Surround sound popping at random times

TSR

Hey guys,

I've had a Home Theater In A Box (cheapo) surround sound system for about a year now. This morning, it started making popping noises at random intervals in the back-right channel. Every few minutes, there's a rather loud "bang", sometimes followed in quick succession by another. It's done this briefly before, but I thought I fixed the problem by making sure the receiver was getting enough air circulation (it feels pretty warm on top of the box after a couple hours of use.) The problem doesn't seem to be with any particular input - my 360, Wii, and PS2 will all cause it to do the same thing. It doesn't seem to be an issue with the connections either, since my 360 is linked to the receiver with an optical connection and the PS2 and Wii are plugged in via the stereo red and white cables.

Any ideas on what's causing the problem?

Rotting Meat

You didn't happen to recently reorganize your living room, did you? If the stereo wire to the speaker passes by an electric device, weird stuff can happen. I can't explain the underlying basis, but I know that our minifridged caused our rear speaker to crack loudly every time it turned on. *shrug* Sorry, all I got.

Improvolone

Replace the back right with your front right, to see if it's the location or the speaker.
If it's the speaker, well, it's the speaker.
If it's the location, it could be a couple things. It could be recieving some interferience from another device, so move it around the room a bit. It could be the speaker wire, so replace it with another that you have.

ViolentChemistry

Are you sure it's actually random and not associated with certain ranges of sound?

Improvolone

Either way, if it's only happening on one speaker there is an issue. If BOTH rears were doing it, it may be with the signal.

ViolentChemistry

Improvolone wrote: »

Either way, if it's only happening on one speaker there is an issue. If BOTH rears were doing it, it may be with the signal.

I'm not suggesting the signal is necessarily the problem. I'm more wondering if he's perhaps made the disturbingly popular mistake of jacking up his bass and playing explosions through it all day. This could simply be the speaker that went first. People define "popping" differently and there's a whole asstonne of different sounds messed-up speakers can make. All the Rice Crispies sounds can happen as a result of a speaker being fucked or more specifically receiving a signal to play a sound that it cannot play either by virtue of native limitations or wear.

TSR

Yeah, it's not associated with certain ranges of sound, nor does it only pop when it gets really loud. Upon closer examination, it's not just the rear-right that's popping, either, but all of them going at once.

I've played the system at very high volume before, but only briefly, so it seems unlikely that I would have damaged all the speakers simultaneously and that's what's causing the malfunction.

If it's the receiver, what can I do about this aside from looking for a replacement on Ebay? I think it bears mentioning that the popping only starts after the system has been on for a couple of hours.

Improvolone

How much did you spend on the system?

TSR

It was very cheap - for the 5 speakers, sub, and receiver I paid only $150.

Fizban140

It could be the wires too, I had a similar problem and everyone told me it was most likely the wires although it did turn out to be the speaker.

Improvolone

If it's happening everywhere... chances are it isn't the wires.

Short answer, if you've got $500, you can invest in a pretty damned decent HTiB that will give you signifigantly better quality.

Long answer.
Trouble shoot with new speakers and new sound sources going straight into the speakers.

The Black Hunter

Could be dust somewhere, thats what messed with my guitar.

They other guys are more likelt to be correct though.