Surround sound problem

[Eddie Watkins]

I recently bought a new TV and Bluray player. I had an older (about 5 yo) Onkyo receiver with 6.1 speaker array. I have added all HDMI cabling to everything but the receiver. The receiver has no HDMI hookup so I had to use the conventinal RCA cables from to hook it up. The receiver now keeps getting shut down like it is being over powered by the new TV. Anybody have any experience with this?

[Chuck Wintle]

Does your new blu-ray player have an optical out and does your Onkyo have an optical in? I use mine this way and it works well.

[David G Baker]

The speakers may not be of the right ohms. Standard measurements are 8 ohm and 16 ohm and a few are 4 ohm. If they are not correct it can shut your amplifier down.

[Tim Morton]

6 questions. and they may have nothing to do with the shutting down of the receiver, but inquiring minds need to know.

1. what are the RCA cables connecting and how?
2. what are you connecting with hdmi?
3. Did you plug the TV and the BD player into the receiver?
4. If you go back to the old set up will the AVR still shut down?
5. If you disconnect the speakers wil it shut down?
6. Do you have a subwoofer? How is that connected?

ok...maybe that's 7...

[Eddie Watkins]

6 questions. and they may have nothing to do with the shutting down of the receiver, but inquiring minds need to know.

1. what are the RCA cables connecting and how?
The RCA cables go from the TV to the Receiver as the sound input for surround sound.
2. what are you connecting with hdmi?
HDMI cables connect the satellite dish to the TV and also connect the Blu-ray player to the TV. I can't connect the TV to the receiver because the receiver has no HDMI connections. I did try Charles Wintle's idea and used the optical connector and it still kicks off the TV.
3. Did you plug the TV and the BD player into the receiver?
Yes, with the optical cable, I ran the cable from the BD player to the receiver and also ran a set of RCA cables the same way. The feed from the TV to the receiver was a different hookup with RCA cables only. The receiver would also shut down with just a regular feed from the TV.
4. If you go back to the old set up will the AVR still shut down?
I can't go back to the old set, I have already sent it to the trash heap. The old set was a Sony projection set, tho, and the new one is a Sony LED. Sony repleced the set because the optical block was defective in the old set with no fix.
5. If you disconnect the speakers wil it shut down?
No, if the speakers aren't turned on it works fine.
6. Do you have a subwoofer? How is that connected?
Yes, and the subwoofer very well may be the problem. It pulls a bunch of power. The other speakers are all 8 ohm speakers but the subwoofer says something like 100k ohms which sounds wrong but that is what is on it. It has its on power supply and rheostat to control the volume.
ok...maybe that's 7...

As David mentioned, the speakers are 8 ohms each with the subwoofer being much higher (100k, not sure what that means?). The receiver and the speakers were bought as a set several years ago and worked fine on old my old DVD player and old TV so they should be compatible. It appears the thing shuts down when the subwoofer tries to activate so that may be the problem.

[Tim Morton]

How is the subwoofer connected to the AVR?

We'll get back those silly RCA cables going from the TV to the AVR later...

[Mike Heidrick]

Can you listen to the radio on the receiver without it kicking off? Is stereo works canyou simulate surround?

Have you tried using the setup on your receiver (most likely has an on screen setup) to test one channel at a time or tried plugging one speaker in at a time?

[Chuck Wintle]

The speakers may not be of the right ohms. Standard measurements are 8 ohm and 16 ohm and a few are 4 ohm. If they are not correct it can shut your amplifier down.

What david said. Check the impedance settings of the amplifier. Better quality speakers tend to be 4 ohms.

[Al Willits]

Is the sub self powered?
If not, your receiver may not have enough to power it.

Or you may be trying to power the sub when it has its own amp?

Al

[Eric DeSilva]

I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with some of the statements here regarding speaker load. Whether speakers are 4, 8 or 16 ohm has no correlation with speaker quality. It takes a slightly more powerful amplifier to drive speakers with a lower load, but given variations in speaker loading, I doubt seriously that your speakers are causing the problem--especially since, if I'm reading correctly--they worked before. The load presented by a speaker isn't even a constant. I've had speakers that, at certain points, dropped to a 1/2 ohm load, but were up to a 4 ohm load at other points. It is irrelevant.

I wonder if, in rearranging things, you may be created a ground loop or something. Is everything tied back to a common ground?

