The night My music died!

[TommyC]

Well, I am now musicless (is that a word?). First my beloved H/K 730 dies a horrible Very smokey death (cause as yet unknown). It was replaced by a Pioneer SA-8500 integrated that sounded surprisingly good in my room with my system. Now it has died. All I get is the dreaded protection circuit click! I have been trying to trouble shoot it but I am just not knowledgeable enough about electronics to work on something as complex as this. I guess I should have held on to my BPC Pioneer receiver as a back-up, huh? Back to listening to .mp3s through my computer speakers for a while, I guess. A temporary setback! I think that when the funds are available to replace the pioneer, I will try something new. Maybe one of those nifty little battery powered units from Red Wine Audio or something like that. Hmmm..... Too many possibilities, too little funds!

[RTTR]

Thats a bummer man, my Pioneer is being stupid lately and will click

off into OVERLOAD when I'm barely pushing 2 watts through my Klipsch

Quintets. Which is part of the reason I'm finally planning on building

a new system, speakers and all.

[TommyC]

I got both of my now dead components very cheap off of ebay, so I am not terribly surprised that they died. I will eventually have a pro look into the problems with the Pioneer. The amount of "Magic Smoke" that was released when the H/K died leads me to believe it is beyond helping! That is why I am thinking that I will buy something newer for my main system and continue to feed my vintage electronics habit with a second system. My Heresies haven't been damaged, so all is ok in my world, just a bit quieter at the moment! []

[thebes]

Tommy, don't give up on the Pioneer yet. The protection circuit

clicks in for a reason. The one on my Denon was going off all the time

until I took a real close look at my speaker wires. I wss using banana

plugs on the wires and one of them was loose where it went to the

binding post . The poor connection was enough to keep tripping

the circuit. Later on I put a swtich box in my system so I

could switch between my 2 Channel rig and my surround sound rig, and

one of the speaker wires was touching another one. Again, tripped

the circuit.

So check your wires very carefully and you may also consider opening up

the speakers to make sure all off the internal wiring is

connected. Also switch your interconnects and speaker wires to

other inputs. I think the Pioneers have two sets of hookups for

the speaker wires, and try tape, aux etc. on the interconnects.

Also change the fuses the Pioneer came with and plug it into a

different outlet after spreading the prongs a bit with your hand to

assure a tight fit. Also try different interconnects and if you can,

swap out the cd player or at least it's interconnect.

Could be something very simple.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Check your speakers. Two units should not fry.

The HK uses fuses. Someone could have put in a 20 amp fuse to "stop them from blowing" causing the black smoke. Check your speakers!!

[DrWho]

Ya, sounds like a speaker wire problem to me...Probably 90% of the

systems I've troubleshooted over the years have been a simple matter of

snipping the tips to the speaker cables, twisting them up nicely and

reinserting so that no strands are touching anywhere. Twice I have seen

instances where there was a short in the middle of the wire...either

due to being folded over on itself and breaking the jacket, or by

something heavy sitting on it that broke the jacket - both cases

causing a short circuit.

Your older HK probably died because they didn't have as fancy of

clipping protection circuits. Your new Pioneer has better clip

protection, but I wouldn't keep relying on it! If the switch slips up

you're gonna be smoking your pioneer too.

I know it's a pain but I would start by unplugging everything from

everywhere. Then connect a single source to the reciever and turn it on

(with no speaker wires connected) - crank the volume dial and see if

the protection clicks in. If it does then you have something wrong

internally. Then one by one reconnect speakers until you find the one

that causes the clip protection to click on (make sure you're in a 5

channel mode so that all channels are being driven....or is this

strictly a 2 channel system?)

If you can get everything plugged in one by one then chances are you

solved your problem, but I would stay close to the reciever for a few

songs and feel the top to see if it gets hot, in which case turn the

reciever off right away if the clip protection doesn't beat you to it.

You might also want to open up your heresy's and look for any loose

wires on the inside. I suppose it's possible that something came loose

on a crossover and is causing a short inside the speaker (In fact, I

did that on accident a while back when I was doing some work on my

center channel and I didn't tighten it down all the way). so you're not

the only one that's been saved by the clip protection []