Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners 500 question / problem

I agree with cb above, in that the test tones should wake the sub. My receiver will output 10 pulses, and the sub is awake and firing fast enough to transmit seven of them. If the sub is physically turned on and the test tones are heard without an issue, there is no reason to believe this issue of not waking up is any fault of the receiver.

A work around obviously is to physically turn on and off the sub each time you watch TV, but obviously this is not ideal, especially on a new, expensive sub. Of course if there is any point in watching TV where there is no LFE for a while the sub may go to sleep anyway, and then you're back to square one.

Dan,
You have stated it correctly. I actually sent 2 emails to JC last night and one at the crack of dawn this morning - as I thought of facts that I had left out. The e-mail I sent this morning is the one where I indicated that the test tone failed to wake the sub.

I was sitting in a meeting a few moments ago when I got a call on my Blackberry that I did not recognize the number. A lot of times I will let those type calls go to Vmail - but the meeting was boring so I jumped up and grabbed the call. Glad I did - it was JC. Based on the facts, he agrees with your assessment and to your point in an earlier post, they are sending a new amp to replace mine. Again, the customer service reputation played a big factor in choosing Axiom - now I can attest first hand to the quality of that service........Rob

That is great to hear, so let's hope this solves it once and for all!

Back to square one is where it went last night. It was the first time that I was paying enough attention to isolate the drop out - either when I played the CD or that the Planet Earth signal was not strong enough. It was also the first time I was able to duplicate the drop out.

Another subtlety here is that I have all speakers set to small and crossing at 80 so when the sub drops out, I am missing bass as well as LFE.

Hopefully, the new amp will clear all this up.

Tracking number says my package should arrive tomorrow via Fed-EX. We still have a good deal of snow (for down here) on the ground and I live down a dirt road with a ski slope driveway and neither gets scraped. Last snow we had before Christmas, I get a call on my cell that I didn't recognize. When I answered, the woman said she was my Fed-Ex driver. I said "I dint know I had one?" She laughed and then refused to come down and deliver due to the snow. She offered to meet me - but I was at least 45 mins away. I finally got her to leave it in the mail box at the end of the paved road.

I don't think the amp is going to fit in the mail box - so this should get interesting. An update on the current amp. I got Modern Warfare for Xbox for Christmas. I began playing the other day and realized the sub was again silent......

Fed Ex finally delivered the amp - our dirt road is still covered in snow/ice and they refused to try to make the house. I had to call them, give them my number to give to the driver. He called and my wife went to the end of the pavement and picke it up. I installed it last night. I calibrated with the SPL meter and I put in Transformers 2. This time I set the receiver to +5 instead of +3 and adjusted with the volume knob on back. So far so good. I turned it off so the amp went to sleep and I tested with Modern Warfare Xbox. That game was not waking up the old amp consistently. After about 15 minutes I turned on the Xbox and the sub woke up right off. There are changes - no trim knob - no dedicated input / output jack. It has an adapter to the female XLR input that you plug the sub cable into. The adapter has a much snugger fit than the purple input / output jacks on the original. It also has a subsonic filter feature that the old one did not have.

Replacing is relatively easy but I had to take the woofer out to get the new wires connected. That made me a little nervous - only because I could see me getting butter fingers, slipping and puncturing the woofer - but all went well.

Glad to hear it sounds like things are resolved Rob.

Now if your amp is working properly you should be able to recalibrate the sub with your receiver at or around the 0 mark on the LFE channel. That'll just give you more room to adjust if you need during movies/music. I think the +5 was more of a workaround/test to get your old amp to wake up, but the new one should not need this set as high.

Just my 2 cents, but glad it's working for you.

I thought about that - the new instrux that they sent say that auto setup programs should be avoided. Even at +5, there is way more adjustment still available than I would ever use. I could probably go to +10 and still have plenty of play.....Rob

The problem isn't the adjustment range on the sub, but the voltage level on the output on the receiver. Too high a + (it varies from model to model), and you run the risk of clipping (that is, having the voltage hit the max and hold there) during large LFE events when the receiver is also turned up loud.

If '0' consistently turns on your sub, then it is the best setting.

Alright....I will dial back to 0 and recal tonight when I get home - assuming we don't lose power from the impending ice storm. Thanks for the advice.