Help, my brand new Peachtree Nova died

Just bought a Peachtree Nova and some new Monster cables (15' M series) to replace my aged Marantz SR5000 in our new apartment.

Speakers are Mordaunt-Short MS902 (4-8 ohms), 10 years old.

I connected everything together, ran the system for a day and everything sounded great. The next day I turned it on and ran it for about 10 minutes before it suddenly turned off. No lights on, nothing. It wouldn't turn back on.

I unplugged the speakers and the inputs but it still wouldn't turn on but the fuse was intact.

I disconnected everything, assuming that it was a faulty machine and went back to my old Marantz. A week later, while playing music at high volume, the Marantz went into protect mode. Even with everything unplugged it refuses to work now too, it just says "protect".

The speakers and the Marantz were bought together and have worked for about 10 years. Only two things have changed. The location (we moved into a new apt) and the Monster cable, I was using a heavy gauge cable before but without any ends on it.

Any ideas why this happened?

Is it an impedance thing or a power supply thing? The peachtree is a 6 ohm amp, the speakers are 4-8 ohm but the Marantz has been driving them fine for 10 years and it's an 8 ohm amp.

Could the Monster Cables have killed both amps?

The surge protector I use didn't indicate a surge and the other devices connected to it are fine.

Thanks for any help.

Have you tried pluging the Peachtree into an outlet anywhere else, just to rule out the surge protector? Maybe a problem with the circuit breaker that feeds that outlet.

The main question I would ask is are the speakers sounding fine when the amps are working? Sometimes speakers crossover components can malfunction and cause a short in the line which will cause this. Usually it is not both speakers at the same time but I have seen it happen before and with both amplifiers doing it I would think that the only other common besides the supply power would be the speakers.

check the fuses in the marantz (if there are any)...

Bigger cables could raise capacitance, and lower resistance, though this is only a little difference, it could be a trigger for the amp to clip, at loud volumes, combined with low impedance. This could cause the amp to go in protection mode, possibly blow a fuse. worst case scenario it'll fry your amp, but this is in a really extreme situation...

Normally, though, a cable couldn't do this...

check for fuses in the nova too, could be the main fuse that blew...
as long as you haven't seen the magic blue smoke, it's still fixable :)


Keep them spinning,
Bert.

Thanks for the help. I had plugged both amps into another outlet and neither would work. The odd thing about the Marantz is that it won't come out of Protect mode even with nothing connected.

Good to know that it's unlikely to be the cables.

The speakers sounded fine to me but a short in the line from a bad crossover sounds like a potential cause. What's the best way to check this out?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fevenbach

The speakers sounded fine to me but a short in the line from a bad crossover sounds like a potential cause. What's the best way to check this out?

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do you have a multimeter?
measure your speakers, measure the resistance (ohm), in your case, you should get a result between 4 and 8 ohms, or something like that.

if you get 0 ohms, or a really low result (like 0,2 ohms, or something), you have a short. However, I disconnected and reconnected, I opened up speakers getting everything out, and in again, rewired them, disconnected and reconnected them again, and again and again. never had such a problem. a crossover doesn't just die. especially not both at the same time.

This may sound stupid, but check the wiring too, did you connect the cables right? (however, if you didn't and the wires touched each other somewhere, it would have shorted out much faster, and your amp would probably have been melted down by this time...)

Did you check the fuses?
and also, did your amp get unusually warm when it was (still) working?

about the marantz, the protect mode is handled by a relays, or a fuse (most likely not, but it's possible, check it to be sure), when doesn't come out of protect mode, either the relays don't come back to their normal position anymore, the fuses blew, or in a worser scenario, there is something else wrong in your amp, a cap that leaked, a transistor that broke, ... all symptoms of your amp being overstressed or overheated. You could check this yourself (get that multimeter out again..., or a leaking cap is pretty easy to spot...)

(I didn't rule out cables neither, it's just pretty unlikely, it happened though, but never had any personal experiences with it...)

Hope this helped...
Keep them spinning, (well, when you can...)
Bert.

The cables are not the cause. Bigger cables will have less resistance and be easier on your amp. Sounds like a short somewhere. As stated by Basite, check the fuses.

I did some checking on the internet and this seems to be a relatively common problem with the Marantz SR5000. Some people have said it occurred due to voltage oscillations among various other causes. It seems that you will have to send it in to be repaired based on other peoples comments.

Hopefully its just a fuse with the Peach Tree. If its still under warranty, I would just tell them it stopped working and send it in.

It your speakers are not the cause then you may want to buy a good voltage regulator and surge supressor.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the help. I'm going to pick up a multimeter tomorrow and check out the speakers. I have a feeling it's them.

The Peachtree's fuse was intact and the Marantz has, honestly, had problems since day one but has bee running smoothly for about 5 years now.

I'll post results as soon as I have a reading on the speakers and a better sense of what might have happened.

thanks again.

I tested the speakers and they came back at 5.4 ohms each. I'm guessing that the issue is then around power supply. However, the fuse on the Peachtree was intact and I'm not knowledgeable enough to locate and test the Marantz relay without a guide.

I guess it's possible that this was a random fluke with an unlucky Peachtree and an old Marantz both succumbing at nearly the same time but my bet is power.

Any recommendations on a power conditioner?

I would buy this APC http://www.apc.com/products/apcav/pr...ase_sku=H15BLK

You get surge suppression, voltage reugulation and filtering. It's on my short list to buy.

Amazon has it on sale for $279.

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_33p4lhfiad_e

Here's a good review on the APC unit I posted above.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/p...ioners/apc-h15