I bought one of those last year when they were on closeout prices as the 645's were about to be released. Thought myself to be lucky when it worked fine.

Havent been using my 5ch ascend se's much lately. But when I have (mostly movies).. it seemed odd, like it fell out of calibration. Actually had time to listen to music today and finally realized the FL channel is .. really quiet. Initially hoped the speaker was bad so I had an excuse to trade up to the sierras.

But nope. Checking cables, swapping speakers, and receiver test tones (to rule out input sources) showed that it was the receiver. Now good news is, I can run the front speakers run at (receiver channel trim settings) +10 Db, -10, -9 to get it to sound right (used to be +3, +4, +3). But the rears are too loud now, even set at -10, -10 (cant go lower). Ah well, good enough compromise for now. That is, if it doesnt deteriorate.

Guess I'll have to see how HK's customer service works out.