Pioneer Receiver Problem

[welshguy123]

Hi guys,

I have a Pioneer vsx-c300 receiver, which has worked just fine for the last 4-5 years.

However, it has recently started to make a loud clicking noise after about 10-15 mins of use. Also, the speaker output becomes very quiet at this point, and some speakers in my 5-speaker setup are muted completely.

Any ideas of the problem/ways to fix it greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

Have you moved any parts of your system lately? What you described might be because one or more strands of copper in the speaker wires is bridging across one or more speaker terminals. This would cause a short circuit and put the receiver into self-protection mode. Another possible cause it that airflow around the receiver has been recently reduced (from putting it into a new entertainment center, for example), causing the receiver to get warmer and go into self-protection mode.

 

[welshguy123]

Sadly I haven't touched it! It was working fine, until all of a sudden this clicking noise started.

Also, it doesn't happen that much when I'm listening to the tuner, just when watching a DVD or when I'm listening to my TV's sound with surround-sound mode on.

 

[Adam]

I'm guessing that you listen to the tuner in stereo, correct? So, it seems that the problem is happening when you listen in surround mode. There's more than one possible cause, but I'd like to pull the thread a bit more on the speaker wires.

Does the display read "OVERLOAD" when this happens?

 

[welshguy123]

No - the display doesn't change. The clicking still happens when I'm listening to the tuner - it just seems to take longer to start. The effect is more noticeable on surround mode as the centre speaker loses most of it's volume - making speech nigh-on impossible to hear!

 

[njedpx3]

I am with Adam --recheck your speaker wires.

No - the display doesn't change. The clicking still happens when I'm listening to the tuner - it just seems to take longer to start. The effect is more noticeable on surround mode as the centre speaker loses most of it's volume - making speech nigh-on impossible to hear!

I am with Adam. Recheck all of your speaker wire connections, both at the receiver and the speaker end.

If you havethe time, it would be even better to disconnect ALL the speaker connections and to reconnect them in a methodical manner. For example, first reconnect just you front speakers and see if the problem returns. The one by one connect another speaker.

The most likely problem to the condition you are describing is a small whisker hair short on one of your speaker connections. This causes excessive load on the AVR, but the AVR will sometimes continue to work at low volume conditions.

The reason Adam and I both mention the whisker hair short, is because it is an easy and no-cost fix and the problem occurs quite often. If this doesn't work then your next step is probably to take your receiver in to an authoirized Pioneer repair and have them diagnose and fix the problem or bite the bullet and decided 4-5 years was a good life span and upgrade ---- I know what I would do but then I like new technology and new features.

Good Luck

NJ