Home Audio Help

[tosugrad]

So I recently hooked up a pair of speakers in my kitchen. I hooked them up to my Denon receiver. They worked fine. Then I hooked up a pair of small bookshelf speakers in the family room. Hooked them into speaker B on the receiver. They worked fine, as well. Both pairs worked well, together, as well. The Denon has plenty of juice for these 4 small speakers.

All was fine for about 1 week. I get home today and while listening to the B speakers I decide to add the As in. I get a loud POP and then the receiver shut itself down.

I turned it back on a few minutes later and any time I add in the A speakers (with out without the Bs) I get the same loud pop and shut down.

I assume I have a short somewhere? I have a separate volume control on the A speakers and I turned it way down to try again. Even at low volume I get the short.

Please help with any suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Sarge]

look on the back of the reciever, you may have a blown fuse.
check that first

check the + & - didnt get criss-crossed somewhere in between

if thats not it try again with a different pair of speakers

 

[Joshs]

Take a multimeter and measure the resistance of the speakers to see if one or both are shorted. Just place the each lead of the multimeter to each of the 2 terminals on a speaker. It should probably read 4, 8, or 16 ohms depending on the speaker (check the back of the speaker to see what it should be).

If they check out, try swapping the speakers plugged into A with the ones plugged into B.. If you still get identical behavior, then it's likely an issue with your amp.

-Josh

 

[Joshs]

look on the back of the reciever, you may have a blown fuse.
check that first

check the + & - didnt get criss-crossed somewhere in between

if thats not it try again with a different pair of speakers

Agreed - check the fuse, although if the fuse is blown, there's likely a reason and simply replacing it without determining the cause is asking for the issue to return.

I may be misunderstanding your message, but swapping + and - won't damage the speakers, it'll just cause the signal to be reproduced out of phase.

Or maybe you mean to check to see if the speaker cable itself is shorted? Yeah, definitely check to ensure the + and - are not touching each other.

-Josh

 

[hondacuraplanet]

If you can't find the issue, register over on www.audiokarma.org and send a private message to EchoWars, his real name is Glenn, and he lives just outside of KC. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, and I'm sure he'll be happy to walk you through some basic checks.

Tell him that you're a friend of Tim, Kamakiri......I'm the site's founder

 

[tosugrad]

Thanks guys. Turns out the leads were too LONG on my speaker wire where it hooked into the amp. I trimmed them down and "seems" to have solved the problem.

 

[TURBO2GO]

I was just going to tell you that. The fuse is fine. If the fuse was blown the unit would not power up. You also shouldn't rely on speaker impedance measured with a volt-meter. You are measuring at DC, that is not a good indicator of what the speaker's real impedance is.

I am only writing because you have to be careful as to what type of load you are introducing to the receiver. A and B are sometimes wired in series internally in a receiver, and in parallel at other times. You don't want to go less than the receiver's minimum. If you tell me the Denon's model # and your speakers, including what type of volume control, I can tell you if you are running safe or not. A receiver may work for for a year on a low impedance load, but it will shorten its life by a good amount.

 

[tosugrad]

I was just going to tell you that. The fuse is fine. If the fuse was blown the unit would not power up. You also shouldn't rely on speaker impedance measured with a volt-meter. You are measuring at DC, that is not a good indicator of what the speaker's real impedance is.

I am only writing because you have to be careful as to what type of load you are introducing to the receiver. A and B are sometimes wired in series internally in a receiver, and in parallel at other times. You don't want to go less than the receiver's minimum. If you tell me the Denon's model # and your speakers, including what type of volume control, I can tell you if you are running safe or not. A receiver may work for for a year on a low impedance load, but it will shorten its life by a good amount.

Excellent. Email sent.