Value Receiver

[TheBiggmann]

While hooking up my speakers today, I'm pretty sure the crappy outlets in my apartment blew out the receiver. I plugged it in and turned it on and it came on for a few seconds and then two of the input select buttons turned red and it shut off. Now it won't turn on at all. It's an older Harmon Kardon receiver, pretty sure it was a really nice one back in the day. What is a good receiver for a reasonable price? I'm running two Bose bookshelf speakers and a Sony SAW2500 Sub. It's gonna be used primarily to play music through, but I think the TV will also be hooked up to it as well.

 

[alkemyst]

There is a thread with blowouts on HK and other gear somewhere in the last week or two...

***EDIT*** http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2097245

Check out that thread.

 

[kornphlake]

do you have the speakers wired correctly, is there a short caused by a stray strand of cable at one of the speaker cable terminations? Do you have pins touching each other somewhere? Usually the power supply of an amplifier is built to smooth out power problems, I don't think the outlet would cause problems with an amp unless it was incorrectly wired for 240v or something.

If you disconnect everything from the back of the receiver will it power up and stay on?

 

[TheBiggmann]

Well, after looking at it for a while and being pissed it occurred to me there might be a fuse in it somewhere, which I found and replaced, and it worked. However, it did the same thing again last night. If I did have a wire touching somewhere would that be a potential reason the fuse is blowing or is that really the outlets?

 

[Anubis]

yes a crossed wire could cause it, id check there first. if you want Banana clips are pretty fing cheap if it turns out to be the issue

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=2

 

[Rifter]

yes a crossed wire could cause it, id check there first. if you want Banana clips are pretty fing cheap if it turns out to be the issue

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=2

yeah i use banana clips whenever possible, just makes things so much easier.

 

[Modelworks]

Well, after looking at it for a while and being pissed it occurred to me there might be a fuse in it somewhere, which I found and replaced, and it worked. However, it did the same thing again last night. If I did have a wire touching somewhere would that be a potential reason the fuse is blowing or is that really the outlets?

If it continues to blow a fuse then use a bright light and inspect around the heatsinks. Look for a clear piece of plastic or something that is working as an insulator between the output transistors/fets and where they mount on the heatsink. This is a big cause of blown fuses. When the unit heats up the insulator expands filling any void, but when it cools the void opens and so the user turns on a cold system and it shorts immediately blowing the fuse.

Also inspect any capacitors for bulging tops. The sniff test also works, electronics going bad has that certain odor you never forget.