# Onkyo707 - Heard a loud POP, followed by a white spark



## wil11o6 (Jun 24, 2010)

Hello all,

I'm a little worried here. I woke up. Turned on my receiver then as I walking to turn on the lights, I heard a "POP", then I saw a large white flash of light in the middle of the room. Then I heard little pop pop pop spark noises from the receiver. I don't know why I saw the spark in the middle of the room, maybe because I just woke up and I have a mirror on the opposite end of the receiver.

Anyway, I unplugged my sub since it is still a couple day old and I went to smell to see if anything is burnt. Seemed okay. Turned it on at low volume first, gradually turned it up. Still okay. Everything seems to be fine. The receiver is still a couple weeks brand new, with ventilation on top.

Was I hearing and seeing things? Should I get ready to return it because it's soon to fail on me? I google'd this but no results. I did notice that before I went to bed, I touched the top of the receiver and it felt kinda tingly, like static charges going through my fingertips. I am on carpet, maybe I loaded it up with a charge before I went to sleep and when I turned it on, it shot out a static fireball?


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

That was most definitely an arc of some sort. A likely culprit could have been a stray wire from one of your speakers "leaning" too close to another. When you powered it up, it shorted, sparked, and the heat from the spark knocked the wire away from contact (or melted it, or both). 

I would double check your speaker connections on the receiver. If everything is working well, then it sounds like the protection circuit worked and the amp stage did not blow up on you.

Best of luck.


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## wil11o6 (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks for the quick response, I'll check now and get back.


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## wil11o6 (Jun 24, 2010)

Hmm...you are pretty good. Nothing is really melted or touching but I noticed after that initial loud spark, everytime I turn on my receiver, it makes a static pop noise. At first I thought it was the receiver, but it's actually coming from my center. I unplugged the center speaker, and it went away. Now I need to really take out everything to check the center speaker wire.


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

In that case, the short may not have been at the connection point. Look for a crimp or kink in the wire or maybe a place where it was pinched and the insulation tore a little.

If you have extra wire, try rewiring the center channel altogether and see if that makes it go away. At least then you have narrowed it down to the wire. If the problem persists, you may have damaged the center channel crossover or the amp channel. To confirm, try swapping speakers and see if the problem follows the physical speaker or which channel it is. That should also help isolate the problem.

Good luck.


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## wil11o6 (Jun 24, 2010)

Okay, so it appears the center channel does not work now. Every time I turn on my receiver, it makes a pop noise, and then no sound comes from center channel. I tried connecting my Right speaker to center channel and set at All channels mode, still no sound. Is this receiver dead? At least for the center channel :crying:


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Yeah, it might be. If the wiring looked clean it could have been something in the receiver chassis shorting and sparking. Might have been dropped in shipping. Rare, but not impossible.

The good news is that if you cannot exchange it, you can usually get them repaired. I have had two repairs done on my Marantz SR-18 and it is still working (now just as a preamp, but the amp section works).

In any case, test your wires and speakers again to make sure there are no shorts and that your center speaker works (plug it into the L or R channel). If it is wiring or a short in the speaker you don't want to harm another unit. If you don't already, I'd get a cheap Radio Shack multimeter. They all have a short beeper (if the leads touch or there is a short it beeps/buzzes). A good quick way to test if a wire is compromised.


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