Finally got a new cartridge for the turntable and when connecting it to the amp last night I inadvertently left the amp on and shorted out the left hand channel in the phono stage. The amp still works fine for CD and tuner.

Anyone know if this is reasonably easily repaired or whether I should just get another 3130 off Ebay? Or a new amplifier altogether…

It will be repairable but probably uneconomic. Why not just buy a cheap s/h phono stage, rather than a whole amp?

That’s what I wondered. Bit attached to the amplifier as I bought it with my first pay cheque after university – it’s 29 years old…

There is a guy on Retrobike called apache who will fix and service the amp if you like. He recently gave my cd player the once over. You can also find him on Facebook under North Hill Audio.

Cheers for that YoKaiser – will check that out.

Deffo worth repairing (even if more expensive than a cheap outboard photo stage).

If you’re in the north west, then I’ve just had my 17 yo Arcam power amp repaired and all the old capacitors replaced. Chap is called Mike Powell. He comes recommended on hifi forums and also by me.

Email me if you want his details.

My Rotel amp has a phono stage, but the turntables’s pretty quiet compared to the CD. Do you think it would benefit from a separate phono stage, or would I need to be spending a lot oh money?

You definitely have the turntable plugged into the phone inputs?

Is the cartridge Moving Coil or Moving Magnet? If MC then the output is lower than MM – my amp has a switch on the back that allows you to select the cartridge type.

If your phono stage is working correctly then the volume for the turntable should be similar for any of the other inputs – e.g. tuner CD etc, assuming you have other players connected.

I had a quick look at separate phono stages following one of the comments above – and there’s not much available for less than £100 as far a I can see.

3120 had a famous phono stage, not so sure if the 3130 is as good a design.

The 3130 was equally as highly regarded I think. However, I have realised I was talking rubbish above – the switch I was referring to is for impedence, not MM/MC.