Not sure if you guys can help me but...

Lontano wrote:I'd have a look at Philips web site to find out whether it's covered by warranty. If it is, I'd send it back. If not... I'd suspect the hardware itself (not that it helps you any). HTIAB systems are usually lower quality components and react poorly to things like:

- Brown outs
- Bad grounding
- Loud volume for long periods of time / heat
- etc.

The amps aren't made to last, so they go bad quite often and your symptoms sound familiar. My PC speaker system has been starting to throw some static lately, and I can pretty much guarantee it's the amp in the sub that's the cause. My speakers are about 4 years old so I'm not surprised.

Funny enough I have some el-cheapo speakers / sub from the early 90's that I've beat on for years and they're still going strong after loads of abuse.

They just don't make 'em like they used to...

Baradain wrote:Can you run a speaker wire over the floor to maybe the 2 nearest speakers and unplug all of the other speakers from the system and see what happens? It might just be a short in one of the speaker wires. Have you tried unplugging one speaker wire at a time from the back of the receiver to see if it is just one bad wire?

Another thing is how much space do you have under the floor bopards where you ran the wiring? It is that time of the year where rodents like to move indoors and is possible something chewed through one of the wires and created a short. This would usually happen at the point where the cable goes through the wall or close to it.

I would troubleshoot the wiring before spending any money. If you still have the problem after that, then you are looking at hardware. Above I mentioned unplugging the wires one at a time. I am now thinking it would be better to unplug all of them from the back of the receiver/amp and plug them back in one at a time making sure to unplug everything after each try. This way you can see if it works on any of the speakers. If all of the speakers work except one I would then try running a different speaker wire over the floor to that speaker, or if you can physically move the speaker, move it to where one of the good speakers is and use that wire. I think you are looking at one of three things, bad wire, bad speaker, or bad amp/receiver.

That is about all I can think of.

My speakers are some top of the line Kenwoods I bought back in the mid 80's same with my stereo system. The joys of being a single man in the Army living in the barracks with no place better to spend my money. The only thing I would really need to upgrade was if I wanted that front center speaker. MY old system is only setup to support 4 speakers. I usually only play the volume between 2 and 3. Usually only on 3 if we are watching something with the great special effects and sound. Pretty cool hearing the sheel casings hit the floor to your right or left as they are flying around in the movie. This of course usually has the dogs running back to the back bedroom for some quiet time.

Evadrepus wrote:I ran my cable cable under the carpet at one point to get it out of view, and despite my greatest efforts, I managed to crimp it in one little spot. Everything was normal for a while, then we had this wierd thing where if you stepped in a certain spot of the floor, the reception went to hell. After trying a bunch of things, I dug out the wire, and sure enough, I bent it a bit there, and over time, it wore enough to cause an issue. I swear your issue sounds like that.

Speaker wire should be splicable, I'd think?

Constara wrote:Thanks for the reply! Well if it is a bad speaker wire then I'm screwed. The wire is attached to the speaker but you can't un-attach it or replace it. If that makes sense. It was a cheap system.