Need Help w/Ascends & Denon Receiver

[sharerware]

I have 340SEs up front and HTM-200s for the back speakers, with an HSU STF-2 sub, hooked up to a Denon 2307ci. An Oppo 981HD via HDMI is providing the input. Everything is connected to a UPS.

Everything sounded great the day that I set everything up (I used banana plugs for most of the connections). The next day, I had carpet installed. I demo'd the setup again that evening, and again it sounded great for about 30min. I left the room and came back 10 mins later and the sound had turned off. Today is much worse. I played some CDs in the aforementioned DVD player, and started to notice a crackle in the speakers. If I don't do anything, the 2307 goes into alarm before shutting itself off.

I've tried everything I can think of to trouble-shoot: Changed all of the terminations to just tightening them via the binding post, jiggled wires, reduced the number of speakers down to just the center one-by-one, disconnected everything from the receiver, dusting the receiver with an aircan, separated the power wires from the speaker wires, and checked for shorts over and over again.

The crackling death doesn't always come immediately. Sometimes it is immediate, other times, it takes 5 mins.

I'm out of ideas, and the tech support is closed. Please help.

[bikeman]

Just went through a similar situation with a cheaper receiver. Wound up buying a new receiver. Still have the old one right here in front of me. I was hoping that it would reset itself and I could use it again but that's looking less and less likely. The repair of my Panasonic would be more than the unit was worth. I don't know about Denon.
Carpet is a tremendous conductor of static electriity. I don't know if that would be a culprit or not.

David

[davef]

Hi Sharerware,

I had the EXACT same thing happen to me right after having new carpet installed.

Did you run the wires under the carpet? Were the wires placed near a side-wall?

What happened in my situation was that the speaker wires got tangled up in the carpet spikes that secure the carpet at the edges, and when the guy with the cool knee-banging tool stretched the carpet so that it secured to the carpet spikes, the carpet spikes poked through the insulation of the wires and shorted the positive and negative speaker leads together.

It took me a while to figure this out and cost me an expensive repair on an expensive amplifier

I would recommend getting your hands on an ohmmeter and measure the resistance between the positive and negative leads of each speaker cable pair (disconnecting the cable from both the speaker and receiver). If there is continuity between the positive and negative leads, you have a short in the cable and this can quickly damage your receiver.

[sharerware]

I really appreciate the suggestions.

But I couldn't take waiting. Yesterday when I was having the problems, I do believe I checked everything I could. So I posted my problem, and then decided just to run to CC and pick up an Onkyo 674. The Denon is a refurbished model I bought from Secondact.com. Apparently, the warranty repair initially done to it didn't fix the problem, because since I hooked up the Onkyo, there hasn't been a single problem. In fact, it's great. We've watched 4 movies and everything sounds amazing. I truly love the Ascends.

I'm really enjoying the Onkyo. Now I just have to go through the hassle of dealing with the dead Denon.

[davef]

Hi Sharerware,

I am VERY pleased that everything is back up and running...

Enjoy the system and we are here for you should you need any assistance.