last night, I added banana plugs to my Axiom M22 and VP150. everything was working perfectly fine, until this morning when listening to music, suddently my receiver died! I actually seen some smoke come out :-(

My questions are: 1) Is there a chance my much loved axiom speakers do this? 2) I guess I will be getting another receiver (mine was bought from an online e-tailer and seems its not under warranty). Any recommenedations for a good 5.1 receiver ($300 or cheaper, I learned my lesson not to buy 'expensive' receivers) 3) What do you guys use?

TIA!

I don't think it would be possible for your Axioms to be responsible, it sounds like some type of electrical short.

Not sure the problem is with buying a more expensive receiver, the problem is buying from a credible seller. I'm sure if you would have purchased from an authorized dealer or authorized reburbished dealer, you would be covered.

To answer your question, no I find it very unlikely the speakers are to blame. The Denons will go into protection mode if any of your speakers wires of opposite polarities are touching, so in the event your banana plugs crossed paths, that would not normally burn up an AVR either. My guess is you probably got a lemon, sorry to say.

Sorry you learned this type of lesson, that really sucks. Actually it is probably the norm that more expensive receivers are built with higher quality than cheaper AVR's, not to say you can't find a good AVR in your budget.

If I was looking to spend $300 or less on a reciever, I'd go straight to ecost.com. You can really stretch your doller. I bought a denon 2900 there awhile back and have had no trouble. I'd think twice about spending $1k there but..

Is it possible a speaker lead is shorted? If a connection came loose and shorted itself that would explain things.

I've run my M22s on 3 different receivers by 3 different manufacturers. No problems of this sort has arisen in any of them.

I've been using Onkyo, from stereo in the last decade, century and millenium, to 5.1 and 7.1 in this current era with absolutely no problems of any kind.

I would have prefered to go the high priced route and get a fairly expensive unit with more power and more of the bells and whistles, but fear of the unknown took over and I avoided all of the on-line merchants.

Yeah,....I was scared.

I ended up going to the brick and morter stores that had the dudes(or, dudettes) with the smiling faces and outstretched arms at the return counter.

It may have backfired on me, cause even though I bought from them, my Onkyos' keep acting like little tanks and soldiering right along!

But....

.....no worries.

Thanks everyone for their replies. Although my receiver took a crap, I really don't feel that bad. Yah, I spend $520, but it was just an expensive lesson I learned.

Now, I guess I will go with something less. I guess I will go back and do research on receivers again :-)

Liitleb:
what reciever do you use?

I only need these inputs:
digital coxial (DVD)
digital tos link (xbox)
digital toslink (TV)

Thats all! Any recommenendations? Will a 3 input receiver (obvously cheaper) sound as good as a 6 input receiver?

I was under the impression, a receiver price is based on the number of inputs, alteast majority of the price...

TIA again!

Mag, condolences may be premature here. This possibly could be something as simple as a blown fuse, possibly arising out of a wiring problem with the banana plugs. At the least, you should consider repair for such an expensive item.

I'm inclined to agree with you John, he mentioned all was fine until he had recently installed the banana plugs, hmmm. I would hate to discard such a nice receiver if it was as simple as a blown fuse.

In reply to:

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I actually seen some smoke come out :-(

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Would this be the case if it were only a blown fuse?

A lady bug probably crawled inside and got zapped.

I would be suprised if it where only a fuse. I would at least get a price on how much it would cost to fix.

Hehehe...Thanks everyone!

I will first ask around to see if there are any repair people around here, and have them take a look at it.

You could check the manual/pamphlets that came with it, which list Denon repair locations, however, they might not look at it if you didn't buy it from an authorized etailer. Or if they do, it might cost some green. Is it still under warranty?

I bought it from an unauthorized denon dealer....so lets see what happens....

I may just goto a local electronics shop. I would probaly trust them more because I want to avoid the $30 shipping and $75 for Denon to even look at it...

Pulled the trigger on HK630 :-)

Congratulations!!!!

Hope that you really enjoy it.

Congrats, Let us know what you think of the HK when you get it setup.

A lot of happy H/K owners on this site.

Congrats on the purchase!