Help! Marantz SR7001 problems

[mness4]

Last night my SR7001 unexpectedly shut off and I don't know why. The standby light is flashing and "PROTECT" appears on the display when I try to restart. The manual offers no advice other than to say I have a problem. I bought the receiver used about three months ago without issue to this point. I've been running it ~5 hours per day for 2-3 months now. The 7001 is powering five channels (but a total of eight speakers) at the moment. The rear left and rights are Quartets. Each front is consists of two Chorus (4 total) in parallel and the center is a pair of Forte II also in parallel. An Adcom 5503 is helping power the front and center channels, but the rears are run directly to the 7001. I don't know if it matters, but I haven't run the calibration yet.

Does anyone know what might be wrong and how much it might cost to fix? I'm hoping my setup is not the cause. I bought the Adcom to make sure the front/centers did not overly burden the 7001. I would hate to have it fixed only to see it happen again.

Thanks,

Mike

[wuzzzer]

So the front speakers are powered by the Adcom and the surround speakers are powered by the 7001? On the receiver's remote if you hit the button that says "SPK-AB" it will let you switch from speaker A, Speaker B and Speaker A+B. It should be on Speaker A if you only have the surrounds connected.

I have heard of some receivers having problems when using external amps if nothing is connected to the speaker outputs. Not sure why it would pose a problem, though, since obviously a receiver with pre-outs means that someone will use an external amp if they wanted to.

Be sure and check the speaker wires connected to the 7001 and to your surrounds. One small errant strand of copper can do a lot of damage.

[mness4]

Hiya Wuzzer. Sorry, I wasn't clear on this. All speakers are connected to the 7001, but the fronts and centers are connected to the Adcom and run through the preouts on the 7001. The surrounds run directly into the 7001. I'll check the connections for shorting, since I am running the wires bare. But I was very conscious of this when I connected them. It was tight though.

[wuzzzer]

DO NOT CONNECT YOUR SPEAKERS TO TWO AMPLIFIERS AT THE SAME TIME.

Was that clear enough? Seriously, you didn't research doing that beforehand?? []

[Youthman]

All speakers are connected to the 7001, but the fronts and centers are connected to the Adcom and run through the preouts on the 7001. The surrounds run directly into the 7001.

Wuzzer, I don't read it that way. He says all speakers are connected (not powered) by the 7001 and he says "but" the fronts and centers are connected to the Adcom.

Guess we just need some clarification here.

You should have some speakers connected directly to the 7001 through the speaker outs. Use the pre-outs on the 7001 to the Adcom, and then the speaker out on the Adcom to the speakers that you want to drive separately to reduce the load on the receiver.

I'm assuming this is how you have it setup but wanted to check to be sure. If you are using speaker outs from the receiver and from the adcom and going to the same speakers, NOT A GOOD IDEA.

[mness4]

Yes, page 8 of the Marantz manual: "Preamp outputs: Jacks for L, R, C, SBL, and SBR. Use these jacks for connection to external power amplifiers." I'm using the L, R, and C preouts connected to the 5503. The Adcom GFA5503 is a three-channel power amplifier.

[mness4]

Youthman, I have them connected as you say. The LRC go from 7001 preouts into the 5503 then on to the speakers (2 speakers in parallel per channel.) The other two surround channels go from the 7001 directly to the speakers using the normal 7001 outputs. Do you see any reason why this would cause a problem for the 7001? I specifically avoided trying this without the 5503 for fear of blowing up the 7001.

[CECAA850]

If the only speaker wire connectors are to your rears, disconnect them at the receiver and see if the problem goes away. If it does, hook them up one at a time to isolate the problem.

[Youthman]

What is your purpose for hooking them up in parallel? If you hook speakers up in parallel, it will cause the amp to divide the load by the number of speakers you have connected. Ex. If you have two 8ohm speakers hooked up in parallel, the amp sees a 4ohm load (8ohm divided by 2 speakers). If you hooked four 8ohm speakers up in parallel, the amp will see a 2 ohm load (8ohm divided by 4). The lower the impedance, the hotter the amp runs and the more likely you will cause the amp to shut down.

[mness4]

Youthman,

I've heard others were very happy running two speakers per channel in a tower config for improved sound (specifically, I've seen KG4s and Chorus hooked up in this way.) I felt more comfortable doing this with the Chorus since the KG4s are only rated at 4 ohms. I considered running them in series, but I heard that the downstream speaker would see a variable load from the upstream speaker causing poor performance...I think I described that correctly. True, the parallel load is harder on the amp, but that's why I didn't want to try it without a power amp. It did run nicely for 2-3 months and never seemed to get very hot. I was also careful not to crank the power up too high. I was more interested in sound quality and fullness than volume. It did sound very good by the way.

Mike

[Fish]

I don't know if it applies but when researching the 7001 I found many post of the 7001 dying,it had an issue.

[mness4]

Hopefully this isn't anything specfic to the 7001. I found many people very happy with the 7001, which is why I went with it. You can always find people having problems with any gadget...they're the ones posting for help or simply complaining. You have to look a little harder for the good comments; the 7001 had many. It's possible I bought someone else's problem since this was used. It's also possible I did somehting wrong.

[mness4]

Thanks for the post, CECAA850. I tried your suggestion. I disconnected the two surround speakers and unplugged the unit. When I plugged it back in, it powered up as normal. I haven't yet tried reconnecting the surrounds to isolate the problem. I'll try that tomorrow. It seems strange to me that the problem appears to be with the two speakers connected to the normal outputs of the 7001. I followed Wuzzers advice and made sure there was no shorting at the speaker or receiver. Even though I never performed the MultiEQ setup, I wouldn't think that would be a problem. I've always heard that was only an optimization.

[CECAA850]

If there are no wires touching at the receiver or speaker terminals then you have a wire or speaker issue. Disconnect the wires at the speakers themselves and insulate the ends so they don't touch. Power down the receiver and hook up one wire. Power the unit back up and see if you have the original problem. If not, hook up that speaker and then power the unit back up. Repeat for the other side. When the problem occurs, just check the very last thing you hooked up. Report back.

[mness4]

Well, I tried reintroducing the surrounds one at a time, and guess what? They work. I don't know if I was more afraid that something would blow or wouldn't. The only unusual thing about the surrounds is that one of them has stripped posts, so the nuts don't tighten. I have the wire wrapped fairly tight around the post. I plan on fixing it. When I reattached the wire, I tried jiggling the wire a bit and nothing happened. I'll try movies of varying mounts of surround sound, but it sounds like I have an intermittent problem. Any other suggetions? Otherwise, I'll report back anything new.

One other question: Do you think I risk damaging the receiver by tripping it? Not that I have much choice, except reverting to a 3 channel system.

Mike

[CECAA850]

Your receiver should be fine. The "protection mode" does just that, shuts the receiver down BEFORE it's damaged. You most likely had one strand of wire at one of the terminals touching the other terminal. Sometimes it's hard to see. When you took them apart and put them back together, you most likely fixed it.

[Fish]

Hopefully this isn't anything specfic to the 7001. I found many people very happy with the 7001, which is why I went with it. You can always find people having problems with any gadget...they're the ones posting for help or simply complaining. You have to look a little harder for the good comments; the 7001 had many. It's possible I bought someone else's problem since this was used. It's also possible I did somehting wrong.

No,not 7001 specific,several 001 models,they required a hardware change.If it's been done no problem.One would not have to look to hard to find good points about Marantz,I've owned several,nice sound.