randomly. Wiggling on cables, knocking on parts of the PCB – nothing provided a clue. But it seems to be related to the lever that its getting pushed in for recording. Its like a gigantic switch cutting a number of connections and making new ones. Soldered on approx. 20 points onto the circuit board. Pushing it in a certain angle would bring sound on the right channel reproducibly back. Well, most of the time. Not always. That would be too easy. Attempts to improve the function of the switch with different contact cleaners did nothing.
So one issue solved but another one found. From my experience that will require a replacement. Reaching out to some sources to find an impossible to find part. Fingers corssed!
To be continued.