Newbie question about the Kenwood Unity HTiB (1 Viewer)

[Justin Bru]

Hello all,

This is my first post in this forum. I have a question about a new system I recently purchased, and I was hoping for some advice on what course of action I might take at this point.

I recently bought a "Home Theater in a Box" system, the Kenwood/Boston Acoustics Unity System. I realize that these "all in one" units are probably looked down upon in the audiophile community, but for my first foray into home theater equipment (and a $999.00 pricetag) I think it delivers on being a punchy little sound system.

But now my issue. Whenever I watch a DVD (the Kenwood receiver has a built in DVD player) after a certain amount of time (seems random) there is a microsecond pause, and I notice that the pitch of the actors voices drops slightly. This drop is especially noticeable with a well recognized voice. Also at this point an electronic "pulse" can be heard in the music score, and almost the faintest sound of what I can only describe as that "pop" you used to get when you listen to old vinyl LP's on your turntable.

When I noticed this problem happening with every DVD I played on the system, I returned the receiver and swapped it out for another brand new one. I took it home, hooked it up, and lo, the exact same thing is happening with the new one.

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this happening with a DVD player? Of course I am tempted to start over with different brands of components, but from the reading I have done, the Kenwood is the best "all in one, out-of-the-box" system available, especially in its price range.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Justin

 

[Martin Fontaine]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

I'm (or was) on the same boat as you since I started with a Kenwood HTiB system too (I since upgraded the receiver to a better one (Still Kenwood though) and better speakers since mine had the plastic speakers.

As far as the receiver/DVD Combo goes, personally I would stay away from that since it makes upgrading harder but I guess for now, that'll do...

For your pause problem, is it always at the same place in a movie? Somewhere near the middle? If yes, it's called the layer change and all DVD's do it, it's perfectly normal.

 

[Justin Bru]

Hi Martin and thanks for the welcome,

The pause may be the normal layer change as you say, but the part that is not normal is the drop in pitch of the voices, and the "electronic pulse" sound in the music. I should also add that if i pause the DVD and press play, these 2 symptoms remain, but if I stop the disc, they are cleared when I press play.