Making the "Bacon Race" Theater - Page 49

Err um... no it's behind the movie room and not finished yet. It's sort of my odd building materials storage space, instead of my alcohol storage space

It's Monday.

I'm tired.

Still don't have my subs and have been without a functional movie room since April!

Well, you were right! It didn't ship out on Friday. It did however ship out yesterday, and I finally got a tracking number. I cannot wait to get my theater put back together!

Got my subs back! Finally got them behind the screen and the screen re-mounted and went to calibrate and was having a hell of time. So the preface of this story is... when I sent my amps back to Axiom, not only did they resolve the problem, they updated the amps to the latest version with all of the other issues/firmware/upgrades of the most recent versions. Thus, the entire back panel was different than the previous version I used to have.... now back to the story.... I Kept seeing "Noise error .. " when I was doing the Audessey calibration... even though the room was dead silent. Turned out there is no longer a "direct" setting to let the AMP handle the frequency crossover, and I finally found where it said to turn the crossover to its highest setting. This solved the problem and the configuration went smoothly. All is well in the world and I am happy to have my theater back online!

We also filled the metal rods with sand! Good times!

Update:

Preface:
So, if you have read any details about my equipment setup, you might already know I purchased an Onkyo PR-SC5508 pre-amp. I previous was an owner of an integra DTC9.8. When I upgraded to this pre-amp, a few things I made sure it supported were: HDMI 1.4a switching, XLR outs, SUB1&2 XLR outs (which goes with Audessy 32 support usually). As I really liked the quality of my previous Integra unit, and that I had no issues with it from 2006-2011 I figured I'd go with Onkyo/Integra this time around. On researching, I noted that several people had issues with some compounds used in the build process that caused Oxidation, as well as a non-coductive adhesive which sometimes was sprayed everywhere on the main displayboard.

Event:
Last Thursday, I noticed that my remote wasn't working. So naturally I assumed my batteries died. I just used the front panel. On Friday, I replaced the batteries, and the remote still didn't work. My memory tugged at me and I revisited the "Official" Onkyo/Integra thread here at AVS and sure enough, the remote ceasing to operate was the precursor to random source-switching and other issues. Being quite comfortable with electronics and decades of building computers for fun, I had no issues opening up my pre-amp unit. Sure enough, the IDE ribbon cable and connectors were covered in oxidation. I went to my local radio shack and got some electronic cleaner spray and some deoxit and went to work. I didn't go the full 9 with the spray, since I didn't want to deal with removing all of the adhesive compound, but I did tackle the oxidation. After re-assembly, the amp powered up and the remote responded to commands. It did however go straight into Audessy setup mode. So I took it apart again and noticed there was still residue from the deoxit in the IDE connector so I cleaned it up again and tried again. Things seem to be back to normal. This is an issue officially addressed by Onkyo/Integra here:

http://www.us.onkyo.com/press_releases.cfm?id=215

So they will cover this issue no matter what, and I knew that beforehand, but I'd rather not wait 2-6 weeks to get my receiver back if I can take care of it with an hour of work. I'll keep an eye on this and see if there are any other symptoms. Looks like it took about 9 months for any issues to surface.

So after cleaning my unit everything seems to be operating normally again. Lets see how long this lasts. Not sure if I'm going to have to de-ox it every year or if I'll ship it in eventually for warranty. At least I had no downtime!

I spoke too soon. Looks like it didn't last very long at all. The remote operation varies day by day. Either it works or it doesn't. But now I have the continuous audio-switching, which is a deal-breaker. I will have to ship it out to get it repaired. I hate having my movie room offline!

Definitely. Though Onkyo is shipping me a box/shipping labels to have it serviced, the downtime will suck. Looks like I was also having an HDMI handshake issue with my dedicated video card in my HTPC. The listening mode doesn't appear to auto-switch with my HTPC's motherboard HDMI out. I tested several movies without any issues after popping out the video card and no problems so far. I would have never even noticed if I had not been testing out some blu rays without noticing any problems. So maybe my cleaning did help after all.

Still, it will have to be serviced sooner or later, so I may as well bite the bullet now.

This is really the only picture I have. I haven't really finished it at all. The room looks almost no different now, but I did put the outlet plates on. (Execept with a full rack and cluttered stuff on the floor) The floor and walls remain unfinished.



I think I use 3 20 Amp circuits total. One for the rack, one for the lighting, and one for the outlets in the theater (Which the subs use) That's it. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that is burried in the thread somewhere My projector goes through an inlet plug and goes into my rack circuit as well. Everything in the rack is fed through a power conditioner. I dont think I've seen the total amps go past 3 on it though. Makes me wonder if it is correct, since it has the pre-amp, projector, 7 channel amp, etc plugged into it.