Test tone problem

I'm having a very strange problem with my receiver's test tones - I was hoping to get some help.

I have a Denon-AVR 1604 receiver set up with 5 speakers. I've been happily enjoying this system for 3 years with no problems. I recently moved - so everything was disconnected, packed up, moved and re-set up at my new place. Naturally, I ran through the receiver's test tones to properly adjust the speakers in my new room. Everything was fine except the front right main - the test tone started to play, then broke up, then went dead and randomly came in and out, ranging from loud to silent.

At first, I thought it was bad connection or bad cable. I re-connected fresh cable and made sure the contacts were good. Re-ran test tones - same problem. So, I figure it must be the speaker - I swapped the speaker out with a different speaker. Same problem with the newly connected speaker (connected to the front right main). Also, the 'original' speaker worked fine when connected to a different terminal (i.e. the rear right).

So, at this point, I figure it must be a bad connection/short in the front right main terminal of the receiver. But here's where it gets weird. Despite the in-and-out test tone, if I play a CD (digital source from the DVD player), everything out of the front right main sounds fine (as far as I can tell). Similarly, if I play from an analog source (phono), no problem at all - front right main sounds fine. However, if I go back to the receiver's menu and play a test tone, the front right main is a mess - it sounds like it's loosely connected and often doesn't sound at all.

What could possibly be going on here? Is there a situation in which the test tone could be busted but all other receiver output be fine? Is this something I should worry about if music (digital and analog) sounds good?

Any help offered would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks!
brad.

Oh, that others would go through such trouble before posting.

To confirm your worst fears, it yes, it does appear to be something internal to the receiver.

Now, the good news: Since everything else seems to work jake, it seems to be totally isolated to the test tones.

What to do?

Well, if you're a gambling man you could kerfutz around in there but I can't really tell you what to look for or what to do. All switching seems to be done electronically so looking for something physical might not work out too well.

Or, you could send it out and see what it would cost to repair. Have smelling salts ready when they give you an estimate.

But, if you're like me (a cheap klutz), I would be tempted to leave it alone and be thankful that everything else works. I believe you can pick up test DVD's that have test tones on them.

good luck...

I second MarkW's response. It is a defective test tone program in your receiver, fortunately not a defective channel in the receiver. If you happen to have a Star Wars DVD., you could certainly try using the THX Optimizer mode that has test tones or as MarkW suggests, get a set-up disc that has the tones.

A defective test-tone...are you f'n kidding me? :crazy:
Wow.

Griffon42: I have to applaud your troubleshooting steps. Good job!
Are you sure there's no side-effects during normal playback? It might be worthwhile to give that channel a workout all by itself with some music at a good volume, isolate that speaker and see if you haven't already. Sounds like you've been thorough, though.

This is just weird. To the more amplifier savvy people out there - any chance the test-tones on this model are a sign wave, which is somehow causing the amplifier some grief? Seems to me sign waves are a bit more troublesome for amps (I thought only at louder volumes) and if there's a lot of THD it could compound the problem quickly? Kind of odd that a bit of code written in the processor could become garbled?

Griffon, how did you manage to break a test tone?

Thanks for the input, folks.

As for how it "broke" - who knows? I suspect something may have happened during the move - I can't hear anything loose inside the receiver, but maybe something got banged up in there in transport. Though to be perfectly honest, this could very well have been a problem for months...it's been a long while since I've needed to run test tones, as I was pretty happy with the setup!

Kexodusc - I doubt it's a sine wave. Through the speakers the test tones sound like static or "white noise." I did try to focus only on that one channel with music - not a perfect test, but I dialed up that channel to max (+12db) and dialed every other channel down to min (-12db). It still sounded OK to me, though I didn't give it a very thorough workout. I'll try again tonight.

Kelsci - great suggestion on the Star Wars DVDs...I'll give it a go as soon as I'm off work.

Thanks again. I'll keep you posted on progress. Any other suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks again for all of the help.

After reconnecting everything, I ran some DVD test tones, which sounded fine. Strangely enough, I then went BACK to the receiver test tones which seemed completely OK. Very weird. I suspect that 'cold booting' the receiver (I unplugged it completely when I was reconnecting the speaker cables) may have somehow 'reset' the test tone issue.

Regardless, things sound great. I'm going to keep a close ear on things and make sure it stays that way.

A total reboot can cure many ills in these overgrown computers we call AV receivers.

The bad news is that now you'll always be wondering it it'll happen again...