Yamaha RX-V1 Help Request

[1911]

Not sure this is the correct forum, buy I'm reasonably sure my issue is with the Yamaha RX-V1.

So, I’m in town visiting the folks and I decided to sort out Dad’s system, which consists of the afore mentioned and massively complicated Yamaha RX-V1 and an Infinity 5.1 speaker system: Reference Six towers & surrounds and a massive Interlude IL120s sub with Matching center channel. He also has a Toshiba dual disc DVD, a Marantz deck, an AT&T U-Verse box and an AT&T modem. In the decades he’s owned this system, I don’t ever remember the speaker system working correctly. This system is connected to a new Samsung 65” and is mainly used for TV/Movies, and occasionally music. Dad has a vintage Yamaha CR840 connected to a pair of Cornwalls for music.

For the past 3 days I have been in total Yamaha Hell.

Dad hired some knucklehead to sort it out while ago, but the dude failed. *** BANANA PLUG ALERT *** The first thing I discovered was that this feller replaced all the bare wire/screw down speaker connections with the cheapest quality banana plugs you could possibly imagine – many of the wires had simply dislodged themselves from the POS banana plugs. I ripped them all off and properly bare-wired them to the screw-down terminals on the receiver (I currently have the towers wired to the “Front” L & R rather than the “Main” L & R “A” jacks, but I can rewire those easily enough) I then rewired everything else.

I know I wired everything correctly because everything worked spectacularly well when I tested the system after all the rewiring. The bass from that massive sub was overpowering – I could feel it out in the detached garage when I ran out to get a wire cutter. I adjusted the levels on the sub and all was well.

I then got under the console table to tidy up the wires and patch cords and I inadvertently ran a wire over the very sensitive rocker on/off switch on the surge protector strip, and the whole system turned off. When I turned it back on, nothing worked – no sound.

I discovered that depressing the “Effect” button on the Yamaha restored the sound to all but the sub. After fooling around with all the settings and adjustments, for a couple of hours – I had no luck restoring the sub. I went to sleep.

Today, when I tested the system, none of the speakers worked. I depressed “6-channel” and “Effect” buttons on the Yamaha and the center channel speaker worked, but the towers were very weak, the surrounds were off and the sub was off.

I have checked and rechecked the system connections. I have fooled around with the AT&T settings, I have fooled with the Samsung settings, which have me somewhat baffled b/c under “Settings” > “Audio” the only options were “TV,” “Optical,” and “Bluetooth,” (I have it set to TV, b/c when set to optical there is no sound at all), and I have fooled around with all the Yamaha settings, but no luck.

I’m pretty much convinced the problem lies with the Yamaha. Some weird setting has been turned on or off or some combination of obscure settings is interfering with the proper signal getting through. I thought I was getting somewhere when I discovered the outside “B” speakers working, but that seems to be a dead end.

I’m about at my wits end trying to figure this out. Any advice you might have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[lovinthehd]

First, don't make changes when things are powered. Try a system/microprocessor reset. Should be in the manual....

 

[Trebdp83]

After reset, connect the front speakers to the Main A terminals. The front terminals being used now are actually front effects channels. Connect the subwoofer from the Mono Sub pre out of the receiver to either L or R Line in on the subwoofer. Set the toggle switch for input to Line and the crossover switch to maximum(150). Turn low pass filter on sub off as the Yamaha will take care of the crossover and low pass filter. Connect the optical cable from the TV to the D-TV optical input on the Yamaha.

 

[1911]

Trebdp83: Thanks for the reply. I will report back once I reset the unit, and rewire according to your directions - hopefully later tonight.

lovinthehd: Yes, good advice.

 

[1911]

Update:
I moved the main towers from front L&R to Main 'A' channel. I then reset the RX-V1. Everything was working. All speakers then went out again. I had to reset several more times. Currently, the system is working well, including the sub, but for some reason the sub is not as thunderous as it was before.

Apparently, this Yamaha RX-V1 is known for dropping channels. The whole operation of getting this danged receiver to work was highly frustrating. I've never before had this level of difficulty setting up a system.

Hopefully, the system will continue to work properly. I will report back if there is any further issue.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[lovinthehd]

As far as bass changing, this is with identical settings before and after your resets? You'd think a pre-hdmi unit wouldn't be so buggy....

 

[Trebdp83]

After a reset, that unit will change speaker settings to their default which sets the speakers to LARGE and sends LFE to BOTH the MAINS and SUB. Change the speaker sizes to SMALL and send the LFE only to the SW.

 

[1911]

loveinthehd: Not exactly the same settings on the sub after reset, but pretty danged close. I did some reading up on the RX-V1 and like I said these units seem to be infamous for dropping channels. Reportedly, sometimes briefly cranking the volume will knock it back into line, but in my case when I was working on it today.

