A weeks ago I noticed that the Cinema Amp wasn’t outputting sound correctly. I managed to figure out what was causing the issue, I had turned on HDMI control to make it easier to turn the whole system on but that changed the sound field settings. While it might now take three separate buttons to turn the TV on and hear stuff it now all works as it should.
Except for the Surround Back Left speaker.
SBL speak is quiet. It’s not the speaker. It could be the wires? Next weekend I’ll be re-wiring the lounge. Only 9 speakers.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 7, 2018
In the room there are nine speakers. These cover the following:
- Centre
- Left and Right
- Surround Left and Right
- Surround Back Left and Right
- Passive sub fed through the main L and R channels
- Active Sub fed by it’s own low freq channel
While playing Gran Turismo Sport, which is rather more than a hobby for me, I noticed that the sound output from the Surround Back Left wasn’t as loud as it should be. Even by changing the channel levels I couldn’t get the sound up to a decent level. SBR was on -5dB and SBL was on +5dB but this didn’t work. It is also a rather unsatisfactory solution.
I have had a few bits of work done in the AV corner. There was a new electricity meter installed and something might have happened when that was fitted. Also, the speaker wires to just the SBL and SBR were reasonably poor quality. Swapping the speakers confirmed that it wasn’t the speakers that were playing up. So I had to face it that either the wires were bad or the amplifier was broken somehow. The cheapest of these to investigate is the wires. While I was at it I decided to tidy up all the AV corner and give it a clean at the same time.
While out at Lakeside earlier today picking up some cakes I popped into Maplins which is slowly closing. I think they have gone in to administration but I did think I might find some cheap wire. I came out of the shop with plenty of wire for a very cheap price, about 10% of what it’s worth. I also bought a hard shelled case for use as my “Range Kit”.
When I got home I decided to fix the whole problem of the speaker. I knew this was going to take at least ninety minutes. Getting into AV corner isn’t the easiest and everything was going to come out.
So, all the kit was removed. Everything was dusted and then the two cables to SBR and SBL were replaced and connected to the correct ports on the amp. Once that was done the system was tested using the speaker test tone and to my (slight) surprise the whole system seemed to be working correctly and also, most importantly, SBL was working properly. I had fixed the system.
The above picture has the amp and ONLY the speakers, TV ARC connected and a line out to the Sonos system using the phono plugs. After this the 4 HDMIs needed to be connected along with the 8-port switch and networking cables.
Once it’s all in the cabling at the rear of AV Corner looks like the above picture. I know it’s not pretty but I don’t have access to the rear of the devices and so it’s all kinda chucked in and then left. If I could I would have a tower system and then very neatly wire the whole thing while looking directly at it.
Investigations done. If not speaker then next easiest test is wires. Bought new wires. Fitted them. Speaker all good. I’m quite happy.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 12, 2018
This communication is subtitled 1300 because this is communication is number 1300 that has been published. I’m proud. There are more to be completed, they are sitting there in draft form, I will get around to them one day soon.
