I received the Epic 60-500 system in May of 2009. As far as playing - I never notice it dropping out all of a sudden. It is more that I am watching TV - either cable or Blu Ray and I will see something that should have had some LFE. I then go to the sub and check and it is not playing. I turn it off and back on and...voila - we now have bass. I initially set the crossover knob on the sub to the highest setting - I will double check that one of the kids has not messed with it. Thanks for that suggestion. I am reasonably sure that it is still at the highest setting. The crossover on the Yamaha is set at 80. I intitially thought that the 25' Monoprice cable (purchased with the idea of doing the crawl) was the problem. I replaced it with a 6' cable and still have the problem.
As for the always on - I don't think that I have that option but I will check when I get home.
When I pumped up the output +6 or +8 db on the volume - the bass was so heavy as to be unlistenable.
