Trouble shooting (1 Viewer)

[scott*Johns]

I need help trouble shooting a problem. Is this the right forum to post in?
Thanks,
Scott

 

[Parker Clack]

Sure. What's your problem?

Parker

 

[Neil Joseph]

Welcome to the HTF Scott. Give us your question. There are many talented HT minds on this forum and we will do our best to help you out.

 

[scott*Johns]

Thanks Neil,
I have an intermittent problem with my surround sound system. I have an Apex player with digital optical outs. It doesn't have a DTS or Dolby Digital converter. It plugs into a Technics receiver with digital optical input and has both a DTS and Dolby Digital converter. The setup worked fine for a year. Now the sound cuts out randomly. I also connected the RCA jacks for analogue decoding with Dolby Pro Logic. This works fine. I returned the payer and got a new one. I watched one movie and everything seemed fine but, now after watching a couple more it cuts out all the time. What do you think might be wrong. Feel free to ask questions.
Thanks,
Scott

 

[Mike Matheson]

Scott,

It'd be good to try eliminating some of the variables in your situation. What cord are you actually using to connect the digital out on your Apex player to your receiver? Have you tried using a different cord? Have you tried connecting that cord to a different input jack on your receiver?

Hopefully with this kind of info we can begin to determine where the problem actually lies--in the cabling, the player, or the receiver.

Regards,

Mike

 

[scott*Johns]

Thanks for the quick reply Mike. I have a cheep cord I bought at Radio Shack. I have tried plugging the cord into different inputs on the receiver and had the same problem no matter which I plugged into. I think your right. I need to go to Radio Shack and get another cord to see if that's it. I'll try that tomorrow.
Thanks again for your input,
Scott

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Just so you Know Scott, this connection is not necessary and redundant. 2 Channel signal on DVD can also be carried by the digital connection- so you don't need to run a separate 2 channel analog connection just to get 2 channel material.

So step one, get rid of this connection, use only the digital connection- and make sure the receiver is set to sync to the digital input.

When you have these drop outs you should look to the face of the receiver and try to determine if your receiver is losing sync. There should be some indicator for digital signal, some sort of light or text that says it detected a digital audio feed and locked to it.

Sometimes when these drop outs occur, it's a digital sync loss-- or sometimes it's the amplifier stage failing for some reason.

I would double check your speaker connections, make sure that none of the leads are touching one another... and try to watch the receiver display to determine if the receiver is losing digital sync.

-Vince

 

[Neil Joseph]

I had this problem too (worked ok for 2 years with no dropouts) but since I am running both optical digital and coaxial digital, I switched to coaxial digital and had no further problems. I did not yet diagnose but if I were, I would recheck the fiber ends and light transmitters as well as making sure the cable is not looped too tightly (for starters). That is one of the reasons that I prefer the coaxial connection for being more robust.

 

[scott*Johns]

Thanks for all the help. I disconnected the coaxil and went with a new optical line last night and the problem seems to be solved, but it has been intermittent so only time will tell. When I had the problem the DTS, or Dolby Digital light would go off on the receiver for a second with no sound.
Thanks Again,
Scott
PS I'll let you know if this was a long term fix.