Not a good day. Just took delivery of my new HK AVR135 and hooked it all up. I used my old speaker wire, which worked just fine with my Sony receiver. I fire up the HK and all of a sudden it's off again. The display shows "protect" mode and my L and R front speaker icons are flashing. After some research, I find that this may be caused by a short in my wiring or an incorrect hook up. My hook ups are fine so I assume that my wiring is bad. I go out and drop $40 for a spool of new wire. Hook everything up again and same result. There are no strands of wire bridging any connections nor backwards (+/-/-/+) connections...

Did I buy a broken receiver?

I loath the thought of repacking it and taking it back across the river...

Got a multimeter? Disconnect both ends of each cable and check for continuity between the + and - wires, there shouldn't be any. Reconnect the speakers and check again, you should see a few ohms resistance but definitely not a short. If your cables and speakers are okay, then your amp's buggered

Thanks Andy for your reply...and I'm wearing clown shoes tonight.

After much hair pulling and frustration...I think the mystery is solved. My PSB Alpha Series LR are rated at 6 ohms impedance. I just assumed that ALL modern speakers were rated at 8 ohms. Therefore they must be incompatable with the HK as all of the HK outputs are rated at 8 ohms. Funny, my cheap ass Sony receiver never had any issue with them. Guess I should have done my homework before laying down the bux for the new receiver eh?

Time to start saving for new speakers

I think that your amp should still work with your speakers. The impedance isn't the same over the whole frequency spectrum. 6 or 8 ohms are only nominal...

Stig

Strange. Most receivers will work with 4 or 8 ohm impedences, but not this one. From the owner's manual:

Quote:
Power per Individual Channel
Front L&R channels:
40 Watts per channel
@ <0.07% THD, 20Hz–20kHz into 8 ohms
Center channel:
40 Watts @ <0.07% THD, 20Hz–20kHz into 8 ohms
Surround (L & R Side, Back) channels:
40 Watts per channel
@ <0.07% THD, 20Hz–20kHz into 8 ohms

So there you go. Bummer.

-Zeke

How strange...

I bet it thinks something's shorted.

Try throwing a 2 Ohm resistor in line. That'll work. And it'll make your speakers sound really good, too.

(Please note that this is a joke. I don't want to be blamed when you fry your speakers and/or new amp.)

Thanks Bitt, but I would never consider doing something like that (even though that was someone else's suggestion too)

Based on advice I received on another forum, I ended up returning the receiver today as defective. Apparently there are people out there using HK receivers with off-rated speakers with no issues. I let you know how the second one works out...

Update: The new receiver works flawlessly, it was worth the trip back to Detroit after all...thanks to all who responded.

John