Problems with Yamaha Subwoofers

[Unregistered]

I mistakenly posted this in the review forum...

Hi,

I am curious if there is anyone who can help me. If not, then at least I want to warn everyone of my experience.

A couple of years ago, I purchased a Yamaha YST-800 sub from Etronics.com. They had a good price, shipping was reasonable and I was happy with the experience.

My sub was located away from my Yamaha Receiver, so it wasn't on a surge protector.

The power went out about six months after I bought the sub, and when it came back on, the sub appeared to be turned on (green led is lit) but it no longer made any noise.

I contacted Yamaha at this point to see about a warranty. After all, the power going off, then back on, didn't hurt anything else in the house.

Yamaha rather bluntly informed me that even though they made the subwoofer, and I had purchased it new, that they do NOT HONOR their warranty on anything they make unless it is sold by an "authorized Yamaha dealer." I was also bluntly informed that Etronics.com is not an authorized Yamaha dealer. It did not matter that the sub came in brand new packaging, and was made by them.

So, with nothing to lose, I opened it and checked for a fuse - which there was one - but it was fine. I work for a radio station and had one of our engineers look at it. After having him try about $80 worth of transistors in it, and frying them each time it powered up, I gave up and got a new YST-800.

I got it from Etronics again. Why you ask? Well, it is my experience that MOST ALL of my electronics equipment lasts forever. I NEVER have problems with my stuff. SURELY the subwoofer thing was a fluke and I had just gotten a bad apple. And the YST-800 is a great sounding sub.

I've had that sub for about 8 months now. Today the power went off. I have moved since then, and I had rectified the surge protector problem from before. In other words, the sub was on a good surge protector today.

The power was off for about 30 minutes. I was reading a book, laying in front of the sub (near a window for light) when the power came back on. It was a smooth transition. No clunking, or off/on/off/on cycling. Just a click and things started turning back on.

I heard the sub make a sound like something was powering up. Then I heard a sound like a match lighting up. My heart sunk. Sure enough, when I turned on the Surround Sound receiver, the sub exhibited the same symptoms as the previous one. The green led is on, but it makes no noise.

I opened the back, and the fuse looks fine.

My questions. WHAT could be frying on these subs? Is it something I can easily fix. I'm rather handy with a soldering iron, but I've forgotten way too much college physics to likely chase down the problem unless it is a common thing. I can find no instances of this on the internet.

I am basically left with two great speakers, and boxes, and two fried amps. Would one of the amps at www.partsexpress.com do a good job, and would that be a good way to fix the problem?

My thinking is to create a Yamaha Subwoofers Suck webpage and point all the search engines to it and tell my story and go buy a Velodyne CHT-12.

Any advice, tips, or help would be greatly appreciated!

-Tom Steele

 

[Yamahaluver]

I have two YST-SW 800 running for the last four years without any problems whatsoever, could be that etronics has a problematic bunch of subs.

 

[Unregistered]

I have two YST-SW 800 running for the last four years without any problems whatsoever, could be that etronics has a problematic bunch of subs.

Hmm,

I could pull serial numbers, but there seems to be no way to check anything. I purchased them a fair amount of time apart, so you'd think they would be different batches.

I was like you until this second sub blew. I'm very frustrated with Yamaha now, especially their "you didn't buy it from an authorized dealer, so screw you" attitude.

-Tom Steele

 

[sheep]

why then?

well, maybe next time just buy it from an authorized dealer, and save your self money and time. yamaha makes quality products and they go through testing before they are even sold. yamaha probly doesn't sell there failed products to authorized dealers.

just because they have good service, doesn't mean you are buying good products. the only person to blame here is you for not listening to them when they said they are not an authorized dealer.

sheep

 

[MarkSJohnson]

The last thing you want to hear...

I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but I'm not sure that posting a website to complain about Yamaha subwoofers is really fair. Let me quickly add that I don't own any Yamaha products and have no love nor dislike for Yamaha.

