Receiver kicking out at low volume

[nmartows]

I have a question:

I have an Onkyo TX-SR601, and besides the fact that I've found volume output to be extremely low in general, yesterday the receiver abruptly shut off while I was watching a movie at volume 15. Normally I have to play it at 25 to be loud enough to fill the room and now it kicks out at low levels.

Nothing changed. I didn't change wiring or adjust anything. It just kicks out and says "protection." I have turned it up to 50 before without it kicking out. What do you think is going on?? It's about a year old. Thanks.

This is the last thing I need before the Pats game...

 

[MDS]

At such a low volume it can't be shutting down due to being overloaded so I would check the #1 culprit - a short caused by a stray speaker wire touching part of the metal chassis or the wire next to it.

 

[Seth=L]

I had that happen to me as well not to recently. I had gotten a new receiver and thought it had a problem because I saw no visual flaw in my connections. The wire was the flaw, manufacturing defect more than likely. I just changed the wire and no problems.

 

[apatel25314]

my first ht was an onkyo htib and it did that alot, it is probably the wires.

 

[j_garcia]

You should also check that the polarity of all the speakers is correct.

For shorts, check it by disconnecting all speakers, then connecting each one in turn and seeing if the problem persists, then add in by area (front, surround, center, etc...). My guess is it is a wiring issue as well.

 

[nmartows]

Thanks

After reading your suggestions, I remember I did fiddle around with putting some wires back in. You're right, that is likely the problem. I had no idea the wires could do that. Thanks a lot.

 

[Haoleb]

You should also check that the polarity of all the speakers is correct.

Speakers being out of phase could explain the low(er) volume output as J_garcia suggested but on a side note...

Speakers dont really have an absolute polarity. Although it simply makes sense to hook them up positive to positive, they will still work, and likely sound the same if you hook them up backwards. Assuming you do the same for ALL the speakers. The only time you really have problems is hooking some up one way and others the other way, since this causes them to become out of phase.

All recordings arent in the correct 'polarity" so theres no 100% right or wrong. Some componets are also phase inverting. Im sure there are people out there who actually change the polarity of their system for different recordings. I dont

 

[j_garcia]

There is no true polarity, but many amps won't tollerate the right speaker hooked up one way and the left hooked up the opposite.

 

[drivehard]

There is no true polarity, but many amps won't tollerate the right speaker hooked up one way and the left hooked up the opposite.

Can someone please explain this to me? I don't see how an amplifier would care one way or the other if one channel was reversed from the other...electronically it doesn't make sense to me.

 

[MDS]

I don't see how incorrect polarity of one speaker vs another would damage an amp but you never know...

As for the music itself, it doesn't matter if you hook up all the positive terminals of the amp to the negative terminals of the speaker and all the negative terminals of the amp to the positive terminals of the speaker (as Haloeb said).

A musical waveform contains a larger number of sine waves all superimposed on top of one another. The wave starts at zero, rises, then falls below zero, and rises to zero again. So the only difference between the 'correct' (+ve to +ve, -ve to -ve) connection and the other way around is that one wave will rise first whereas the other will fall first. Now if one speaker is connected correctly and the other is opposite, the two waves are 180 degrees out of phase and you can tell a slight difference.

Experiment for yourself if you have an audio editor:

- If you take a waveform in an audio editor and invert it you have the same situation as if you used the 'incorrect' (+ve to -ve, -ve to +ve) connection for all speakers. It won't sound any different.

- Take the same waveform but invert only one channel. Now you have one channel 180 degrees out of phase with respect to the other. Can you tell the difference? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

 

[j_garcia]

Can someone please explain this to me? I don't see how an amplifier would care one way or the other if one channel was reversed from the other...electronically it doesn't make sense to me.

I think it depends on how it is wired inside. I accidentally hooked up a 2ch amp backwards as I mentioned and it fried a relay on one channel. So I suppose some it doesn't matter and others it does.

 

[drivehard]

I think it depends on how it is wired inside. I accidentally hooked up a 2ch amp backwards as I mentioned and it fried a relay on one channel. So I suppose some it doesn't matter and others it does.

anybody have a better explanation? I just can't see this being possible.