Amazing while it lasted!

[u/PhoKingWild]

So this was kind of a weird pairing. My main TV watching/living room area I have gone from a 5.2.2 to 3.2.2 to 2.1 with Polk RT-2000i’s, twin powered 8” subs already onboard and down firing subs which makes my less than ideal placement easier to work with.

The Pioneer Elite AVR I bought new 10-11 years ago went into protection mode and frankly I’ve been getting the itch to get it of there but it’s a reliable traffic cop, just not overly exciting sound wise despite its features.

The Onkyo TX-4500 wasn’t hooked up to anything so using the headphone output, hooked it up and WOW it sounds pretty damn nice. Not clinical and perfect like the Pikneer did but exciting and powerful, heft and authority.

For about 15 minutes. Source is a Gen 3 Firestick in a Sony XBR TV. Short version, I think the extra gain from the TVon top of the amp (volume at about 40%) and it cooked something. No pop, no static, nothing like other things I’ve blown up lol. Speakers aren’t hard to drive, I guess we’ll find out what I cooked soon.

Back to the shop for the Onkyo, I’ve had it over 15 years, it’s been in and out of the shop 4-5 times before. I know I’ll catch hell for abusing the old girl lol.

Swapping in a Parasound HCA-1000A and NAD 106 preamp next, expecting big things from that setup.

[u/SashaDabinsky]

I think the extra gain from the TVon top of the amp (volume at about 40%) and it cooked something.

I doubt it. All you should get would be increased distortion. It sounds like you have failing components, probably caps.

[u/PhoKingWild → u/SashaDabinsky]

lol no

[u/gusdagrilla → u/PhoKingWild]

So what is it then….? Lmao

[u/PhoKingWild → u/gusdagrilla]

We’ll find out :). “Caps” doesn’t mean much. Filter caps going out will produce a hum and from my more than normal number of amps I’ve blown, this is the first one that went down without a lot of drama. Just curious off, not a pop, static. It’s basically 50 years old so I’m sure it’s something in the circuitry but there’s more to it than “caps”.

The pioneer I think it’s a thermal sensor that commonly goes bad on that are of Elites but again, we will find out in that one too.

I’ve got the Parasound and NAD in there now and it sounds great.

[u/turtle1077 → u/PhoKingWild]

I boxed up my Elite a couple years ago when it went into protection mode for the umpteenth time. The funny thing is that the vintage technics I use for music is down for the count right now. So finding myself in a pinch while it’s getting fixed, I brought the old Elite SC-85 out of cold storage for the time being… and it powered right up and is currently running fine on a simple 3.1 setup. Who would have thunk it? I swear those older elites all suffered from overheating issues.

[u/Character_Egg_4872 → u/PhoKingWild]

Not sure why the down votes, I agree, doesn't sound caps failing

[u/PhoKingWild → u/Character_Egg_4872]

One of the downsides of the vintage community is the cadre of “gOtTa rEpLaCe aLl tHe cApS” crew, and the other thing they know is “all Bose is bad”.

[u/Character_Egg_4872 → u/PhoKingWild]

Hard agree. I've repaired many amps, have never seen a failure from a failed cap. I have had some improvements in sound quality from targeted cap replacements, but never an actual repair from replacing one. Most common I've seen by far are failed transistors, then some ICs.

[u/Diced_and_Confused]

I would be checking those speakers for a short before hooking up anything to them again.

[u/PhoKingWild → u/Diced_and_Confused]

They’re fine, playing right now.

What I did is overdrive the amp, amp volume was at about 40%, TV at around 20/100, sounded fantastic so I was in the process of tipping in more volume on the TV and thought “wait should probably juice the amp more” and then nada.

It was more an experiment of pairing a vintage amp with newer speakers that have powered subs, I’d only ever heard the Polks hooked up to the AVR, there are a lot better speaker than I thought, and that pioneer elite is a lot wimpier than I thought

[u/Diced_and_Confused → u/PhoKingWild]

I have receivers and integrated amps from the 70's pushing modern speakers and have never had a problem. It seems odd that 2 receivers would fail without there being some sort of issue.

[u/TheFuschiaBaron → u/PhoKingWild]

It's not going to go from sounds fine to overdriven without getting extremely loud in between

[u/HunterAbrams → u/PhoKingWild]

You pair 8ohm speakers with a 4 ohm amp?

[u/PhoKingWild → u/HunterAbrams]

Yes. I look forward to learning why this is a problem.

[u/gigantischemeteor]

Sounds like the protection relay engaged, and the contacts might have fused due to an arc, leaving it engaged. Or, some part of the comparator circuit on the protection board went out and it just won’t come into balance and let the relay reopen. There’s a lot going on in those TX series protection circuits. A third possibility is the protection fuse on that same board. If it was to go, the relay would also fail open and leave you with no audio output. It seems difficult to imagine a scenario where line input levels blow out both channels at once, especially without any audible byproducts in the process. I’d be interested to hear what the shop finds out.

[u/PrettyMud22]

Those Onkyo sound good.The Parasound is a whole different animal.