But...

You purchased from an unauthorized dealer and yet after your frustration and loss of Yamaha not replacing or repairing it, you purchased it the same way again. You didn't have it on any surge suppressor the first time, and then when you lost power again, you sat next to it awaiting the return of power without considering unplugging it. I don't know what level of surge suppressor you put on the second sub, but I'm guessing it wasn't a very good one. I may be too presumptious and unfair in this statement, but it seems to me that if you bought from the same unauthorized dealer the second time around to save some money, you probably didn't have a $200 surge suppressor being used with it.

When power returns after an outage, there can be some of the biggest spikes possible through a system. Now I don't know if there's a weak link in the Yamaha design that makes it more susceptible to a small spike... there very well might be. But it really does sound like you have to take much of this responsiblity yourself, especially if that surge suppressor was anything less than an excellent one. Although I have some very high levels of power conditioning on all my equipment as well as a lightning arrestor on the whole house, I STILL unplug everything if I lose power... knowing that there will be a huge surge upon it's return.

Now, I realize that not everyone knows about a possible large surge upon power restoration, but reading that you sat next to it awaiting power to return after everything else that happened just sounds like you tempted fate too many times.

 

[Tom Steele]

A couple of thoughts

I never cease to be amazed at people,

First, don't any of you think that a $600 subwoofer should be made as well as my $200 DVD Player, or my $800 Receiver, or the host of other things that were plugged into that surge protector?

NOTHING else in the house, either time, was damaged except the Yamaha Subwoofers.

Second, I had never even HEARD OF authorized or unauthorized dealers until AFTER my first sub failed. I had purchased a subwoofer at a reasonable price from a dealer, that according to epinions.com was reputable. If I hadn't liked the YST-800's sound so much, I'd have ditched Yamaha then.

I've purchased MANY items on the internet, including digital cameras and everything electronic I can imagine, with NO PROBLEM ever. Both times the subs arrived in OEM boxes and packaging with warranty cards, manuals and sealed plastic packaging. I don't know what could possibly be unauthorized about them.

My thinking at that point was, "I'd just had one sub fail and I'm already DOWN $600. I need to get a new sub." And you suggest that I spend ~$200 MORE than that to go with an authorized dealer, rather than finding "low price on the internet" in order to replace the unit. I don't know how you think, but I go based on the whole of my experience, which is that my electronic equipment doesn't generally fail. So I concluded, perhaps falsely, that the Sub failure was a fluke. Not likely to happen a second time, so why spend more again.

Also, EVEN IF Yamaha honored my warranty, shipping and being without the sub would add up to more hassle than it would likely be worth. If it was MADE WELL I wouldn't have to deal with it.

Keep in mind that NOTHING ELSE has failed when the power comes back on. THINK of all the electronics in a house. And think of all the times power goes off (when you are not home, so you can't anal-retentively run around and unplug everything) and comes back on. My computer equipment survives it too, on the same surge protectors. But not a Yamaha Sub. How hard is it to protect the equipment from this failure? Everything else in the house seems ok with it.

See a pattern here? I do. You are whistling in the dark and trying to justify why it is MY fault instead of Yamaha's fault so you won't worry quite so much. You're thinking, "well, I don't have to worry about that because I do ______ and that protects me." Don't worry, its human nature. People in California think people in Florida are crazy because of the hurricanes and people in Florida think people in California are crazy because of the quakes.

Third, you suggest my suppressor wasn't any good, but NOTHING ELSE EXCEPT THE YAMAHA SUB had any problems. It is a Panamax SurgeProtector 8C. http://www.panamax-sales.com/SP8C.htm That should be able to handle a power on/off.


And Sheep, your reply makes even less sense to me.

Are you suggesting that Yamaha unloads defective equipment on the public via "unauthorized dealers?" If so, that alone would make me avoid them like plague.

