Receiver, DVD player, or other problem?

Hi everyone,

I am having trouble with my current stereo setup. Here's what I'm using:

- Denon AVR-5700 Receiver

- Pioneer Elite DV-05 DVD player connected to receiver via digital coax.

- Toshiba RPTV

- Paradigm studio reference 40s (v2) and Active Servo-15a subwoofer


After playing 2-ch music for a while (minimally 30 minutes) my system goes haywire (during ~1 out of 4 listening sessions). By haywire, I mean the following things could possibly occur:

- The music speeds up and slows down at random intervals (sounds like someone is hitting FF and RW). Once the system starts misbehaving, it does not recover. (i.e. I have to stop the DVD player and restart it).

- The music totally cuts off. No 'bad' sounds (thumps, etc.) occur before this.


I have also experienced these phenomena using a Toshiba 2108 and Toslink interconnect. I've also tried the Toslink on the Pioneer player as well (got similar results as well).


The skipping has occurred using pristine CDs during soft passages of music (so I am ruling out vibration and poor media as the culprits). I have never had a problem with DD or DTS sources (only 2-Ch digital PCM). However, I’ve only experienced the problem 7 times (so I may just be lucky that it didn’t happen during a movie).


What could the problem be? My dealer told me that it is a power issue (i.e. very noisy power entering the home). The DVD transport is plugged into the same circuit as the receiver, TV, subwoofer, and TV tuner. I only experience problems with 2-CH music (i.e. 2-Ch analog inputs like the TV tuner have not exhibited problems).


Since both DVD transports have exhibited the same behavior, I doubt that they are the problem. I am thinking that the problem could be two things:


1) Noisy power and brownouts, causing the transport to send garbled signals to the receiver.

2) The receiver is damaged (i.e. the PCM decoding section has trouble).

3) Some component is polluting the power.


If it is a power issue, will a line conditioner solve the problem? I know that is should fix the noise, but will it be able to supply 120V even though the power has dipped significantly below that level? (i.e. brownout conditions). If it can’t, what solutions do you recommend?


I would think that if the PCM digital decoding section of the receiver was damaged, then it would not work at all. Is this a logical assumption?



Any other suggestions or potential solutions? Thanks in advance for your help….


Greg

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