I Need help with my receiver. please help (1 Viewer)

[John-Miles]

Ok I have been having some problems with my reciever. It is a Sony STR-DE445 I know its not the best of recievers out there but im pretty sure i should be getting better performance. first of all my rear right channel went out. I checked all the connections, and switched out speakers (PSB alpha intro LR for my front and rear the CLR for my center) all the speakers are working, but no sound from the RR. this included when i used the test tone. i then checked the run of cable for any visible problems and came up with nothing.

my assumption then was it was a problem with my reciever, so i was just waiting for a chance to get it fixed. it was then that i thought i heard sound from my rear right I unhooked all my other speakers and sure enough there was now sound from the RR. i have since played music (FYI a DTS 5.1 cd The Police) I let this run for a few hours at a high volume. I now get good volume out of all my speakers, however i get very noticable distortion at at a volume of 17 (range is Min, 1-30, Max) at a volume of 24 the entire sound is crap, it becomes totally unlistenable, and to be honest I dont believe i should have a reciever that craps out just over the mid range volume.

if anyone has any advice on what the problem may be is this normal for this reciever or is it a bad one from the factory. it still has 2 years on the warranty, what should i do? all advice would be appreciated.

 

[Anthony Stephan]

with that receiver, the volume at 24 should produce crap.

It's just not meant to handle that kind of power.

You say you've checked the speakers by rotating them and the rear speaker works, but the right rear channel does not. This was confirmed with a test tone pattern.

You've checked the wireing and everything is fine.

Now the sound is intermittent in that channel.

If the sound continues to go in and out, you will have to have it serviced. You may be lucky and it may stay there and be fine. But if it's under warrantee, have it checked.

 

[John-Miles]

But is it normal for most recievers to crap out and start clipping before they reach full volume?

being reasonable i wouldn't mind if i was getting close to full volume but not quite, but in this case i get bad distortion at 17, and total crap at 24.

 

[PaulKH]

John that's not surprising.

 

[John Garcia]

But is it normal for most recievers to crap out and start clipping before they reach full volume?

being reasonable i wouldn't mind if i was getting close to full volume but not quite, but in this case i get bad distortion at 17, and total crap at 24.

Yes, it is entirely likely, as the DE line has the some of the less powerful amplifier sections out there. The key note is that they are NOT full bandwidth rated. So that 100W may only be one frequency PEAK for a brief period...meaning the amp would likely only be capable of putting out 50wpc or less full bandwith. This is why I recommend even the lowest Marantz, Denon or Onkyo receivers over Kenwood, Sony, or other typical mass market brands. Clean power is very important and even moreso with better speakers.

I disussed this before with another person on this forum, specifically regarding Sony's DE line of receivers. My old DE815 starts to distort at 50% volume with only my two Paradigm Titans in my bedroom. The DE series just does not have sufficent power to drive speakers that require any kind of power (and the Titans are not that hard to drive). I hooked up a Marantz SR4000 with only 70wpc (fullbandwidth rated) and it was able to drive them very well.

If you were driving less demandng speakers, you would probably get better performance. I think your speakers exceed the receiver's abilities, especially when playing back demanding material.

BTW, are you running your speakers set to small or large? Setting them to small will free up some power and drive them better.

 

[John-Miles]

Thanks for the advice and Info, i guess i was just a little foolish when i bought the reciever and speakers, they were both rated to 80W so i figured its all good, next time im readign the fine print and brushing up on my electrionics specs.