Ultimately, I'm not looking for your sympathy or your asinine blame. I will most certainly change my ratings of these subs on public product rating sites where I previously had high ratings. I will also create a page detailing my experience and make sure that the search sites are presented with those pages so they come up when someone does a search on Yamaha. They can draw their own conclusions, but at least they'll know their situation going in. As for your belief that creating the website wouldn't be fair, neither is my spending $1,200 on Yamaha Subwoofers that have failed when all my other equipment survived. So apparently life isn't fair, is it?

WHAT I CAME FOR was help. I asked a couple of questions, that have remained unanswered.

"WHAT could be frying on these subs? Is it something I can easily fix. I'm rather handy with a soldering iron, but I've forgotten way too much college physics to likely chase down the problem unless it is a common thing. I can find no instances of this on the internet.

I am basically left with two great speakers, and boxes, and two fried amps. Would one of the amps at www.partsexpress.com do a good job, and would that be a good way to fix the problem?"

Thanks,

-Tom Steele

 

[Gatorchong]

I'd try using one of those amps from Parts Express. Don't know if it will fit, but it might turn out to be a fun project. Besides the fuse, I don't know what could be causing the subs to fail. I've had power outages and none of my audio equipment has ever been damaged, and I use a cheaper surge protecter than you do. I'd be pretty pissed about blowing through two subs also. But one thing you can't hold against Yamaha is that no electronics companies will give you a warranty if you buy through an unauthorized dealer. But sometimes, (I don't know if etronics does it) the company you buy from will give you a warranty on the products instead. I've bought a bunch of products from unauthorized dealers so I may find myself in the same boat you are someday. Good luck.

 

[Mort Corey]

Just curious, but have you contacted Panamax to see if their warranty will cover your damaged sub?

Mort

 

[Tom Steele]

Just curious, but have you contacted Panamax to see if their warranty will cover your damaged sub?

Mort

Mort,

Good suggestion. I am frantically digging around for the paperwork/packaging that came with the panamax surge protectors. I have moved once since then and you know how that can be!

I was talking to a lady at a local store (MY GOSH what a nightmare shopping for a sub can be, I'll write another post/novel on that elsewhere!) and she suggested getting a Monster Surge Protector, not because it would necessarily make a difference, but because it would pay for the sub...

Thanks!

-Tom Steele

 

[Tom Steele]

I'd try using one of those amps from Parts Express. Don't know if it will fit, but it might turn out to be a fun project. Besides the fuse, I don't know what could be causing the subs to fail. I've had power outages and none of my audio equipment has ever been damaged, and I use a cheaper surge protecter than you do. I'd be pretty pissed about blowing through two subs also. But one thing you can't hold against Yamaha is that no electronics companies will give you a warranty if you buy through an unauthorized dealer. But sometimes, (I don't know if etronics does it) the company you buy from will give you a warranty on the products instead. I've bought a bunch of products from unauthorized dealers so I may find myself in the same boat you are someday. Good luck.

Gator,

Thanks for the advice. There are two amps at Parts express I would consider:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=300-806

and

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=300-808

The Yamaha Speaker appears to be rated at 6 ohms, which would put me squarely into a good wattage either way.

If the "500 watt amp" was good, I could get two and have BOTH my subs working again...

As you say though, it turns into an experiment and a gamble vs just getting a sub. On the other hand, getting a sub is turning into a gamble.

Thanks for the advice.

-Tom Steele

 

[Tom Steele]

But one thing you can't hold against Yamaha is that no electronics companies will give you a warranty if you buy through an unauthorized dealer. But sometimes, (I don't know if etronics does it) the company you buy from will give you a warranty on the products instead. I've bought a bunch of products from unauthorized dealers so I may find myself in the same boat you are someday. Good luck.

One other thing, I see your point, but I still hold it against them. Perhaps if they had a clear page explaining WHY an unauthorized dealer was bad, then I'd understand. But it sounds like price-fixing to me.

