Looking for advice/recommendations re: repairing a receiver

[onetwo_threefour]

I need to access the uber-wisdom of CP.

I've got a Pioneer receiver that I've had for a few years. It's an A/V receiver with
7.1 analog inputs (which I love) and DVI rather than HDMI but it suits my needs quite well.

However, I have a problem with it and I'm looking for opinions and suggestions.

For quite some time now I have been experiencing audio dropouts intermittently and I think it's some sort of a circuit board problem like a loose connection that might need to be resoldered but I'm not sure.

Basically, when listening at quiet to reasonable volume levels I. Will suddenly lose all or almost all sound on one of the front channels or center channel. If I crank the volume momentarily to an unreasonably loud level the sound kicks back in and it'll work fine for some arbitrary peruod of time before it happens again. I'm sure it's not on the input side because it happens whether using the analog inputs, the toslink, or the coaxial. What I'm not real sure about is why cranking the volume would temporarily fix the problem.

Having taken the cover off and looked at the guts, I don't see anything obviously wrong, but the circuit board connected to the speaker outputs seems too loose in the sense that if you push a banana plug in, the whole circuit board gets pushed around. I'm worried that there is some kind of a connection problem there, but I don't have the skills to diagnose or repair. (I hate soldering).

A mew receiver is not currently in the budget, so I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions for me regarding reasonable repairs

[OBCT]

Hmmm... the repair side of this kind of stuff can get dicey, and certainly isn't my forte, either.

I'm pretty much following your line of thinking, though. It does sound like a loose connection of some sort, or possibly a partially damaged component (maybe to do with the power source?).

Since you're out of warranty (I assume), I guess it wouldn't hurt to take it to an electronics repair boutique type store and ask for a free estimate. Or maybe just talk with an expert on the phone/over email before going out of your way.

Then, there's always avsforums.com. Though it's a bit of a labyrinth of information and at times bickering over there, asking the right questions can lead to great insight. They still have many knowledgeable posters.

I hate steering people away from this forum, but this is somewhat specialized. Wish I could've been of more help.