As an old stereophile, I have a secret hoard of solder containing lead, which is now banned in solder in an effort to protect the environment. I'm pretty sure that a lot of modern equipment fails because the modern solder has a tendency to spontaneously crystallise (y, ok, I also used to work for a consultant metallurgists) although I don't have any proof of that. One thing I am pretty certain of is that the perceived problems with lead solder are just another fad, there's still toxic stuff in there and it is very hard to make non-toxic solder that works at the low temperatures generated by a soldering iron.
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