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Left Front Channel died on my SR8001.....

S

STJr

New Member
Hello Everyone!

I'm brand new to the Forum and happy to have found you (I found this forum by doing internet searches for "marantz repair arizona").

As described in the topic line, the Left Front Channel on my SR8001 went south on me.....again. I had the same problem occur several years ago and had it repaired by a certified outfit in LA (my brother-in-law lives in LA....we were on our way to his place for Thanksgiving and dropped it off).

I noticed very little sound coming from the Left Front speaker, so I went into Speaker Level settings and checked all the channel levels with the built-in white noise generator. Sure enough, every channel was playing at the dB settings I originally set except for the Left Front. You could still hear it, but at a dB of about 1/3 of every other channel.

I live in Prescott, AZ and am hoping someone in the forum might know of a Marantz tech in Arizona I can take this beast to and get it fixed......again.

Sincerely,

STJr
 
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I didn't look but given the relatively high model number I'm thinking the odds are good it has pre amp outputs. On that presumption, perhaps you'd be better off getting a separate power amp to use for the front left and front right channels rather than another repair.

Of course, you'd first need to confirm it was a problem with the amplifier section rather than the preamp section/upstream bits.
 
Hello whoaru99....

I checked and yes....the AVR does have Pre-Outs for all the channels. Don't know how to "confirm its a amplifier problem" though.
 
Don't laugh.....I have an old Pioneer SA9100 amp. Its been in the closet for 20 some years......so hope it still works!
 
Well, there is some risk in just flipping the switch on a unit that hasn't been powered up in 20 years.
 
Well (I know.....deep subject :) ), assuming it fires up okay, and it does power the Left Front Channel, that would indicate an amplifier issue in the SR8001....right?

But I would consider the use of an external amplifier a temporary fix. My desire would be to get the SR8001 itself fixed.

I found an older post in this forum where there were/are Techs that work on Marantz?
 
If you get the left pre out going into the pioneer and you get normal sound out of that channel of the pioneer with the 8001 as the source, yes, that would indicate a problem in the amp section of the 8001.
 
I know what I'll be doing tomorrow! I'm thinking I'll fire up the SA9100 completely standalone first. And if everything seems okay, I'll connect to the SR8001 and the L/R front speakers.
 
Looks like the 9100 has pre out / power in jacks. You could take the front L/R of the marantz into the power in jacks on the pioneer. Just be sure to flip the adjacent switch to "separated". That way you'll be using the 9100 purely as an amplifier stage.
 
I'm so glad you mentioned that....I do recall a slide switch on the back of the amp. Though I've never had a reason to use that option.

But....as I'm keying this response, I just remembered (getting old sucks), I also have a Pioneer SPEC2 power amplifier! I suspect the SPEC2 won't help me here.
 
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I'll try the SA9100 first and use the SPEC2 as a fall back. Thanks for all your help whoaru99! I'll let everyone know how it goes....fingers crossed!
 
Okay Guys.....I'm not on drugs and I'm not hallucinating. Before doing any of the preamp stuff, I went back into Speaker Setup on the SR8001, then into Speaker Level.

I changed the Left Front speaker level to +10 dB; which was now producing a white noise level comparable to the Center Front and Right Fronr speakers.

I exited out of Set Up and played a Star Wars DVD and the Left Front speaker blaring.....as in really loud!

I went back into Set Up and reset/rebalanced all the speaker levels using a SPL meter. And.......everything is FINE! Surround sound is great!

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on what's going on here? I'm guessing my only recourse now is to wait for the AVR to fail again.

God I hate this!
 
Do you need any suggestions on what to do with that Pioneer Spec 2 amplifier, now that you don't really need it? You can PM me if you'd like to discuss.
 
STJr said:
Okay Guys.....I'm not on drugs and I'm not hallucinating. Before doing any of the preamp stuff, I went back into Speaker Setup on the SR8001, then into Speaker Level.

I changed the Left Front speaker level to +10 dB; which was now producing a white noise level comparable to the Center Front and Right Fronr speakers.

I exited out of Set Up and played a Star Wars DVD and the Left Front speaker blaring.....as in really loud!

I went back into Set Up and reset/rebalanced all the speaker levels using a SPL meter. And.......everything is FINE! Surround sound is great!

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on what's going on here? I'm guessing my only recourse now is to wait for the AVR to fail again.

God I hate this!
Click to expand...

Not a clue what may have happened.

Two schools of thought...
  1. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
  2. Screw around with it more until it is broke.
Any chance that moving it around has moved some other connection associated with the left front that may have caused low output?

You could try a factory reset to blow out any old cobwebs, set it up again from scratch, and keep your fingers crossed.

Other than that, who knows what may have happened. Unless you can turn on and turn off the problem at will, it's pretty hard to pin down the actual root cause.
 
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