Can a speaker problem cause the receiver to overload/switch off?

[Musashi]

My friend and I have been running some AV experiments in light of recent bugs.

Story thus far: During Rock Band, the receiver switched off suddenly. Retries caused the same. We were about to pack up the receiver for repair, but we tried a few things.

We put the front speakers in to my old receiver and during playback it would say 'Overload' and cut the sound, would power off and back on again. The next test was to disconnect one speaker and try to isolate the problem, we found the left speaker was weak and continued to cause the overload shut off but not the right. Then it was decided that it may have been a blown speaker. We reconnected my VSX94 (Pioneer) again without the left speaker and it withstood high volumes and had no shutoff issues as of yet. My friend, though, had an idea and checked the back of the left speaker that was causing this problem and noticed that the negative wire was touching the positive terminal, so he rewired the back of the left speaker so that the negative wire no longer touched the positive terminal. It sounds good again, and we're in the midst of testing Rock Band again. So far, so good.

It was concluded that the negative wire on the back of the speaker began touching the positive terminal after the speaker was moved to get an old device out of the cabinet next to the speaker.

All in all, sharing some knowledge, and curiously asking how speaker wire can affect the receiver.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by Musashi

It was concluded that the negative wire on the back of the speaker began touching the positive terminal after the speaker was moved to get an old device out of the cabinet next to the speaker.

All in all, sharing some knowledge, and curiously asking how speaker wire can affect the receiver.

If any of the positive/negative speaker wires are shorted out (touching each other), serious damage to the receiver can result. That's why your receiver shut down.

Other causes can be speakers with too low an ohm rating (4 ohms on an 8 ohm rated speaker, for example) where too much current is pulled from the receiver.

You should be OK now, but be very, very careful when wiring up the speakers.

[JimShaw]

I burnt out a Denon 3805 awhile back because I wired some speakers incorrectly through an amp to the receiver. Won't do that again.

[Big Daddy]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

If any of the positive/negative speaker wires are shorted out (touching each other), serious damage to the receiver can result. That's why your receiver shut down.

Other causes can be speakers with too low an ohm rating (4 ohms on an 8 ohm rated speaker, for example) where too much current is pulled from the receiver.

You should be OK now, but be very, very careful when wiring up the speakers.

+1

Check the wiring and Ohm rating of the speakers. Also, check the output Ohm rating of the receiver. Remember that impedance is not constant and varies quite a bit with frequency. Read Impedance and Sensitivity of a Speaker. It has a sticky under speaker discussion.

[Musashi]

Originally Posted by Big Daddy

+1

Check the wiring and Ohm rating of the speakers. Also, check the output Ohm rating of the receiver. Remember that impedance is not constant and varies quite a bit with frequency. Read Impedance and Sensitivity of a Speaker. It has a sticky under speaker discussion.

I think the Ohm ratings are compatible; I got all the parts in February and this was the first issue encountered.

I figured the shutoff was a safety measure to prevent serious damage from happening, hopefully our tests didn't inflict any. I'll read the sticky for general knowledge.