Arcam AVR350 Front Right Speaker Issue

[johnrtaylor]

My AVR350 has started to play up in the past few days. The AVR350 is set to bi-amp the front spekaers. On occassions, especially on the first power up of the day I lose the front right speaker. The volume is very faint and if I send a test tone to the speaker the volume is very, very low. If I the turn the 350 off and on the volume comes back.

The front speakers are Spendor S5e's.

This is a very intermittent fault, but I was wondering if anybody has had the problem, or new if it was a common fault.

BTW I have checked all cables for shorts.

 

[dun_buyin]

Have you checked to see if it does this without the bi-amp option set? Sounds like a fault has developed though if all was working fine and now it doesn't. Probably still under warranty so get it checked asap.

 

[rover123]

My AVR350 has started to play up in the past few days. The AVR350 is set to bi-amp the front spekaers. On occassions, especially on the first power up of the day I lose the front right speaker. The volume is very faint and if I send a test tone to the speaker the volume is very, very low. If I the turn the 350 off and on the volume comes back.

The front speakers are Spendor S5e's.

This is a very intermittent fault, but I was wondering if anybody has had the problem, or new if it was a common fault.

BTW I have checked all cables for shorts.

Hi johnrtaylor,

I am seeing a very similar intermittant problem on my AVR-300 (6 months old). I have the fronts bi-wired and occasionally I get the front right low frequency speaker cutting out. Turning the amp on & off a few times does seem to clear this fault.

I would be interested to hear if you have resolved your problem & if any other Arcam owners have had similar experiences.

Best Regards
Dave

 

[gadio]

I had an AVR 300 that I bi-amped with maggies (1.6s) and had the same problem. I would loose the 7th channel periodicaly. It was driving the high range on my right speaker. If I switched cables around it stayed with that channel. Returned it to Arcam through my dealer and they upgraded firmwarre and gave some vague 'troubleshooting' info and sent it back. 2 days after incorperating it back into my system I started getting the same issue. After having been without the amp for 3 weeks already I told my dealer I wasn't comfortable with returning it again. I offered to pay the difference for an AVR 350 upgrade and my dealer arranged that (great people at House of Stereo in Jacksonville Fl). Since then I haven't looked back. No audio issues just minor hdmi issues with my cable box (get an occasional green screen through hdmi imput). Audio imaging is amazing.

 

[TopMeTom]

Darndest thing just happened to mine...350...Front right speaker...

Reconnected my M&K S85's for maximum output, recalibrate with spl, the front right is waaay to loud??

My front left and centre are set on +04 in the menu I have had to turn the front right to -07?????
What is all that is about?
If this amp's gone wrong that's it I'm finished with integrated's!!!!


HHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPP

 

[TopMeTom]

HMMMMMMM I have swapped speakers around and the front right is waaaay to loud, will try it back on normal on my s85's.....

Any ideas people??

Edit, put the s85's back to normal setting and now can't get the left to reach 75 on the spl meter????????

Mad, I seem to recall a problem trying to get the speakers to reach 75 on the spl when i first got the 350, wondering if my s85's are dud??

 

[Crustyloafer]

Have you tried doing a factory reset, it might help to eliminate a slight glitch like this.

 

[TopMeTom]

Quick Crusty how do I do that?

 

[Crustyloafer]

How to perform a factory reset

Press the front panel buttons <FM MUTE> & <PRESET/TUNE> simultaneously.

Press the front panel button <OK> you will then see <Resetting> displayed, the unit will return to normal use, a power cycle of the unit is not necessary.

Please note: This function will overwrite all previously store set-ups.

 

[TopMeTom]

Thanks for that Crusty, Still can't get the front left to reach 75 on the spl......edit: I realise that I set the levels with avia....doh! jobs a good 'un!

Need to test some other speakers....

