Steven Larson

Cracking noise in Matrix Revolutions - clipping?

Ok, my HT is not complete, but I have the TV, a pair of Polk RTi70's, a CSi40 coming this week, and a brand new Harman Kardon AVR230 receiver, and a Panasonic XP50 dvd player.

The remaining speakers in my 5.1 setup include the subwoofer and the surround speakers from my year old Onkyo 5.1 speaker setup. The sub is only rated to 150 watts.

Anyway, I was showing off my tv and the speakers I do have to my family, with Matrix Revolutions. I was showing the last fight sequence, and had the volume fairly loud.

During the fight sequence, I heard a couple of "cracks", which I don't think were part of the soundtrack, and they are not there when I turn the volume down. So I am assuming it must be "clipping", but I am wondering if it the sub that is clipping? or the receiver? The sub is self-powered, and as I said it is rated for 150 watts.

I am hoping for some suggestions here. I am planning to get a new sub, likely an SVS 25-31.

But I guess I am also wondering if it could be that the receiver is underpowered? It has pre-outs, so I could hook up another amp to it. Do I need this or should I try the new sub first? If I did need to get a 2nd amplifer, any suggestions? Onecall.com has a Carver special that sounds nice, but I don't know if it powerful enough even....

Also, I am pretty much a noob at HT, so if the above is out of line, please let me know!!

Thanks!

Steve

Travis

If I had to guess I would say it was your sub bottoming. The final fight scene from Revolutions has some subsonic bass in it. Depending on the size of your room and if the sub is calibrated you could easily bottom it during that scene. I would turn the sub gain down and rerun the scene at the volume where you heard the noise before and see if it does it again. FYI, I managed to bottom 2 16-46 pc+'s on the final bubble of that fight scene. HTH

Fernando Saa

Something similar happened to me while watching the horse scene at the beguining of Seabiscuit at near reference levels. I heard a "cracking" sound, like burst of static coming thru my center speaker (Bose vcs-10, yes I know...). When I turned off the center channel in my receiver, It didn't happen again even at higher levels. I have quality tower speakers for mains (Def-Tech's), but all my set up is set to small with crossover at 120hz. I think my center speaker couldn't handle all that power. Maybe your current speakers didn't either, I don't know, I could be corrected.

Fer

Steven Larson

Both of these are good possibilities. I don't know which speaker "cracked", if it was the sub, the center or one of the two mains. I am getting the Polk CSi40 on Thursday, and I am pretty sure it will handle more power than the Onkyo center I have now, and then it will be the sub's turn to be replaced...

Thanks!

Steve

Mike Keith

It can also be a bad (distorted) signal from your Processor's steering, I never knew how loud my speakers and amps could go until I upgraded to the new Halo C2. Now I can play at least 3db louder without any drivers bottoming out, before I would hear the same cracking sound from this scene in Matrix and many other movies, but now I can't make my speakers bottom out no matter what I do. The voice from the Machine at the end of Revolutions is so strong I jumped for the remote, and even though the level meters on the sub amp were well into clipping, still no bottoming out. Anyway, doesn’t really matter, the fix is the same, just turn down the subs or the master volume.

DarwinH

Hey all,

I had a similar situation occur. When playing LOTR-2T at the scene where the tree ent sees the decimated forest by Saruman's tower. He lets out a big bellow right after saying a wizard should know better. My center channel speaker gets real "crackly" during this section. I thought maybe my receiver was "clipping" if that is the proper term. However, when I switched speakers and put a different but identical one in the center channel position and repeated at the same volume level there was no distortion. Obviously, I am now concerned that I have fried a speaker. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.