T.H.E. Droid

Well, if you look at my initial responses you'll see I was taking the time to share my knowledge with this person, who then came back with an accusation that I was being argumentative because I didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. After a rude response like that, I see nothing wrong with my reply. Perhaps you should take the original poster to task for dissing people who take the time to share their ideas?

Now who is the one arguing for the sake of it? Unfortunately, like many folks who ask questions, it seems you had already decided what to do (and actually did it before asking) and were simply looking for someone to agree with you. Why bother?

We go back full circle to people giving advice who don't seem to have any understanding of physics. Speakers work in the first place by creating a force between the voice coil and magnet. Because the mass of the voice coil and cone is so small compared to the speaker frame/magnet and speaker structure, almost all the force is translated into cone movement. (The rest is lost in friction and heat.) To be able to cause the loudspeaker to rock (especially at woofer frequencies) wouild require a huge electronmagnet and thousands of watts of energy. Can an exploding firecracker taped to the side of an engine block cause it to move? Same principle and about the same differential. Sure, having a stable structure is a good idea. Who wants to tip a Cornwall over on their foot or on a kid? But this concept of a 2 ounce voice coil and cone making a 60 pound speaker move is enough to make Sir Isaac roll over in his grave. I'm not giving advise I was giving my thoughts on what I thought might be happening to get opinions. Ur just another guy who enjoys arguing. I think ur wrong anyway. How could the stability of the structure it's sitting on not make even a minute differences. Places sell hundred dollars stands to help with resonances and quality of bass and sound. Speaker cabs are built thick and strong for a reason so they don't resonate so much. So how could a wobbly stand not matter. I'm not saying its major but there could be potentially audible effect at some level. We reinforce cabs, why not stands. Many people including other high level audio guys would disagree. I know u guys like arguing so I hope u take the bait and indulge heavily. I honestly could care less, most of audio is a bunch of guys pretending to hear things they can't anyway. I'm probably guilty sometimes but atleast I can admit it. Lol if it makes u feel good build it. If u think it sounds better buy it. It's really tough to help people understand the laws of physics when their "understanding" comes from watching movies where the laws of physics are absurdly violated every few seconds. My knowledge isn't based on watching science fiction movies, it's from doing NVH testing and analysis in the lab for many years. As I mentioned, there's certainly nothing wrong with having stable stands to put your speakers on, but the idea that a voice coil can move a 60 pound box at audio frequencies enough to make any audible difference in the sound is just plain ignorant. Sorry, but take some classes in physics and you'll learn to ignore some of these silly audiophile myths.

That's a very abnormal result that sounds exactly like reversed phase on your Cornwalls. You need to make sure everything is phased properly. While having some variation in bass over the room isn't unusual at all, the "hole in the middle" is a classic problem. Also, correct phase at the speaker terminals can still go wrong if the speakers have been reworked and woofers are misphased when reconnecting to crossovers.

We go back full circle to people giving advice who don't seem to have any understanding of physics. Speakers work in the first place by creating a force between the voice coil and magnet. Because the mass of the voice coil and cone is so small compared to the speaker frame/magnet and speaker structure, almost all the force is translated into cone movement. (The rest is lost in friction and heat.) To be able to cause the loudspeaker to rock (especially at woofer frequencies) wouild require a huge electronmagnet and thousands of watts of energy. Can an exploding firecracker taped to the side of an engine block cause it to move? Same principle and about the same differential. Sure, having a stable structure is a good idea. Who wants to tip a Cornwall over on their foot or on a kid? But this concept of a 2 ounce voice coil and cone making a 60 pound speaker move is enough to make Sir Isaac roll over in his grave.

In short, no. The main problem with aging is your terminals at each end and/or a mechanical defect such as breaking strands from overflexing or pinching. Crimped or even soldered terminal ends can easily corrode over time resulting in high resistance or even failure.

You are losing bass response, but only from them being placed higher above the floor. I'm guessing that if you are using them mainly for home theater mains and have a subwoofer, they likely aren't allowed to produce their full bass range anyway so it shouldn't make much difference. You've already surmised that because of the great directionality and projection of the horns, you don't want the speakers blocked by the front row seats. And learn to disregard those audiophile myths you hear. Most are impossible to prove scientifically and exist only in the minds of the poor soul who doesn't know any better.

Probably because 99.99% of music when the speakers were designed didn't contain anything at that low of a frequency.

Ah, super heavy speaker wire is one of those audiphile myths that unscrupulous dealers use to get your money into their pocket. If you really must, for very long runs try regular romex, either 14 or 12 gauge. (for in-wall applications mainly.) I break it out to a banana connector box and then regular speaker cable to the speakers. Remember, the effect of longer runs is purely resistive and pretty negligible as you get into gauges bigger than 16. Why for the life of me anyone would spend that much money on welding cable to pick up 1db of volume (which is completely undetectable with your ears) is beyond me.

Don't use the shield (braid) as a ground. Use your internal wires for ground and signal. There's no reason why you have to use all of them but using extra conductors in parallel can decrease internal resistance. The shield should be connected to the shell ground at either end, but if you experience hum, you can eliminate ground loops by disconnecting the shield at one end. With balanced line connections, it's critical to use twisted pair internal conductors for the signal. Some balanced cables have a separate ground wire and some use the shield, but using the wrong cable with balanced connections can destroy their ability to reject noise.

I always used a hand scribe, which is a machinist's tool used for marking metal. The best ones have a removable tip that reverses and stores in the handle. It's just the right size to slip between the strands and allow you to pull them apart without breaking wires. Still a job that takes time. Pushing the shield down away from the end helps decompress and loosen it.

Your troubleshooting helps isolate where the problem is. Certainly the control logic in the player is working and the laser drive is tracking and reading the bits properly. The signal paths diverge from there and split into the digital outputs with the digital stream also sent to the D/A and analog output section. Since you're not getting any digital outputs either, most like you've got a problem where the digital bit stream is passed from the drive mechanism to the electronics section. Never hurts to see if there is a plug/socket at the drive section output, as this facilitiates assembly and repair. Make sure your are grounded well and unplug/plug the cable several times. If that doesn't work, there is probably a buffer circuit at the drive output (or electronics section input) that died. I have several Cambridge Audio components and I'm very impressed with their construction standards, so most likely you did get zotzed by the weather.

I have a completely different and unconnected 2-channel setup that is side by side in my TV room with my 7.1 setup. Other than internet radio, I NEVER use the HT system for music as it is sonically inferior in every way to my 2-channel system for music playback. Indeed, I've never heard a HT system that I thought did a better job with music than a 2-channel system, even playing surround-sound encoded music. I guess it's all the digital screwing around going on in the HT receiver that causes the problem. My HT system is Pioneer with Klipsch speakers, and the 2-channel is a Linn preamp/Adcom amp/Harmon Kardon top line CD player, and JBL Summit speakers. So I don't think a dedicated CD player will help because I tried feeding my HT system with my CD player and through the Summits, with mediocre results.

HK has a clearance/refurb store on their web site, might be something listed there if they are discontinuing.

It's a function of gain. Do you need shielded cables when reading a strain gauge with microamp current levels? Sure do, because you need very high gains to make the signal usable. Do you need a shield to protect a high current audio signal? Not unless you live under a radar station. You simply can't impose enough noise on a low impedance speaker cable to be heard. Do your speakers crackle and thump during thunderstorms? Lightning can actually generate some sizable EM transients in the nearby area, yet I doubt you'll ever hear it unless it's being picked up by unbalanced line-level cables. Somebody walking by with a cell phone isn't going to phaze your speaker cables one bit, so don't waste a dime.