Went to the clients today, system was up and running, went thru some speaker adjustments after talking to Onkyo RZ support, after making the adjustments turned the system on and a quick flash of -69db and then off? Ok call Onkyo tech support for the RZ series and after removing all speaker wires do a full reset back to factory..nothing plugged into it mind you....three loud pops, and a lovely puff of smoke and the smell of burning board, while I'm on the phone with tech support and his response is: Eh, we get it all the time, no big deal you'll just have to send it to service in Cali...FML...so while I'm waiting I did remove the speakers and one thing I noticed that my guys didn't was the speaker wire was stapled with the non-insulated type, hard, and I could see from the condition of the wire housing they were all a little tweaked espcially the one on a tight 90, ugh.

My question now is I'm also suspecting I might have a wire nick somewhere, what is your go to method test the line to verify the wire integrity, anything other than the old stand-by of the voltmeter in anyone's toolbag?

That is all, I will now pour myself a beverage of the Irish Whiskey persuasion.....

Ok. my first clue should have been we the GC asked me if I knew what you called a crazy person with money? My response: Eccentric? Ding, ding, ding winner, winner chicken dinner.

So I specc'ed an Onkyo TX-NR1030, a basic 5.1 with Triad In-wall Silver's w/ a Triad Flexsub. Get the system installed program his MX990, runs really well. client seems happy, all is well.

Well when he gits to the drinkin, he likes his music LOUD!! He then proceeds to crank the volume to max, and of course clipping begins shut's down the amp trips the surge protector, and then have to reset, etc. I put a 10db reduction on the top end of the amp but it is still doing it when maxx'ed out.

I suggested we go with wireless headphones to solve the problem, but he can't wear them becuase it makes his ears ring, I'm not kidding...

Any thoughts or suggestions other than run?

Tell him you thought the system you put in for him would be loud enough, but he has shown you how loud he wants to play it, so you have just the thing for him. Then spec a bulletproof gonzo system.

That is, don't approach him with a problem (this isn't enough power), approach him with the solution.

Tell him that you're going to be able to give him some credit for the Onkyo, but not full credit, because in your discussions with him he did not give you any clue as to how much power he would really need, and you can't just return the receiver. Be sure you word this so that it's not just your fault, or it's not because you wanted to save a hundred bucks on the receiver, or whatever.

For some reason I've got the impression that people writing about Onkyo here are writing to ask for solutions to problems. People who write about Yamaha write to tell how good they are. So my first thing would have been to supply a Yamaha. But now he's given you the necessity of separate power amps, etc.

I've found, too, that systems that play stupid loud with very little distortion can be tolerated much better than lower power systems with distortion. This might be the source of his headphone problem: how loud are they supposed to be able to play?

That overseas system we put in was drawing 17 kVA during the skiing scenes of The Art of Flight, with its crazy bass, and we were standing there grinning like idiots because it sounded so good... at around 110 dB. The amazing thing was that my ears can't tolerate 100 dB from most systems, but that was okay and very clear.

Why not just set the Max vol lvl on the Onkyo to LOUD but not CLIPING and BLOWING LOUD?

cynic,
It's hard to know where clipping begins, especially if an iPad is used, unless you've got a scope or other clipping indicator on the amp while it's playing, which means hanging around and watching the guy drink. Besides, he's already pulled the amp back by 10 dB.

I vote for more powerful equipment, even if it's just taking preamp out of the Onkyo into a bank of Crown or other very powerful amps.

And at that point, be sure the speakers can handle the power!

The Onkyo has preamp outputs.

Why not go to commercial amplification, and commercial speakers that are designed to play that loud? The Triads will not be used in this case.

If spl is his primary concern, we can deliver more. Consider having him sign a waiver absolving you from hearing damage that will occur do to prolonged exposure to that type of spl.

My favorite supplier can, of course, hook you up.

Get him some JBL commercial speakers :)

At one point we had a doctor as a client. He was an over the top physical fitness nut. We took on his partially completed project after the previous installer went bankrupt. We stayed with the original equipment specified and completed the project. Almost immediately after he moved into the house we were receiving complaints of "not loud enough," he was blowing speaker fuses, and the system "didn't sound right." It was a constant battle. Fortunately for us, there was a divorce and he moved to another, smaller house. By now we were much smarter and had figured out the problem. What he wanted was the sound that is typical in fitness clubs. We used speakers that one would use in a club and, due to the much smaller room, we could get "loud" without much trouble.

For the system we are discussing on this thread, I think that a different approach is required. After a bunch of beers this customer has no common sense and must be protected from himself. For esthetic reasons the speakers will probably not be changed, but we can tinker with the equipment. I recommend replacing the Onkyo with a commercial amplifier and a processor, such as a dBx 1260. With a 1260 on the scene, you can set limits that the customer cannot tinker with from the front panel or remote controls. I use these to protect restaurant and bar systems from the overnight cleaning crew. One could continue to use the Onkyo as an input selector, but I prefer removing it because the customer or expert friend might accidentally or deliberately patch around the processor. The commercial equipment will likely intimate potential "fixers" and keep them at bay.

