Two weeks ago I was communicating with JC over a trouble I had with my EP500. Strange airy, flapping noises during intense scenes and I was convinced that the port was maybe loose or something as I could recreate a snapping noise by gently pressing up and down on the port with my hand inside it. JC had even given me an RMA number to ship the sub back to Axiom for inspection and repair.
Thanks Axiom.
It sat around all last week turned off while I was away. On Saturday my wife discovered the not-so-technical cause of all our troubles. Rather than retype I'll just copy in my long winded email to JC explaining what we found.
I hate to even post this but since I like to have fun with other people, only fair I give you some ammo to use on me....
Long post but if you skip to the pictures you can quickly see the culprit.
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Hi JC,
First of all, I want to thank you for all your patience. Especially after I tell you that I found the problem, very much by accident and it’s so UN-Technical, I’m pretty embarrassed to tell you what it is.
I returned home Friday from my travels and found the perfect box and foam corner pieces at work. We get dirt cheap shipping rates because we are always moving large electronic equipment around.
On Saturday, my wife and I attempted to get it settled into the box. I decided to remove the grill cover so I wouldn’t crush it when I lifted it. As I was explaining to my wife why it had to be returned, she actually took the time to put her head down to the floor and look inside the port. I had my hand in there but never actually looked directly in. That proved to be pretty dumb in hindsight.
This is a recreation of what she saw, since she removed it as soon as she saw it.
Here is the culprit, rescued.
Sharon tells me it was much further back than I placed it to take the ‘crime scene recreation’ picture. It must have been as I had my hand in there several times trying to figure out the clicking noise. At first, I still didn’t think it could have explained the louder clicking noises that occurred when things got loud or when you put pressure on the port, but the bear is a cat toy and it has very stiff Velcro pads on it’s back where you insert pouches of catnip into it. When you play around with it in your hands, you can get a fairly audible snap from the Velcro. It certainly doesn’t seem as loud as what I heard from the sub but I can’t recreate the noise in the sub anymore. I can only assume that the port shape made it louder or perhaps my paranoia has just finally subsided.
In any case, the sub is sounding great again. I have no idea how it got in there as I don’t run the sub with the grill off. I’m certain that I have never had the rill off for more than a few moments because although I have no kids, we have two active cats and a dog whose tail can be like Indiana Jones’s whip. I wouldn’t dare run any of my speakers on the floor without the grills for fear of the driver becoming a scratch pad or the center cone being smashed in from the dog’s tail.
It is the older cats favorite toy to throw around so maybe it flew in there sometime I had the grill open for something but I don’t remember having it open since last year sometime and I’m fairly sure I have seen the bear around the house since then. I have no kids and my nephews and niece are old enough they don’t play with toys like that anymore (I think). Niece is the youngest but she is more into trendy clothes and anything Hanna Montanna right now. Maybe it was a joke by one of my buddies but it seems an odd one.
Anyway, sorry for the long explanation but I’m very embarrassed that I couldn’t troubleshoot such a simple issue. I always tend to overcomplicate things. I think, perhaps, because simple solutions are rarely part of my job. I am glad that Sharon spotted it before I shipped it off to you. I can only imagine the talk around your work had one of your techs opened up the sub only to discover a tiny stuffed bear lodged in the port.
Thanks again for your patience. I’m off to buy some bear traps, the heck with bass traps.
Andrew
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