Ulitmately, if you are in the same boat as me, then you probably are at a point where it has made more sense to save a few hundred bucks per item and you've come out ahead by saving the money - because this stuff NORMALLY doesn't fail at a high rate.

These friggin Yamaha subs are on the fast track to put me negative though.

What I REALLY hold against Yamaha is that they haven't even responded to my inquiry this time. I sent them an e-mail detailing the Yamaha equipment I own (5440 Reciever, 2300 Reciever, and two fried YST-800's as well as a Yamaha center speaker and some satellites) and explained my situation.

I didn't ask them to repair them, just to share suggestions as to what may have happened and how to fix it. Let's face it, I probably didn't get the ONLY TWO subs to fail in an identical manner. In different houses, with different surge protection... There almost HAS to be a known problem.

No response from Yamaha.

That's a poor company. It might make sense to try some of the smaller companies like Outlaw or PSB and see if their subs are good, and hope the customer service would be good - or at least exist - if there was a problem.

That will be another thread.

Thanks again,

-Tom Steele

 

[Unregistered]

sorry, but.......

im sorry if it came off that i was blaming you, and i didn't mean it was a fact that yamaha sold defective products to unlisenced distributors, but they said that they we unauthorized, yet you still bought one there.

sorry again if it looked like i was pointing blame, but maybe next time buy it somewhere else.

 

[Tom Steele]

im sorry if it came off that i was blaming you, and i didn't mean it was a fact that yamaha sold defective products to unlisenced distributors, but they said that they we unauthorized, yet you still bought one there.

sorry again if it looked like i was pointing blame, but maybe next time buy it somewhere else.

I assume this is Sheep?

Thanks for the reply, but here's the problem with buying elsewhere. You'll pay hundreds more! Truthfully, I'd have paid another $300-$400 on the two subs if I had purchased from an authorized dealer.

Now clearly, I'd have come out ahead (at least in theory, assuming they didn't then deny coverage because of some excuse) but also add in the shipping fees each way on a heavy item and the time without the sub and I may have still actually broken even.

Like Gator, I purchase from the lowest realistically priced internet dealer. If you go to Epinions.com, you'll see a couple of lowball priced dealers with horrible ratings that you should avoid. Then there will be a price point where several dealers will come in and those dealers will have an epinions rating that is respectable. I generally save hundreds of dollars on my electronics purchases this way and everything I order appears to be new, unopened, factory A stock. I never see anything indicating it is refurbished or repaired and everything EXCEPT THE YAMAHA YST-800's have lasted indefinitely.

So, I appreciate your thoughts. But I think that if I had purchased everything from overpriced authorized dealers, I'd probably still be behind in the long run. A good example was my recent purchase of a Sony Digital camera. The local Best Buy couldn't get within a hundred dollars of my price from newegg.com. The camera has performed flawlessly and came in the same exact packaging of the Best Buy camera. Why should I pay more?

I'd also add that I don't understand what constitutes an authorized dealer vs an unauthorized dealer, except - best as I can tell - price fixing.

-Tom Steele

 

[Rob Babcock]

To me it all comes down to how expensive the peice is. For something like a hard drive I'll go with an online vendor, so long as they're reputable. Something much more expensive (eg a higher end HT receiver) I'd rather purchase authorized and get the warrenty. How much $ you think is worth risking is a personal issue, but to me I'd say $300-500, depending on the product.

BTW, I've had far more trouble trying to get honest warranty performance out of Best Buy than any e-tailer, FWIW.

 

[markw]

I'm glad I'm not into retail anymore.

.. got out in the 70's when the heat got turned up...

With any purchase, there is an element of risk involved. Generally, the more you pay, the less the risk you, the consumer, must shoulder and the more the manufacturer shoulders.

