TopMarc

I signed up for the forum just to send a BIG "thank you" to stpete cooling and to give a little more colour to the solution to the loud hum. Your diagnosis of the problem causing my 5.1 system hum was spot on. The hum started about 2 weeks ago, had become progressively more prominent and had finally become intollerable. I had a notion that it was a component going "soft" with heat but where the heck to start. I found stpete's post, took a trip to Radioshack to purchase 2 replacement caps (less than $3) and dragged out my needle nosed iron and solder sucker. The components are indeed painful to replace with the mainboard in place (the edge of another board is place directly over the solder joints) but with a bit of finesse you can get an iron and solder sucker in there (long nose varieties make it easier). The trick is to use a small iron but leave it on the solder joint for 20 seconds or so to ensure that the solder is fully molten before you start to put some leverage on the caps to remove them. This is especially important on the inner of the two caps because it is connected to tracks on both side of the board. If you were to leave the iron on for too short a period before starting to attempt to remove the cap then it is quite likely that you might rip the track from the board. Although not a terminal problem it would add significant additional work to rebuild the circuit from separate conductors. With the caps replaced the system is running fine once again. I now realize how much i use my Klipsch speakers and how much i appreciate them. It strikes me that Klipsch should be ashamed of the poor design of the boards in this, otherwise excellent, product. Putting passive components in such heat-soaked locations is poor design. My caps must have literally cooked by the semiconducts they serve. These problems are the result of careless design. Anyway - end of rant. My system is back to its former glory and i am happy. Thank you once again. Marc