Sub/Bass caput?!?

Hi all,

The wife had me moving some furniture around, completely changing the layout of the room used for my HT gear. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when I noticed that the bass all of a sudden seemed 'flat.' One of these days, Iknew I was going to have to get around to recalibrating...*sigh*.

Today, my son approached me and asked me to demonstrate some bass with a dubstep mix he had....not my cup of tea, but ok. Besides, it would tie into my need to 'fix' my bass issues, and give me a chance to stretch my subs legs.

I uncovered more than I had hoped to find. Seems I have no bass coming out of my subwoofer...AT ALL?!?! I'm using an Onkyo TXDS-696 AVR driving my fronts and surrounds directly, with sub line-out feeding a parts express plate amp ( model # 300-794, I think, about ten years old) driving an SVS 20-39CS sub.

Things I've tried:
Using the AVR generated calibration tones, I hear nothing coming from the sub, all the other channels are fine.
Using AVIA generated tones, still, nothing, again, the other channels are fine.
The AVR has a sub defined and when increasing the db to the sub, nothing happens.
I've checked, and rechecked all my connections, even going so far as to take apart the box that houses the plate amp, to ensure nothing got disconnected inside.

What I have noticed, is that the plate amp light turns green from red when it is sent a signal, so it appears, that the AVR is sending the signal to the amp, but what happens from there is the question.

Since I've set all this up years ago, I'm sure I've forgotten much of what I've learned from this fine community. So here I am looking for advise on how to troubleshoot further.

Any suggestions on what I might be missing, or how I can effectively determine how that amp is handling the signal would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Rod

Robert,

Thanks for the suggestion...Not sure why I had the presence of mind to break open the amp box looking for a loose connection, but never considered that there might possibly be one in the sub too. Maybe because I made the amp box, and know my limitations, lol!

Likewise, something as simple a connecting the sub to another channel never crossed my mind either. Can't wait to try that and at least be able to rule out something.

Knowing my luck, it won't be that simple.

Thanks,
Rod

Not sure what, exactly, did the trick, but it seems that it's working now. I was able to test the sub on another channel, and it was working fine. I thought I might be able to test the sub output form AVR with a multimeter, but wasn't quite sure how to do that, so instead, I got creative and connected the sub output on the AVR to an old boombox with an AUX input, and was able to determine the receiver definitely was passing a signal.

That left the amp as likely culprit.

Funny thing is, I had the amp box standing on it's side, and I accidentally bumped it, so it tipped over and landed flat on the box bottom with a dull thump on the carpet. Voila! Now it works...Maybe that was all it needed. Couldn't really test too loud since practically the whole house is sleeping....thinking I might have to test further in the morning with a little bit of a whole-house wake up call!

Next time, and I assume there will be a next time since I really didn't "do" anything to fix it, I'll start off with a little kick to the amp box.

Thanks!