When you buy from an "Authorized" dealer, you get the dealer's and the manufacturer's promise of first rate service. After all, you're paying the dealer and, by implication, the manufacturer for it by supporting the upkeep of their repair facilities, not to mention other functions such as advertising, R&D, etc..

Now, when you purchase from an "unauthorized", dealer, you are NOT suppoting their back room operations. Essentially, youi're buying from the trunk of a car and, should you need their support, you're pretty much on your own.

Some dealers offer an intermediate step whereby they themselves operate an in house repair facility. I assume etronics isn't among them?

So, it seems that it truly depends on how much risk you are willing to take when it comes to deciding how much to pay and from whom you purchase the equipment. If nothing goes wrong then you came out ahead but, keep in mind the law of averages says that at sometime, on some purchase, you're gonna have a problem and need to have something fixed within the manufacturer's warranty period.

...or, in the words of the immortal Dirty Harry, " Do ya feel lucky today?"

 

[twodan]

why not go to a local b&m store and ask them where they send their out of warranty items for service?

 

[Tom Steele]

why not go to a local b&m store and ask them where they send their out of warranty items for service?

I did go to Yamaha's website and look for "authorized repair centers." None in the Carolinas. Closest is Atlanta. There is one in Merritt Island Florida which is where my parents live. I may take it there when I'm down for Christmas (if Florida is still there) and see what happens.

Obviously, the down time is too long for me not to replace the sub between now and then. So I'm shopping for now, but yeah - I'm sitting on two NICE boxes, and speakers, with fried electronics in them. I'd love to get them fixed.

-Tom Steele

 

[Not sheep]

markw is right on with his analysis. I would consider your situation to be equivalent to deciding whether or not to purchase an extended warranty; ie 'insurance'.

Few electronics fail under normal conditions. If you choose not to buy an extended warranty, you save yourself a few bucks but take on the risk that the product will fail and you will have to cover the repair with your own money. Likewise if you buy from an unauthorized dealer - you save money but risk covering any repairs yourself.

You took a gamble that is similar to forgoing insurance or warranty coverage and unfortunately your gamble did not pay off. That's the breaks.

 

[jrohland]

Mod'em

Tom,

I looks like you don't care if these subs get modified. As such, here is my suggestion:

Install connectors to the actual speakers inside the subs. I would recommend a 1/4" jack with a disconnect option when a plug is inserted. Wire the jack so when there is nothing plugged in, the internal amp feeds the speaker. When a 1/4" plug is inserted, the internal amp disconnects and the plug feeds the speaker. This will prevent you from trying to connect two amps together at the speaker jack. Not a good idea.

Note, if these are non-ported boxes, any hole you put in the box could cause whistling. If you plan to use the 1/4" jacks as noted above, do this:
Get a 2" diameter dowl rod about 4" long. Bore a hole on one end large enough to insert the 1/4" jack. Drill a small hole on the other end large enough to fit the wires through. Put the internal wires through the small hole, wire the jack, pull the jack inside the dowl and seal the wire hole with silicone glue. Drill the hole in the speaker box for the 1/4" jack. Mount the 1/4" jack in the hole while you glue the dowl on the inside of the speaker box with a good carpenter's yellow glue. This will seal the 1/4" jack inside an airtight tube (the dowl rod).

(There several other ways to do this as well. Banana jacks on the outside of the box for both the amp and speaker connections would work. That way you could strap the internal amp to the speaker by connecting the banana jacks together outside the box. That might be easier but, it is not quite as foolproof as the 1/4" jack method.)

With that done, beg, borrow or steal a pretty good sized amp. An old receiver will work if you can't get anything else.

Make some speaker wires with stripped and soldered ends (or banana plugs if that is what the amp uses) on one end and 1/4" plugs on the other. You could buy these at any good musician store.

Plug the sub-out jack of your receiver into the amp (or tape in jack on a receiver) and wire the amp to the subs.

TADA! you have subs again.