Trebdp83: Yes, I read that in the manual. I need to advance to the 1F on the menu, but I cannot figure out how to do so - the unit just advances in numerical order up to 18, I think. There is a 1A, 1B, etc. I'm kind of afraid to jack with it anymore for fear of loosing some or all the channels again, which happened a few times today and then I had to reset to get all the channels working again.

 

[lovinthehd]

So curious, just why are you trying to make this avr work the way you expect?

 

[1911]

loveinthehd: Not sure I understand your question. The unit should perform as designed. I want my folks to be able to watch movies and general TV with the high-fidelity sound befitting the RX-V1 rather than from the crappy Samsung built in speaker.

 

[lovinthehd]

It's just an old avr, may have problems, just would expect more from a more modern unit than this one being more analog based....but that doesn't always mean anything....even Yamaha spits out duds.

 

[Trebdp83]

Can you elaborate on what is being played when you experience these channel dropouts?

 

[1911]

loveinthehd: I hear ya, but it's been well taken care of. It's working pretty danged good right now, so I'm of the opinion that I should just leave it as is and not jack with it. I don't want to push my luck.

 

[lovinthehd]

loveinthehd: I hear ya, but it's been well taken care of. It's working pretty danged good right now, so I'm of the opinion that I should just leave it as is and not jack with it. I don't want to push my luck.

There's a lot to be said for if it ain't broke don't try and fix it

 

[1911]

Trebdp83: Maybe a bit. I had a U-Verse feed during the channel drops. I was switching back and forth between a Cream reunion concert and an action movie of some sort. The Action movie did not seem to have a very good feed - the Cream concert feed was much clearer, louder and better sounding - better fidelity. Although I'm not entirely certain, I believe the channel drops occurred when I depressed "6-Channel" or maybe the "Effect" button on the remote (pretty sure the "6-Channel" button was the culprit though. A system reset rectified the issue.

I forgot to mention that all the speakers in the system (except the surrounds) are big speakers, so I think the "Large" default speaking setting is appropriate.

 

[Trebdp83]

The large speaker setting has more to do with frequency range rather than size. Setting them to small allows adjustment of a crossover rather than sending a full signal and potentially muddying up bass with the sub. Pressing the “ 6 channel” button selects the 6 channel analog inputs that are not in use by any device and you would not get any sound. Not sure of the Samsung TV model, but go into the advanced sound settings for output and see if it has the DTS Neo 2:5 option. Select it for DTS 5.1 output for every signal including Dolby 2.0 and PCM signals. I’m assuming you are using the TV for streaming content.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The V1 is a piece of crap. It was TERRIBLY designed by Yamaha and when I worked with them nearly 20 years ago, they were having major issues back then. Yes, it is massive. Yes, it sounds pretty darn good when it works. The problem is that it wasn't engineered to work well and it runs into all of these stupid issues that simply reflect poor overall engineering design. I think I emailed them several times to that effect.

If your parents are otherwise happy with the system, I might consider picking up a used Yamaha Z1. The Z1 was a COMPELTE makeover from Yamaha. They corrected so many of the problems that the V1 had it was incredible and they passed down that engineering design to all of the products that they delivered from that point on. To this day, some of the engineering design of the Z1 is still in use, that's how significant their upgrade change was at the time.

I'm not sure how your parents use the system, or much else really, but the V1 was something of a lemon IME. Their later generation products were significantly better designed and after nearly 20 years of dealing with the product, it is time to move on. You can't fix broken, and that sucker was broken from day one. A shame because it tarnishes what I consider to be one of the best names in the industry since that time. I have always been very impressed with what Yamaha has delivered over the years and continues to bring to the table.

 

[1911]

Trebdp83: Thanks. I'll take a look. The Samsung is a QLED, model Q8DT, 65". I will also take a look at the TV settings and see if it has the DTS Neo 2:5 option, I don't recall that when I was trouble-shooting. Thank you again.

 

[1911]

BMXTRIX: Thanks. Once I got into trouble-shooting my folks RX-V1, I strongly suspected that there were issues with the unit itself. I've never run into such problems setting up a system. I'll let Dad know what you said, but it's unlikely he'll consider a new AVR - he's 82.

 

[Trebdp83]

I misspoke on the crossovers for that unit. Setting the speakers to SMALL will set a crossover of 90hz to them and a LFE filter of 90hz to the SUB. If you are feeling adventurous, the TV has a universal remote function to control other devices. DTS Neo 2:5 may have been omitted for that particular model and Dolby digital would be the preferred selection with that receiver instead of PCM.