Help! Is My HK Receiver Dead?

[bmd]

I hate making my first post be something like this. I just joined the other day and haven't even got around to introducing myself.

Anyway... I have an HK AVR7200 running a B&W 600 series system. (604's, LCR600, DS6. There is a HSU VTF3 MKII rounding out the speakers and the sources are an Oppo and a Directv HR20.) I have it set up as 5.1 with the other two rear channels set up to run some patio speakers.

So I turned it on a few days ago and there was no sound from the left rear speaker. As we recently moved and I had to set everything back up, I went through and checked all the connections. (I doubted this was the problem as I have already used my Avia and RS meter to balance everything. But I do have a toddler.) I first disconnected the speaker wire at each end and reconnected it. This didn't help. I checked the interconnects between the components. Everything was fine. I pulled the speaker down and connected it to the wire to one of the front speakers and it worked fine. I connected one of the front speakers to the binding posts on the HK for that speaker and got sound too. I hooked everything back correctly and it worked fine.

But the next time I turned the system on, again no sound from that surround. This time, I just moved the wire to the binding posts for one of the patio speakers and got good sound. Moved the wire back to its binding post and no sound. I turned the receiver off and back on to no avail. I went around jiggling the speaker wire to see if maybe there was a short. This did not help and I can't find anywhere were the wire seems damaged. I also tried several different surround modes just to see. Nothing. This time when I moved the wire to one of the front speakers to the binding post for the speaker giving trouble, I got no sound.

Does this sound like the unit is going bad? It has given me nearly four years of good service, so I have gotten my money's worth out of it. Does anyone know if there is any kind of reset that might restore things. (I'd really hate to lose all my settings; this thing is a pain in the rear to setup. But it would be worth a shot.) Anybody heard of individual amplification channels going bad in these things?

While I am at it, to save me from starting another thread, anybody got any good ideas on what to replace it with if it comes to that? The room is about 21 X 13 X 8 with open doorways into a bedroom and a playroom. I don't listen at insane levels; my typical listening level is about 10 - 15 dB below the reference level established from the calibration. I also listen to a good bit of music on the system, sometimes at similar volumes to movies to sometimes a bit lower in volume.

Cost becomes an issue here with a baby due next month and the expenses of a new house. I might have a bit of a hard time convincing my wife to invest too much money right now. We simply will not be able to watch movies that often for the next year or so. I really like the HK; it sounds good and is very flexible in how it can be setup. Of course, the flexibility is what makes it such a pain as well. If I have to buy something new, I'd at least like to be able to drive the B&W's at my normal listening levels and sound good. I still need the extra zone to drive the outside speakers as well.

If I have to buy something, I'll end up being stuck with it for at least a few years. My old Sony RPT HDTV does not have an HDMI input and the Oppo is the DVI one so HDMI is not a necessity.

I really appreciate any help you can give.

[Sonnie]

Hello BMD from Alabama and welcome to the Shack!

It may just be an output gone bad. Do you have a service center close by or do you live in no man's land like me? I would get someone to look at it first, unless you are actually looking for an excuse to snag a new toy...

[bmd]

Not really looking for an excuse. What I would like to do in an ideal world is to keep this one for a couple of more years and get something new then. I am really hoping someone might know of something I could have overlooked even though I seem confident I went through a fairly systematic approach.

I checked the HK website, and they list the 11 nearest service centers, none of which are even in state. That might give me the idea of calling around some local places to see if there is anyone who can/will look at it.

Thanks for the response.

[Sonnie]

Yeah, it appears you have checked about all you can check. We use to have a guy at our Radio Shack over in Troy (he may still be there) that could work on anything and he was fairly reasonable. He repaired a McIntosh receiver for me several years ago. Maybe you can find a local repair service.

[Joe L.]

There is a good possibility the wire to the speaker on the channel that is mis-behaving has a short, or perhaps a single strand of wire that is shorting and causing the channel to shut down with its short-circuit protection.

Before you take the receiver in for repair, try swapping the wires on its back between the left and right channels and see if the problem moves to the other side... or run a new wire to the speaker that is cutting out.

Joe L.