Subwoofer is shutting off when playing movies (1 Viewer)

[Barb L]

I recently bought a JVC All in One system TH-M55 -- I don't understand why when playing movies the subwoofer will just shut off. This never happens with CD's. There is no set time for the subwoofer to shut off. Sometimes it will do it immediately when the menu screen comes on, and sometimes it does it after the movie has been playing for a while. It never does this with the radio or CD's. No matter what movie I played last night, the subwoofer (hence all the sound since the speakers plug into the subwoofer) will shut off when the menu screen comes on.

Does anyone have any ideas? I have read the manual forwards and backwards, and can't find a clue. My next opition is to return it, or call JVC.

Thanks in advance
Barbara

 

[Mike Fassler]

were you listening to 5.1 tracks on the movies, I.E Dolby Digital or DTS or something like that.

 

[Barb L]

more than likely, I hate to admit it, but I am one of those people that pops in the DVD and just expects everything to play. I was watching "Taking Lives" (a dreadful film by the way) when the system kept shutting off -- or I should say just the sound. I tried putting in another movie (Angeles in America) and the same this keep happening. Last night, I took the subwoofer out of the cabinet to make sure all the wires are connection properly (which they are), and put in Angels in America, and the system didn't shut off once. It's bizarre. I am confident it is something I am doing but I can't figure out what. Someone had suggested lower the subwoofer volume, and pushing up the bass. Needless to say that didn't help.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Your sub is in a cabinet? Is it fully enclosed? Is it in the same cabinet as your receiver? Is all the sound shutting off, not just the sub? If all of the above is true, you could be overheating your receiver which will cause a shutdown. Aside from this, a sub should not be in an enclosure of any kind. It needs to breathe and the sub's amplifier should have adequate ventilation so it does not overheat. Either your receiver is overheating (which would cause all the audio to drop out) or your sub amp is overheating (which would cause the sub to drop out).

If I am wrong in assuming the sub is in an enclosed space, a sub often has "instant on" circuitry that will shut it down until the soundtrack contains a low enough tone for the sub to play. Sometime this circuitry is not sensitive enough. This can be fixed by increasing the sub level output at the receiver and decreasing the output at the sub. Read the Primer to find out about speaker "calibration" for details (calibrating the system is something you should do anyway, sub problems or not).

 

[Jack Briggs]

What Jeff said in his second paragraph.

When some powered woofer/subwoofer systems operate for a few minutes without there being any low-frequency signals coming from the .1 track, they shut down automatically. They switch back on when there's .1-track information coming to them.