Centre speaking dropping out

[Viperzs]

I'm having some issues with my surround sound at home.

It currently consists of a Yamaha amp, B&W centre, 2x fronts and 2x rears. Quite often the centre drops out and you can barely hear voices at all. This can sometimes be remedied by turning the volume way up and it'll kick in again, then keep working once you've turned the volume down.

It feels like it'll be a needle in a haystack issue to resolve, does anyone know if that's likely to be a speaker, wiring or amp issue?

[Griffith4ever]

Does the centre have 4 wiring posts / bi wire?

Mine does and when the treble connection got loose I had the same. Just the woofer runs and it sounds almost "off". Higher volume made a better connections.

One of the hf posts wasn't screwed down tight.

[Timothy Bucktu]

I think I'd be taking the amp apart and cleaning all the edge connections and flex cable connections. It's quite an involved job though! Also check for bulging capacitors, as certain Yamaha amps seems to suffer from this.

[Viperzs]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check the speaker wires first then might have a look inside the amp if that doesn't get me far.

[aquarianone]

My old Onkyo used to do that, I kind assumed it was on it's way out as it eventually started "crackling" jumping between different sources...

As a short term fix i just unplugged the centre, re-run the optimiser thingy and went with 4.1 and it actually didn't sound half bad.

So, worth a try if it's knackered until you get a new one / get it repaired...

[Viperzs]

The lesson learned here is don't post a question at work before you've actually had a look behind everything.

One of the cables was loose. Knobber.

[Nomme de Plum]

Viperzs said:

The lesson learned here is don't post a question at work before you've actually had a look behind everything.

One of the cables was loose. Knobber.

And Never EVER admit it on the internet.

One way or another many of us have been there.

HNY

[simon_harris]

Nomme de Plum said:

And Never EVER admit it on the internet.

One way or another many of us have been there.

HNY

if you are lucky some other idiot will come along and admit that he was running his rears wired in as surround for nearly 4 years without realising it until the room was reconfigured due to a new sofa and everything had to be re-wired to suit the new layout. (amp, TV and speakers all needed to be moved and new wiring to suit)

[Griffith4ever]

Viperzs said:

The lesson learned here is don't post a question at work before you've actually had a look behind everything.

One of the cables was loose. Knobber.

Aha! Can I get a gold star?