First, the setup: ~20 yr old Sony STR-GX6ESII receiver 2 month old Klipsch RB-61 Bookshelf Speakers This receiver has has no trouble for 20 years. I recently purchased the Klipsch speakers, and connected them with ~10 guage speaker wire. Sounded fantastic, and I've been using them for a couple of months now. However, I recently hosted a party and had the receiver at near peak volume for about 20 minutes. The receiver got pretty hot (had great ventilation though), and then went began flashing "Protector". I've read about this problem, and feared I had caused internal damage in the receiver, because I can now only play sound at low volumes. As soon as the volume reaches about 20%, it shuts off into protected mode. I gave it a week to see if it would improve, and no change. So, I bought a new receiver, a Sony STR-DH100, expecting that to solve my problem. After I plugged it in and began increasing the volume, BAM, "Protect". So at this point I'm shocked that the receiver wasn't the problem. Sony's support site says "If the unit does not display PROTECT with the external components disconnected, one of the connected devices or speakers is causing this error. " So I bought some brand new speaker wire, cheap 18 guage. "Protected" again on both receivers. Finally, I plug in some very cheap boombox speakers with 20 guage or so wires, and everything seems to be fine: they're super loud on both receivers. So does that mean my klipsch speakers have some kind of short? They still work consistently at low volumes, so... Do I need to find a multimeter and do some tests? Or send them back to klipsch under the warranty? Or something I haven't thought of? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as my wallet's getting light
The speakers could possibly have a short. It's usually caused by a strand of speaker wire touching something it shouldn't, but since you changed wire and receivers, hopefully this isn't it either, since you should have found and fixed a stray wire. There's also the possibility that the Klipsch speakers are 4 ohm speakers (I didn't look them up), and the receiver is an 8 ohm receiver. This will cause a receiver to run hotter than usual, especially at high volumes. 4 ohm speakers require much more power to drive them, than 8 ohm speakers do. When a receiver starts getting too hot, it will go into "Protect" mode, and shut down, so you don't fry something. Good luck figuring it out. EDIT........ Ok, I just clicked on your link to the speakers, and see they are 8 ohm speakers. Since the problem has happened with two different receivers, but same speakers, I'd say it's the speakers, if it's not one of the speaker wires, as mentioned before. They must have a short in at least one of them. Disconnect one speaker, and test the system to see if it still goes into protect mode. If not, you know it's that speaker. If it still does, reconnect that speaker, and disconnect another one. Run the test again. Do this until it runs without going into protect mode. Once it runs without going into protect mode, whatever speaker is disconnected, is the problem. Then you can see about getting that speaker fixed or replaced.
Wow, thanks for the advice! I tested each speaker individually and found that one of them was causing the problem. The good speaker sounded fine on both receivers and had no trouble at full volume, while the bad speaker sounded strangely tinny with little to no bass, and caused the receiver to hum audibly when at low volumes right before going into protected mode. Looks like I'll be calling crutchfield now... Thanks again! EDIT: Just an update, I took the faulty speaker to the Crutchfield store and got it exchanged, now everything sounds great again!
