Sherwood R963 problem (1 Viewer)

[EvanH]

Well, I took the plunge and bought the Sherwood R963 even though there were some complaints about the user interface and bass management. I haven't had problems with either of those, but I am concerned about it shutting off on me at high volumes.

a little background. I upgraded from a Sony STR-DE8xx (can't remember the last two digits) anyway it was a $450 receiver at the time. At the time I bought the Sherwood I moved from an apartment that had a very large living room to a house with a very small living room. (bass-ackwards I know) In the apartment I couldn't play stuff at high volumes very often but every now and then I could crank it and the Sony seemed to do a good job of handling it. At the house I can crank stuff loud all the time. I have Axiom m60ti's (I think that's the model...it's there second largest tower, not the 80's) and their largest center speaker. They have sensetivity ratings in the 90's db wise. I'm temporarily using Energy Take 5's for the two rears and have nothing hooked up on the two rear center speakers. They sounded good with the Sony and now sound phenominal with the Sherwood, but to get a decent volume on tv and dvd's I have to crank the sherwood up to around -40db to -35db. If I want to listen to it really loud I get it up to -20db and higher...but it's kicking off past -19db. When I upped the speaker trim levels it now is louder at lower db's but it kicks off at -27db.

When I moved the only thing I changed between having the Sony hooked up and having the Sherwood hooked up was I bought new speaker wire for the front three speakers. I got 12gauge wire and attached Monster tips to the ends as bannana connectors. Could the new speaker cables be effecting the amount of power that gets from the sherwood to the speakers?

Also, it seems to play louder before shutting off if I have it in Matrix or plain stereo mode and shuts of earlier if I have it in Dolby Digital or DTS. I have about 6-8 inches of clearance in the stereo rack above it and feeling it it's definitely warm but not even as hot as the Sony used to get.

Any ideas on what might be causing this? I used my RadioShack spl meter to see what kind of volumes I can play it at before it shuts off and I'm getting up to about 110-114db's (not corrected) but that is with my subwoofer cranked. Help!

Evan

 

[John A. Casler]

If you bought off e-bay or u-bid you probably bought a refurb which probably didn't get fixed the first time.
All the $1100 or less R963s are not new units. :frowning:
John

 

[Baldemar Garcia]

Evan,

I'm guessing you have the front three speakers set to large?
If that's the case, you're just putting too much load on the receiver, and it's shutting off to protect itself. This is just a guess on my part. My R925 did this to me once when it's speaker settings were reset (large fronts) and I played Lost in Space too loud. If I'm correct, change your front speakers to small just as an experiment. If my guess is wrong, you may have speaker wiring problems. Check your new wiring to make sure there are absolutely no 'wild' strands. Good luck.

 

[EvanH]

I paid $1250 for mine shipped and it's brand new, I'm pretty sure of it. Regardless, I have the two fronts set to large but the center set to small...I'll try setting them all small but sure wish I didn't have to...

 

[Ed Haze]

I would contact [email protected] he is the man when it comes to the Newcastle Line. He has responded rather quickly to any questions I have had on my 863. In my opinion, I think there is either a wiring issue or you got a faulty unit. The reason I say this is b/c I have had my 863 cranked to -15db for almost an hour without any problems. Just a thought.

 

[granite_g]

Well, where do I start. I am not impressed with the r963 for several reasons. When I first set up the unit and powered it up my wife walked in the room and ask what's wrong with the stereo, she replied it sounds muddy! I told her that I had just bought the receiver and was testing it out. She expressed to me that the denon 3802 we currently have sounded much better and I should send the 963 back. I agreed with her that it sounded muddy with no clarity or detail. I will have to say the I recieved my 963 with a damaged box.(ups)I was also disappointed with the remote. The scroll button would not scroll to the right.This made it difficult to program my receiver. I contacted the dealer to give my feedback and he informed me that I had received a damaged unit.They have sent me a new unit but I have not received it yet. I currently very happy with my denon 3802 have been extremely impressed with the performance in ht and stereo. I was looking for a second unit for my bedroom. One more thing i forgot to mention the 963 does not offer 5channel/ 7 channel stereo it has dsp with different sound modes, I did not care much for this.Has anybody else had the same experience? I am hoping that the new 963 will prove my first impressions to be wrong?

 

[EvanH]

Ed, thanks for the Jeff's email address. Granite...the r963 has a matrix mode which plays stereo out all 5/7 channels, it's a pain to get to as far as I can tell but if you pull up the OSD and go to the surround menu you can activate it.

Evan

 

[Brent_S]

Evan, I would guess that your 963 is fine if you're measuring 110-114 dbs with the Radio Shack meter. From memory, I think the RS meter tends to read lower more than higher, depending on frequency.

If you trust the manufactures specs, one M60ti needs 128 watts to hit 110 dbs at 1 meter distance, using the anechoic specs. Rooms vary too much to use their claimed in room spec. I'm guessing you're measuring from more than 1 meter away so the volume from that one speaker would drop at 3 db/meter, I believe. To play 3db louder, you need to double the power. So, at 2 meters to maintain 110 dbs you'd need 256 watts or that same 128 watts will only measure 107 db.

Obviously, you're using multiple speakers so there's additional gain if they're playing the same signal, but I imagine you're also even more than 2 meters away so you're still losing dbs to distance even as you gain dbs from multiple sources.

Then there's the issue of the actual power capabilities of the receiver. From their web site, Sherwood doesn't seem to claim that it will produce 120 watts simultaneously for all 5/7 channels. Based on the performance measurements of other a/v receivers, it's highly probable that the 963 is delivering substantially less than 120 wpc when driving multiple channels simultaneously. If the Sony was truly capable of playing louder, it may have a more stout power supply for driving multiple channels or Sherwood could have used a more conservative thermal protection limit.

You can't really compare the Sony to the Sherwood by ear, especially in two different spaces. The human memory for sound perception is VERY short. You also say the new room is smaller, but does it have any openings to hallways or other rooms...those areas count as acoustical space, even if you don't consider them part of the same room. We could get into the internal wall construction differences between your apartment and house as well. You've changed an awful lot of variables that make it hard to determine if you really have a problem.

And, any way you slice it, 110+ decibels is doggone LOUD!

wbs