Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Right surround shorts system

I am screwed. Yesterday I hooked up my QS-8 surround speaker. I had had them run speaker cables in-wall, and then along the floorboards, covered with floor mouldings and then painted over.

The left surround is fine. The right surround shorts the system and turns off the receiver whenever their is heavy right-surround info.

I KNOW it's the cable because I hooked the speaker up directly and it works fine. (with the patch cable so I know that's fine too).

I am screwed I think...my walls are conctrete and the onlyw ay they did this was by burrowing some place for the wire and plastering over it.

My only solutions:

1. Tear the wall open, re-run the wire, re-plaster, re-paint, and re-mould. VERY expensive.

2. Run a new wire to the floor, and then a visible wire will run along the floorboards.

3. Scrap the whole in-wall idea and get stands.

Damnit. I didn't test the wiring because my audio equipment wasn't there at the time they did this.

FYI the surround cas survive a "test" of the speakers via my Harman Kardon's test button but it sounds MUCH lower than the left surround.

Can't you use the existing wire to pull another run through the wall ?

It wasn't "pulled"...it was literally forced into the wall and then run along the floor...it's literally plastered in there.

If there is still some sound coming out it can't be a hard short or you wouldn't get any audio at the other end.

If you have a strand short (and a fire extinguisher) maybe you could burn out the strand but not the whole cable with a power supply or big battery...

OK folks, call to action. Does anyone on the board have access to a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) they could bring over to Saint's place to find out how far along the wire the short is ?

TDRs are great. We used to use them to find shorts in Triumph and MG dashboards.

I'd test it first with a simple ohm meter. You can buy a "cheap" one at Radio Shack for $10-20. I'd also check the connectors.

I like bridgman's idea of a time-domain reflectometer, but I suspect that you won't find many people with one.

Of course hindsight is ALWAYS 20-20. Those wires should have been checked before construction was finished. Oh well, live and learn.

The Rat.

I'd 2nd the ohm meter idea. Short one end and see what you get on the other. Good luck.

Nice rec on the TDR! Heck you'd think he's testing a CAT5 cable...

Actually that's a good point. Inexpensive TDRs started showing up a few years ago to help troubleshoot network cabling, maybe his chances of finding one are better than I thought...

I'd try it both open and short and see what the reading are.

Just a thought or two.

The Rat.