Do you get any sound at all? A number of blu-ray based devices assume you transmit the audio over the HDMI path. That may mean that you have no audio signal over RCA analog outputs or the fiber. You might see if there is a setting to change that. If your receiver auto senses inputs, it might be shutting down because it isn't detecting a signal.

[Myk Rian]

People, read what he is saying! The speakers have nothing to do with this.

Eric;

Do you have the receiver line in or aux in input connected to a line out?

[Eric DeSilva]

People, read what he is saying! The speakers have nothing to do with this.

Eric;

Do you have the receiver line in or aux in input connected to a line out?

I agree with you. Only the OP was Eddie, not me...

[Tim Morton]

People, read what he is saying! The speakers have nothing to do with this.

Eric;

Do you have the receiver line in or aux in input connected to a line out?

Myk,

where did you read that the OP said that the speakers have nothing to do with this?

From his answer to my question here i would say the speakers have everything to do with this...the problem is whihc speaker is causing the problem. My guess is the subwoofer...but more information is needed.

5. If you disconnect the speakers will it shut down?
No, if the speakers aren't turned on it works fine.

[Eric DeSilva]

where did you read that the OP said that the speakers have nothing to do with this?

The OP indicated that he changed cabling to the receiver, not the cabling from the receiver to the speakers, and that the system (presumably including the speakers) was in use before. Under those circumstances, I would assume that the speakers aren't the problem, since they would have caused problems before as well... So I'm with Myk on this one.

The sub is likely a powered sub--if it is 100K ohms, it is showing an impedance that would correlate to a line level input; that conclusion is also consistent with a potentiometer (not a rheostat in all likelihood) to control volume and a separate power supply. But, if the sub has both speaker inputs and line level inputs, you won't blow things up by using the speaker level inputs--that is what they are designed for.

If my assumption that nothing from the receiver to the speakers changed is wrong, however, I'd double check all the connections to make sure a bare wire isn't touching both (+) and (-) terminals on the speaker, or that there isn't a short in the speaker wire (although that seems unlikely) or speaker. If disconnecting the speakers "solves" the problem, that would tend to indicate a short on the speaker end. Try disconnecting them one by one to see which speaker is at fault. If it is attributable to one speaker, get a multimeter and check the resistance across the two connections on that speaker's wire that would connect to the receiver. That should register about 8 ohms. If it is zero, disconnect the speaker wire from the speaker too, and check the resistance across the two speaker terminals. Again, it should be about 8 ohms. If it is zero, something is shorted inside the speaker. If not, you might want to check the cable itself, there may be a short somewhere inside the cable jacket.

[Eddie Watkins]

The OP indicated that he changed cabling to the receiver, not the cabling from the receiver to the speakers, and that the system (presumably including the speakers) was in use before. Under those circumstances, I would assume that the speakers aren't the problem, since they would have caused problems before as well... So I'm with Myk on this one.

The sub is likely a powered sub--if it is 100K ohms, it is showing an impedance that would correlate to a line level input; that conclusion is also consistent with a potentiometer (not a rheostat in all likelihood) to control volume and a separate power supply. But, if the sub has both speaker inputs and line level inputs, you won't blow things up by using the speaker level inputs--that is what they are designed for.

If my assumption that nothing from the receiver to the speakers changed is wrong, however, I'd double check all the connections to make sure a bare wire isn't touching both (+) and (-) terminals on the speaker, or that there isn't a short in the speaker wire (although that seems unlikely) or speaker. If disconnecting the speakers "solves" the problem, that would tend to indicate a short on the speaker end. Try disconnecting them one by one to see which speaker is at fault. If it is attributable to one speaker, get a multimeter and check the resistance across the two connections on that speaker's wire that would connect to the receiver. That should register about 8 ohms. If it is zero, disconnect the speaker wire from the speaker too, and check the resistance across the two speaker terminals. Again, it should be about 8 ohms. If it is zero, something is shorted inside the speaker. If not, you might want to check the cable itself, there may be a short somewhere inside the cable jacket.

As it turns out soembody had vacuumed behind the TV and had sucked a speaker wire iinto the vacauum and mangled it. The wire was grounding and causing the system to shut down. I replaced the wire and it started working. I'm amazed how well all of you debugged a problem with nomore informaition than you had. Thanks for everything. I am amazed at how good the picture is with BD and HD TV. The surround sound is really well.