Relative Something

Amid all the clutter and junk on the internet, the social disasters and false information of the great technological curse of the century that we can’t live without, this week I was able to enjoy one of the gems that occasionally make life better for those in search of answers.

The overly complex Denon receiver for my home theater unexpectedly went silent one day. I sensed something was amiss right away upon power-up because the tell-tale click of relays engaging was absent. There are so many features that we aren’t utilizing, it’s difficult to know what buttons are even pertinent to my situation, let alone which one might have been inadvertently toggled.

It is so rare that I even look closely at the displays on that unit or the power distribution module beneath it that I couldn’t tell if something was lighting up different than usual. In fact, something I did find hinted at an over-current surge which was certainly believable given the stormy weather that transpired on Tuesday when no one was home.

I was prepared to deal with disconnecting everything and sending in the receiver for professional service, but not without spending a little quality time using my digital meter to step through rudimentary troubleshooting. The light on the sub-woofer was not coming on, so I started there.

Measured good voltage at the power plug, pulled the fuse and happily found that intact. Like magic, reconnecting everything brought the sub-woofer back to life. The power light came back on.

Next step, remove AC voltage to the receiver and let that sit for a few minutes. Not so lucky on the magical reset there.

The final step before finding a service center was to see what the manual offered. After spending more time than I wanted to waste in the manuals file in the den and not finding what I wanted, I went to the computer.

Before even downloading a manual for review, in the search for my unit, I included the words: “loss of audio out to speakers.”

Multiple forums with a variety of similar issues on Denon units appeared.

“The problem may be dust in the headphone jack.”

Really?

That was certainly something I could investigate myself. I grabbed a 1/4″ headphone plug and headed up the spiral stairs to the loft. After a very technical step of blowing into the headphone jack on the front of the receiver, I plugged in the phones.

Music!

The output amplifiers are not blown! I unplugged the jack and the room speakers came to life.

Imagine if I had taken the time to disconnect all the wires and pack up the unit to be shipped for service for that repair.

Thank you, internet. Thank you.

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