Definitive Technology BP-9040 Speakers with Yamaha R-N602 Stereo Integrated Amplifier

[mykatherine]

I have a Yamaha R-N602 Stereo Network Integrated Amplifier. I have bought 2 Definitive Technology BP-9040 speakers - 1 of them has arrived, the other will be here in a few days. I connected only the 1 speaker to the amp with 14 AWG OFC speaker wire with banana plugs at both ends and tripled-checked that positive went to positive and negative went to negative. I connected the power cord to the speaker and a power strip. The LED on the back of the speaker turned red and then to blue. I turned on my amp and made sure that speaker A was on. I have sound coming out of the top half of the tower where the passive mids and tweeters are, but no sound from the bottom half where the powered subwoofer and the 2 other woofers are. I tried adding the LFE cable from the R-N602 amp to the back of the speaker tower. Still, no sound from the bottom. I tried another pair of speaker wires with banana plugs on them, but no still no sound from the bottom. I have read all of my manuals, watched online videos, filed a tech request with Yamaha and with Def Tech who will probably fit me in somewhere in their century-at-a-glance calendar).

The R-N602 is a stereo integrated amplifier, not a home theater A/V unit where you can set "no sub" or "large" or any thing like that, so I come here humbly asking Ye overlords of Hi-Fidelity 2 questions:

1. Is there a magic "something" that I need to do "something" with and then poof, the bottom and the top all produce sound?

2. The speaker connections on the back of the Def Techs have red and black caps on the end, so instead of pushing the banana plugs into the connections at 180 degrees, I instead inserted the plugs through the holes at 90 degrees where bare wire would normally be inserted. Am I suppose to remove these red and black end caps and insert the bananas at 180 degrees into the speaker connections?

Thanks be to Ye overlords for hearing my questions.

 

[shadyJ]

are you sure that the subwoofer signal is being sent from the Yamaha integrated? I would check to make sure a signal is actually being sent. The Yamaha set to 2.1, right? That wouldn't be the default for it.

 

[mykatherine]

Thanks for your reply. Besides the 2 binding posts on the speaker, there is also an LFE input and the amplifier has an LFE Out to Subwoofer connection. The LFE worked fine on the subwoofer I recently sent back. There is no 2.1 option on the amp. The ".1" is either "on" by plugging in the cable or it is "off" by not plugging in the cable. If the speaker wires attached to the binding posts are not carrying the low frequencies then the amp has a problem. If they are carrying the full range, then the cross-over might have the problem.

 

[ParisB]

If the amp light on the back of the 9040 is solid blue and the D. logo light is lit up...should be working. Confirm you are running the AVR settings to Large for now and play bass heavy 2ch music.

Try also unplugging your power chord to the tower for 5 minutes and plug back in.

Hopefully it's not a dreaded amp failure.

 

[mykatherine]

Thanks for your reply. The amp light is on blue, but the front-bottom "D" logo is not lit up. Below the amp power knob is a tiny button to push to turn on the "D" logo, but no luck. The amp is a stereo amp and not an A/V amp so there are no settings for Large or small like on an AVR amp. Straight up 2 channel with a manual ".1". The powered subwoofer works with 2 other passive woofers. I do not know the wiring or circuit schematics, but if the active sub amp goes bad, I would think the passive woofers would still get signal and play. The powered signal from the stereo amp comes into the speaker to a crossover filter that passes signal only to the active subwoofer and sends the rest of the powered signal to another crossover that sends the proper frequencies to the proper other passive speakers including the 2 passive woofers. I believe the clue is that the "D" logo is not lit because it has an LED backlight. Ok. I quit for the night. Thanks @ParisB.

 

[mykatherine]

Replaced fuse. No luck. Took off back amplifier cover, found the black subwoofer wire not connected. Connected black subwoofer wire and poof! There was music. To anyone going inside a speaker, especially a powered speaker, remember to unplug from all energy sources first, then let stand for a minute to allow any capacitors with a charge to release their charge.

 

[ParisB]

Replaced fuse. No luck. Took off back amplifier cover, found the black subwoofer wire not connected. Connected black subwoofer wire and poof! There was music. To anyone going inside a speaker, especially a powered speaker, remember to unplug from all energy sources first, then let stand for a minute to allow any capacitors with a charge to release their charge.

Awesome.