Please HELP!!!

dplumlee81

I have 2 Polk RT20P tower speakers. I have a Harman/Kardon AVR1650. The H/K is brand new. I hooked both speakers up and it was working perfect. Then the receiver shuts off and wouldn't come back on. Went into protect mode. I unhooked the speakers and it turned back on no problem. So I hooked up one speaker and it works fine. Tried hooking up the other and it shuts off again. I hooked them up individually to make sure each speaker was still functioning. They both are fine. So basically if I have one hooked up, the receiver works, if I try hooking both up, the receiver shuts off. I bought new speaker wire (12 gauge) and a new surge protector. Any suggestions?

treitz3

Hello, dplumlee81 and let me first say welcome to the forum. It looks like you have both an 8 ohm AVR and an 8ohm speaker, so no issues there. The sensitivity of the Polk RT20P is 89Db which leads me to this question. How loud were you playing the system when the AVR went into protect mode and more importantly, what else do you have hooked up to it? In other words, how many speakers is the HK powering at once?

Tom

dplumlee81

Thanks,
I had the AVR up to 25DB (or -25DB) I'm not too technical on this. It was at an optimal level to get the full benefit of sound from the RT20p's. But what's the point of having nice speakers if I can't turn them up? Even if I had them both hooked up and the sound was low, it still shut off. This same thing happened with my previous receiver, a Denon 1312, so I went and bought a new receiver thinking my Denon was fried or couldn't handle the speakers. But like I said, I hook up the left or right individually and the speaker works. The only other thing hooked to the AVR is a center channel Sony speaker. Its a basic center speaker, base model with nothing fancy. Its hooked to the proper "center channel" inputs on the receiver...

dplumlee81

Should I change the crossover frequencies on the receiver to match those of the speakers? I thought the receiver did this automatically. Guess that's all I have at this point.

Jhayman

So the speakers are causing auto protect to engage on both receivers when both speakers are hooked up but only one hooked up and no issue?
Have you unhooked the Sony just for testing purposes?

dplumlee81

You are correct. If I hook up either the left or right speaker to the unit, it works fine. The Sony center speaker works with or without the tower speakers hooked up. I have not unhooked the Sony center speaker yet and tried. But its just a basic center channel speaker. No extra mids/sub or anything.

treitz3

Given that we do not know the ohm rating of the Sony center channel speaker, try what Jhayman has suggested. Take the center channel out of the loop and report back with what happens.

Tom

tonyb

I might also add, that if your using bare wire connections, make sure that when you hook up that second speaker none of the wire is touching the other posts for the other speaker....or on the back of the speaker too, make sure both positive and negative wires do not touch. That would create a short sending the receiver into protect mode. Also, make sure your hooking up speakers with the receiver off. If you have one hooked up and it plays fine then try and hook up another speaker with the receiver on, that too will send it into protect mode.

Jhayman

tonyb wrote: »

I might also add, that if your using bare wire connections, make sure that when you hook up that second speaker none of the wire is touching the other posts for the other speaker....or on the back of the speaker too, make sure both positive and negative wires do not touch. That would create a short sending the receiver into protect mode. Also, make sure your hooking up speakers with the receiver off. If you have one hooked up and it plays fine then try and hook up another speaker with the receiver on, that too will send it into protect mode.

I like that bare wire through the binding post if it's not twisted together will certainly make it look like 2 Chia Pets fighting..
Which would cause the short..
If he has disconnected the Sony and it still happens with 2 different receivers, what could cause this inside a Speaker?
Binding post behind the plate loose wire touching, Xover?

tonyb

A loose wire anywhere can do it. If his connections are up to snuff, then I'd start looking at the speakers which I assume he bought used. Possibly a short within the plate amps on the 2000p's or a loose wire somewhere. You'd have to pull the back plate off to see whats what and make sure everything is firmly connected.
Also, since he said one speaker works fine, switch speakers one at a time to see if the problem follows one speaker. If not, then double check those connections.

If a plate amp isn't working, I doubt it would send a receiver into protect mode. He could also leave them unplugged and see if that changes anything. At least narrow it down some. Always check the basics first however as they are the most overlooked.

dplumlee81

Each speaker works if when they are hooked up individually. So the speakers are not shorted or having issues. All speaker wire is hooked properly with nothing touching or any excess hanging out. I even checked the inside of the speakers to see if a wire was bent or exposed and everything looks new.

After all that, I went back last night and changed the crossover settings on the receiver. They were defaulted at 100hz and after reading about using tower speakers with no surround, I lowered the frequency setting. Once I did that, I hooked them both up as normal and it worked fine all night. Granted I was just using playing my DVR cable box, but the they both worked and the receiver didn't shut off. I'll try listening to continuous music today and a good level and see what it does. At least it worked with the cable this time. It wasn't even doing that before.

tonyb

If your setting was too high and you were pushing the volume knob, then that could very well be the case. If you have no subwoofer in the mix, then this shouldn't be an issue but....first things first.

Did you set up the receiver when you bought it ? You must do this as todays are not plug and play like receivers of old. Set speakers to large or small, with subwoofer or without. This is important. You must tell the receiver certain things and tell it at every input too and how each source is connected.

dplumlee81

Well those particular Polk towers have the built in subwoofer. But they all work fine. I did set up the receiver but not the crossover frequencies at first. Then when I went back last night, I changed the speaker settings over to large instead of an actual frequency number. This is what a lot of the forums I read said to do.

Hopefully this all works out. I was just concerned because I had gone through two receivers shutting off. Thanks for the help.

HTguru1982

How have you hooked the receiver up to the speakers? I've heard of people running two sets of wire to both the bottom and top terminals without removing the jumpers and that can cause problems.

Goldenboy72206

Why wont you just buy some amps and power up so your amp wont go to shut down mode

custopper30

You could do what goldenboy has said, but that is when you need to gain more power to power other speakers. As of right now, I would say you are safe. Fool around till you get the settings to what you like most and still works. Best of luck!