 

[jkharmer]

Hi guys,

I have just run a test pattern on my 1 month old AVR300. All speakers seem to be OK except for the back right which oscillates between being too loud and too quiet. It appears to be a slow build up and then ramp down. The test pattern seems to crackle somewhat as well on this single speaker. I have swapped speakers but it still remains with the back right channel output. Wiring is not an issue.

HELP!!

Only jst got my blackout curtains in as well so am well frustrated. I really hope I do not have to send it back for repair.

James

 

[johnrtaylor]

I have swapped the front speakers and replaced the speaker cable the problem still persists, it is the seventh channel that fails. I have now tried Crusty's reset and will monitor over the next few days. If that fails it's bacl to Sevenoaks, the only problem is my local branch closed so it's long trek to the nearest store.

Edit problem atill exists after factory reset.

 

[jkharmer]

Hi John,

Just to keep you posted on my situation. Took it to back to Sevenoaks in Manchester on Saturday. They are testing it on Monday and will be sending it on to Arcam if they replicate the problem. Sevenoaks said they have not heard of this happening before - but judging buy the number of comments on this forum, I am not so sure ..... I had to pay £300 returnable deposit to borrow a Pioneer 2016 amp. This is absolute dross compared to the Arcam. Hope it comes back to me soon!

James

James

 

[johnrtaylor]

Took mine back to Sevenoaks in Bromley today, hopefully Arcam will fix it asap. Not sure why they charged you a £300.00 deposit, I was loaned Denon AVR2807 without a deposit.

 

[jkharmer]

Yes I know what you mean - as if I am going to run off with the pioneer and leave the Arcam behind!!

 

[johnrtaylor]

My 350 should be back next week, Arcam say they have replaced diodes, a heatsink and updated the firmware. They say as it an unusual fault they have done some heavy testing on it and it now seems ok. Not to sure about the unusual fault bit!!

 

[johnrtaylor]

The arcam is back, but so is the fault. Right speaker bass channel on biamp not working on initial power up, turn off and on again and it works.

JK did they get yours working?

 

[BinBash]

I've just hit this exact issue!

I'm bi-amping my fronts, with treble on channels 6+7. I lost channel 6 yesterday, so I took the amp out of my cabinet today to test it properly. It all worked fine first time... put it back in the cab only to have it cut out again, although power off/on has fixed it now.

I'd like to avoid sending it back to Arcam based on the above posts (plus the cost as its out of warranty). I'd appreciate if anyone knows if root-cause was established for this fault?

 

[johnrtaylor]

No it was never fixed, it went back to Arcam twice and both times came back with NFF. 3 months ago the DSP circuitry blew up and it would only play stereo through analogue inputs. I gave up as the warranty had expired. One important lesson learnt I will never by Arcam again.

 

[MikeW57]

Hi my AVR350 is at Arcam being looked at for this very issue. I swapped cables, speakers from side to side etc.

I even used an old pioneer AX5i which had no problem bi-amped.

Arcam suggestted updating the firmware, which i did, but the right front channel was still low / faint. So it's with them for extended testing at the moment.

 

[BinBash]

I need to test this more scientifically, but after some re-cabling and tinkering I have hopefully managed to get rid of this issue. It hasn't reoccured for a couple of weeks now, and I was seeing it daily before...

Wondering whether this was a f/w issue, I had been playing with the Surround EX settings. I made the assumption that bugs are less likely when using majority default values ("happy path" tested?). I had it set to "Manual" previously, but I've since left it on "Auto PLII EX" everything has been fine.

As I'm not going to get a chance to test this evening (X-Factor) but I'm curious which setting others are using for Surround EX?

Forgive me if this turns out to be a wild stab in the dark

 

[MikeW57]

Ok got my AVR 350 back from Arcam. They had it on extended testing for ages and found no problem. However when the unit went back to the Arcam support team they confirmed the problem exsisted..... So the upshot is they re-placed the the main pcb boards entirely, and upgraded it to the lastest software.

I have had it up and running fairly hard for two weeks now, without any sign of an issue.

So a happy ending for me. and a big thank you to Arcam.