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troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

post #1 of 10
2/2/09 at 7:59am
Thread Starter 
And the problem is probably me, in comination with the sophistication/difficulty of what I'm setting up. I've got all the speakers working but the subwoofer is silent.

I followed advice here and dumped my very old HTIB and am getting individual components.
I just bought new:
receiver: Yamah HTR-6130
subwoofer: Boston Acoustics HPS12HO

Until I can afford better, I'm still using the old front/rear/center Philips HTIB speakers. They are 6 ohm and I made appropriate adjustment to the Yamaha receiver and they're all working.
If pertinent, their specifications are:

Front and rear speakers:
frequency range: 40-20,000 Hz
power handling capacity: 100w (200w peak)
drivers: 1x5 ¼ inch woofer
Passive radiator: 1x6 ½ inch woofer

Center speaker:
frequency range: 75-20,000 Hz
power handling capacity: 100w (peak 200w)
drivers: 2x4 inch woofer, 1x2 inch tweeter

The Yamaha receiver says simply subwoofer out on the back and nothing about LFE (about which I know nothing.) I've tried connecting the subwoofer at both possible connections on the subwoofer, LFE and then simply L (as in left. It says try either port, L or R.)
My problem probably is the adjustment within Yamaha. I've tried going by the manual and gotten nowhere. And I'm looking for help.
Thanks.
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post #2 of 10
2/2/09 at 8:25am

Re: setup connection problem

Do you have your speaker selection set to "small" or "large"? On many systems selecting "large" will route all bass, or all bass within a given frequency range, depending on the exact settings, to the main speakers, by-passing the sub. Try the "small" option and see what happens.

(Assume you have already checked all the obvious things like making sure the sub's power light is on, ac cable connected, etc.)

Regards,

Joe
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post #3 of 10
2/2/09 at 8:52am
Thread Starter 

Re: setup connection problem

I set all the speakers at "small."
And the subwoofer is green-light on.
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post #4 of 10
2/2/09 at 1:28pm
Thread Starter 

troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

This follows my earlier post on setup. I just went through it with Yamaha tech support (an older fellow who does not seem very helpful, as the details might explain.)

The five speakers -- front, rear, center -- are working with the new Yamaha HT-6130 receiver.
The new Boston Acoustics subwoofer, HPS 12HO arrived today and I hooked it up. I can barely hear it doing a little something with the rock concert on TV (HD) when I put my ear to the grill cover and have it turned up all the way.
The Yamaha tech guy had me pull the RCA cable from the subwoofer port on the receiver and tap that end of the cable with a finger. It thump/hummed from the subwoofer.
To him that means the Yamaha is doing its "line out" job and the problem is something else.....not the receiver. BTW, we went through the manual setup and I seem to have had it right. We did go to the subwoofer area of that setup and put it at 10+ decibels, the max. No change.
I told him that yesterday I set up the receiver and, awaiting shipment on the new subwoofer, connected my old htib Philips powered 30w subwoofer. It did the same yesterday as the new Boston Acoustics did today: just enough sound coming out so that you'd know it with your ear or face at the box itself.
That detail, to me, indicates the problem would be the receiver. My new tech support friend disagreed and dispatched me to check with Boston Acoustics.

He said something else that concerned me......he said that I would not have Yamaha warranty coverage on the receiver because I purchased it from etronics.com.
That doesn't sound right.
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post #5 of 10
2/2/09 at 2:00pm

Re: troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

If etronics.com is not an authorized Yamaha dealer (I have no idea one way or the other) then it is entirely possible that Yamaha will not warrant the product. One of the things an authorized dealer arrangement does is ensure that the product is stored and handled properly, and isn't broken or rendered useless by retailer personnel. (There being contractual penalties the store has to pay if such a thing happens.) Non-authorized dealers may be buying their stock from anywhere, including bankruptcy and fire sales, and gray-market sources. Again, not saying that this is the case with etronics, I'm not at all familiar with them. I'm just listing some of the reasons certain manufacturers insist on selling only through authorized dealers and some of the possible pitfalls involved in buying elsewhere.

Quote:
The Yamaha tech guy had me pull the RCA cable from the subwoofer port on the receiver and tap that end of the cable with a finger. It thump/hummed from the subwoofer.

To him that means the Yamaha is doing its "line out" job and the problem is something else....

OK, this doesn't even begin to make sense. Are you sure you described what you did correctly? If you disconnected the RCA cable from the receiver and left it connected to the subwoofer, then whatever you did with it proved nothing about the receiver, which was no longer in the loop. You tapped the wire and got a sound from the subwoofer. That proved that the subwoofer was turned on and that you were getting electrical continuity in the wire. How the hell would this tell you anything about your receiver, which was not connected to either the wire or the subwoofer? This "test" would have told you exactly as much about your receiver as it told you about my receiver, which I'm pretty sure is sitting in a different state.

Maybe if you had disconnected the RCA cable from the subwoofer, tapped it and heard a sound from the other speakers connected to the receiver it would have meant something. (Mainly it would have meant that the subwoofer output wasn't completely dead.) But I can't understand how either of you thought the test you described was telling you anything about the receiver.

Regards,

Joe
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post #6 of 10
2/2/09 at 2:11pm
Thread Starter 

Re: troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

I can understand why I thought the test was telling us/me something: because I don't know jack about this stuff and it's not my job. So I can only do what tech support guys tell me to do. I did, however, not accept his diagnosis and came here.
But, since I posted this a few minutes ago, I pulled out the old Philips HTIB receiver and subwoofer. I hooked the subwoofer to the new Yamaha receiver and, as happened yesterday, it was a no-go. I then hooked that Philips subwoofer to the Philips receiver and it worked.
So......then I hooked the new Boston Acoustics subwoofer to the old Philips receiver and, voila, it worked.
That tells me the receiver is probably bad, but, again, I have no expertise in this. If so, that tells me what I've read the past few minutes about unauthorized dealers might be true -- that they sometimes sell stuff that has problems.
I now will contact etronics.com, which I learned a few minutes ago contracts out warranty work -- I expect because the manufacturers won't warranty the products they sell.
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post #7 of 10
2/2/09 at 2:38pm

Re: troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

Terry,

I merged both threads. Is more clear to members who want to help you solve your problem.
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post #8 of 10
2/2/09 at 5:44pm
Thread Starter 

Re: troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

Moot point.
I am returning the defective receiver and ordered another of the same from a seller who is on the Yamaha authorized dealer list.
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post #9 of 10
2/3/09 at 8:23am

Re: troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

Connect your sub to a different input source that you know works. An old portable CD player, works great. This will tell you if the Sub is working or not. If the sub works then the fault is in the Yamaha receiver.

You have to be careful and check out all on line merchants. I know this is true about Cameras receiver from sellers in New York. If the price it significantly lower than any other price you can find the product you need to check out the seller.
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post #10 of 10
2/3/09 at 12:31pm

Re: troubleshooting: receiver or subwoofer?

Is the subwoofer set to "Yes" in the receiver??? Default is "none" unfortunately.

Power up, press "amp" on remote, press "menu" (basic setup message on receiver), press "enter", set speakers to "S", press "down arrow key", set subwoofer to YES, press "down arrow key", set speaker configuration, then go through the test tones.

Should work... JB
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