He needs pass a breathalyzer to turn on the system, just like you do for a car registered to a drunk.

When I used to do installs I had a client with 32 zones of audio on C4. We had speakers everywhere and 5 prs of rock speakers outside. They had blown a few speakers and I never really understood why they said they didnt crank it much. I ended up getting invited to a huge party they were having. They had every zone set to 100% volume. The next day I logged in and set the system up to slowly lower the volume back down. meaning once it hit 100 it would wait 30 seconds and set it to 99 then another 30 and 98 and then wait 1 min and 97 etc.. Over a 5 min period id get it back down to around 90%.. They never blew a speaker again and never noticed it turning back down.

Klipsch and non offshore amp. Problem solved. Sort of.

Triad makes nice speakers but they are wrong for this guy. He needs high SPL speakers and powerful amps. If he is ok with out of wall then JBL Commercial and Crown have you covered, call Fred. If he needs in-wall then your more limited. James has them that go up to 102db but they are large. There is also CAT if he has big money to spend.

All of these posts and nobody answered his questions.

A meter can be used, as long as each wire is referenced to the others, in case a staple pierced or sliced the insulation and it's causing a short. If you want to find out where the problem is located, you need a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer)- I bought one by Triplet and it seems to work well enough. I used an Ideal, but its display is very dim, so it's not usable in bright light.

If this guy likes to crank the snot out of it, sell him a system for cranking the snot out of it, not a consumer system.

Also, look for apps that can be used for audio analysis, like RTA, tone generator, oscilloscope, etc. TI recently used a signal generator app to find some resonances in a room that were described as "it's coming from the left speaker" but was actually caused by the vanes on a diffusor on a supply duct from the HVAC- the contractor had bent one of them and it was too close to another and when certain frequencies were produced at a sufficient SPL, the duct and diffusor would resonate. I set it up to sweep from around 40Hz to 300Hz and it was much easier than trying to find it with music.

What surge protector is shutting down from whatever that AVR is consuming? I would look at the maximum volume setting- I don't set it higher than -10dB for anyone because I know that at some point, someone will try to make it louder than it should be and I don't like receiving calls about blown speakers. If they blow speakers, there's a decent chance that it may be damaging the crossover and possibly, the amp.

Speaking of the amp, it sure would be nice for the manufacturers to provide the damn specs that we need, in order to make an informed choice for system design. Pro/commercial manufacturers are required to do this and if they don't their products won't be used by many contractors and system designers.

In-wall speakers aren't gonna do what this guy wants when he's hammered. Not only will he reach the limits of the speakers before the amp, if the voice coils become too hot, 'thermal compression' occurs and then, he might want to crank the volume control more. It's a vicious cycle. He either needs more speakers or more sensitive speakers and if possible, more power from each channel before distortion. The way most AVR manufacturers state their specs, there's no way to know what will happen if they choose Party Mode and all channels are sending crappy power to the speakers. They even show a half power distortion spec. That's fine if it will be played at half power and someone will be measuring the distortion, but they need to drive ALL channels at full bandwidth when they measure THD+noise and IM if they want this crap to survive. They're using cheap power supplies and they don't want to tell us about it but it's easy enough to see this- if it has a 4/8 Ohm switch, it's not going to do much if someone cranks it (it's only for UL, anyway) and it limits the output.

QSC is another brand that makes bulletproof amps but the Triad speakers aren't made for this kind of application- he wants loud, not great, and when someone is gooned, it's not likely that sound quality is their main goal.

There's a very good reason why a meter was never mentioned in the other posts. Because that part was put in after the others. The OP edited their original post by adding those top 3 paragraphs.

KOT

While it will not find a potential arc flash point due to closely spaced bare conductors, the Dayton Audio Impedance measurement jig will get to the bottom of a speaker network in a couple seconds.

[Link: parts-express.com]

Yes. People who edit their original post after ten responses won't get their questions answered unless they clearly call out the changes they made, and then maybe not at all anyway.

This is a conversation and once someone has answered, they're not going to go back and read the original post again. People, if you want to modify what you wrote after people answer, put your mods after the responses you have at that point. **Updated** doesn't tell us dick about what the updates were.

LKII, don't be concerned about a wire nick. That's a problem with CAT cable and other small solid conductors. Even with those wires, the problem is not conductivity, it's that the wire might break (or perhaps you're not saying exactly what you mean.) Instead be concerned about a wire being nearly sliced through or shorted to another conductor.

The voltmeter should be used to verify that each conductor has infinite impedance to each other conductor AND TO GROUND when the wires are disconnected from the amp and the speakers. It's somehow hard to learn to check for continuity to ground, perhaps because it requires disconnecting both ends of all speaker wires.

If the cable is sliced halfway through, you might have a slightly high resistance point, which won't blow an amp. It would limit the amp's current flow and keep it from blowing or going into protection