If you don't have a sub-out on your receiver, you need to make some sort of low-pass filter. A very good way to do this is to buy an active crossover. If you don't want to buy an active crossover and, if you have an old equalizer around, you can feed the output of one of your front channels into it (like the left channel of tape out), boost the low frequency sliders and cut the high frequency sliders. This works even better if the EQ is a stereo unit and you feed the output of one channel into the input of the other channel. Since many multiband EQs can cut and boost by 12db, you would have an effective high frequency rolloff of 48db. (WARNING! Some older multiband EQs [and maybe even cheap current ones] can introduce significant distortion when you move the sliders all the way up or down. I might suggest you back them off by 2db from their limit.)

jrohland

 

[Tom Steele]

I don't understand why some of you accept these defects.

markw is right on with his analysis. I would consider your situation to be equivalent to deciding whether or not to purchase an extended warranty; ie 'insurance'.

Few electronics fail under normal conditions. If you choose not to buy an extended warranty, you save yourself a few bucks but take on the risk that the product will fail and you will have to cover the repair with your own money. Likewise if you buy from an unauthorized dealer - you save money but risk covering any repairs yourself.

You took a gamble that is similar to forgoing insurance or warranty coverage and unfortunately your gamble did not pay off. That's the breaks.

YES, buying from an unauthorized dealer is similar in SOME WAYS to buying without the overpriced, scam, extended warranty. (I say overpriced and scam based on just about any source you care to cite, not the least of which would be Consumer Reports.)

But there are differences. For instance, even if you don't buy EXTENDED warranties at places like CC and BB, you still get the factory warranty which is supposed to protect you from OBVIOUS flaws in manufacturing. With the "unauthorized dealer price fixing scam" you aren't even protected from that.

But here's where I really differ with you. I had the same brand/model of product fail in the same exact way twice. That is a product defect issue.

Now you can argue all you want about the rules, and Yamaha isn't the only one who does it and whatever else, but here are the ultimate facts:

GOOD companies back their products up with good customer service. A good company would have said, we probably can't cover your sub under warranty because you bought it from etronics.com, but send it in and let us take a look at it since you've had two fail in the same way. We'd like to know what is happening here with our subs! You are a valued customer. You have two separate receivers from us (2300 & 5440), a center speaker, satellite speakers, etc... and we want you to continue to be a customer in the future.

Lets see what we can do.

Or, "Yes, we've seen this problem before. We believe that this is the problem... Here are some places that can fix that."

Instead, Yamaha basically has decided that they have no responsibility for their subs.

There are some folks here who will rationalize it and think it is all my fault. Others will think I am just someone who got unlucky. But some will think, "Wow, I don't want to eat two subs and have Yamaha not even try to help."

They will make one of two choices I suppose. They can buy from an authorized dealer and pay more and still worry that their sub will fail and it will be ~$100 in shipping to send it off somewhere for several weeks to get it fixed. Or they can buy something without these issues.

I'm getting a Velodyne SPL-1200 II. I'll never buy anything Yamaha again in my life. As you might expect from my equipment, I'm an above average audio enthusiast in the eyes of my friends and co-workers. They ask me for advice when shopping for this kind of stuff. Do you think I'll ever have anything good to say about Yamaha? Please.

Oh yeah, and I do a little radio show too.

So yes, Yamaha has won this battle. But they also have this thread plastered on the internet. I plan to make a page detailing my experience and publish the proper keywords to the search engines so that people who are "googling" yamaha subwoofers will come across it easily.

Will I win in the end? No. Yamaha is too big for me to make a dent in their world. I ultimately am the loser of about $1,200 in equipment and that $1,200 is a lot more to me than I could ever cost Yamaha in lost business. ESPECIALLY with as many responses I have gotten here from folks who seem to think this is my fault.

To those folks I say, "Have fun shipping your Yamaha Subwoofers back to be serviced everytime your power goes out!"

-Tom Steele