It's 10am on a stiflingly hot Monday morning, and a Soundcraft mixer is giving Adrian Nettleship a headache. The sound is only coming out of one channel – the friend who it belongs to thought the XLR port was at fault, but that's working fine, so Adrian and his fellow repairers have connected an oscilloscope to it to follow the signal and attempt to pinpoint the problem. But so far, no joy. "I need a KitKat," Adrian says.
He's part of the Forest Fixers, a group of volunteers who run regular repair cafes throughout the London borough of Waltham Forest. Usually, they’re open to walk-ins – they get a lot of kitchen appliances like toasters and coffee machines – but today it's a closed shop. That's because today is audio day.
We're in the headquarters of the Forest Recycling Project (an unaffiliated group who let the Forest Fixers use their place) in Walthamstow, east London, on a side street between a builders' merchants and Maggy's Slots gambling centre.
Half-empty tins of reclaimed paint line the shelves, along with all kinds of pre-loved fabrics and other materials, all waiting for new homes. But all eyes are on the table in the middle, where audio devices belonging to the Forest Fixers and their friends lay awaiting repair. I'm hoping to learn a thing or two.
Fix up, look sharp
Stumped by the mixer for now, Adrian leaves it in the hands of two other Fixers while he turns his attention to his faulty Pure Jongo T6X Bluetooth speaker. He fires it up and you can immediately hear the problem – the signal is distorted, clipping the bass. He suspects it's the capacitor.
To find out, he opens up the speaker, plays a sine wave through a signal generator app on his phone, and by isolating one channel at a time, he can see where the distortion is coming from – one channel sounds fine, but the other is squelching something rotten. It seems like he's getting somewhere.
The dedication is admirable (though they're only just getting started – one of the Fixers tells me they once spent four weeks fixing an Amazon Basics shredder). But I can't help but wonder, wouldn't it be simpler just to replace it? We reviewed the Jongo range back in 2014, so it's had a good innings.
It's so old that the mobile app is no longer supported – Adrian can only control it using his old phone, which he keeps for this very purpose. But that's hardly the Forest Fixers spirit – this lot love a challenge.
They're not the only ones. Repair cafes have exploded in popularity in recent years. In 2024, the Open Repair Alliance reported that there were over 4000 community repair groups active around the world.
This has been driven by the cost-of-living crisis and a desire to reduce the environmental impact that comes with throwing things away the minute they stop working well. Repair cafes are also a good chance to see friends and meet new ones over tea and biscuits, and – today at least – have a good chinwag about all things audio.
That's what's brought Lukas Kuhn here today (well, that and a desire to get his NAD 3020i amp back up and running). "I love nerding out with people about audio," he says. He's also brought along a Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 standmount – there's nothing wrong with it; he just wanted to bring it along.
The NAD, however, has seen better days. It’s only outputting at low volumes and sounds muffled. A couple of the fuses have blown, there’s a lot of dust inside (as you would expect for a device manufactured in 1991) and the capacitors have leaked. But I can't hang around nerding out too long – there's been a development over at the Soundcraft mixer.
"We were having trouble getting the signal to pass through the fader and come out of the output, and that's because we didn't understand how the board worked," Adrian says.
"But we found a button on the effects side, and now we've been able to reproduce the problem as reported: the left output isn't working. And we can see that because we've got signal on the right-hand side but not on the left-hand side."
Two hours in, and they've confirmed that it's broken. In the world of amateur repairs, this is what progress looks like.
Undaunted, they move on to the next step: opening it up to find exactly where the signal is going wrong.
This is easier said than done, as instead of being secured with a few screws, the top plate is attached by every single fader knob on the unit, as well as multiple nuts complete with washers.
But another volunteer, Karl, a BBC sound engineer for the last 40 years, is happy to take it on. "Now this is a job that AI can't do," he says. Before adding with a grin, "I've got to go soon, so it won't be me who has to put it back together."
We're also getting somewhere with the Pure speaker. One of the capacitors feels warm, so volunteer Stefania Fantini hooks it up to her Yukiloon inductance detector.
The result? Inconclusive. But with the PCB board exposed, Adrian Googles the make and model in the hope of finding a data sheet. He's out of luck, though he does find replacement boards for sale online. But £150? No chance. Maybe another KitKat is in order.
A tricky fix
Organiser Lisa Percival has been running Forest Fixers for three years. She stresses that the volunteers are enthusiasts rather than experts – they're fitting this in among busy work and family lives, and since they lost their council funding, they're all doing it unpaid.
"These devices are more involved than what people usually bring into our repair cafes," she says, adding that they're able to fix about half of what comes through the door. As if on cue, the doorbell rings.
It's a husband and wife with their Gen Z son. The son was bequeathed a record player by a relative, but they can't get it working. While today's event isn't supposed to be open to the public – the Fixers have their hands full already – Lisa lets them in anyway.
The turntable is a Pioneer PL-112D from 1974. The platter won't spin. But once it's taken out, the problem is obvious – it's the drive belt, or lack thereof. It's completely perished over the years.
The motor is running fine, as the spindle rotates without any problem. A replacement drive belt is quickly found online for a fiver. With that in place, the PL-112D should be playing records again.
This isn't the first record player the Forest Fixers have seen (one person didn't realise they had to keep the case lid open to make the deck play). It's not even the oldest music player they've fixed – people have brought in gramophones in the past.
But it's still a win, one that will keep a perfectly good turntable in the family and help a young man enjoy vinyl for years to come. The family leave, elated they've got it working again. That's worth £5 of anyone’s money.
As for the NAD amp, Soundcraft mixer and Pure speaker… when I left, they were still works in progress. But given how much time they dedicated to an Amazon shredder, I’ve no doubt the Forest Fixers will find a way or, at the very least, exhaust all possible avenues.
DIY FYI
So what advice should we take away from this? Well, in most cases, trying to fix a device yourself will invalidate the warranty, so if it's a relatively recent purchase and it's broken through no fault of your own, the manufacturer or retailer should fix it or replace it. But if you're dealing with older devices, here are a few tips.
If there's the option, try a factory reset first, as that often solves a lot of issues. Check the forums online, as often someone will have posted about a similar issue and how they fixed it.
The more common the device, the more likely someone has a solution – I was told that when HomePods fail, it's often the same component, which will help you diagnose the problem (and source a replacement part) a lot quicker.
If you are intent on taking your device apart, I would take time to learn a bit about what you're doing first. Otherwise, you could damage the device beyond repair, or worse, end up injuring yourself. Forest Fixers PAT test all devices to make sure they're safe, and so should you.
Keep plenty of containers (like eggcups) around for storing screws, and take photos of the device at various stages for reference – there’s nothing worse than trying to reassemble something from memory alone. Search online for the data sheet to work from, and get the right tools – a screwdriver with a long handle is a must. And if you get stuck, have a KitKat.
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