Common Home Theater Problems

common home theater problems - Sacramento CA

Common Home Theater Problems

Home theater systems are the best for entertainment. However, when you have too many wires and devices, it can be hard to troubleshoot when things go wrong. Our Specialized Audio and Video team have experienced quite a few problems in our many years in the audio and video industry. Fortunately, we’ve picked up a few tricks along the way. Below, we discuss the common home theater problems Sacramento homeowners come across.

Home Theater: No Sound At All

One of the most common home theater problems users experience is no sound at all. If your speakers aren’t producing any sound, you’ll want to unplug your receiver from the power supply. The good news is that it is highly rare that you have experienced a total device failure. That would require every single speaker in your system to go out at the same time, which is unlikely. The next step is to ensure that your audio and video receiver is properly paired. If you’re using bare wire, make sure it’s firmly held down by the binding post screws, with no apparent excess wire. Assuming everything is in order and properly paired, the next best guess is that the issue is with a setting in your receiver’s program. 

Navigate to the on-screen configuration menu and begin experimenting with various speaker settings. In certain cases, you may need to manually allocate speakers to specific channels. In others, the source material may be incompatible with the speaker setup you have. Regardless, experimenting with various settings can easily solve this problem. In certain cases, a total loss of sound is the simplest issue to fix.

Home Theater: My Surround Speakers Aren’t Working

Okay, this may seem obvious, but if your surround sound speakers aren’t working, try increasing the volume. In certain cases, audio and video may be lower on certain devices. Go to the receiver’s menu and see what the settings are.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, it’s time to dig deeper into your source material. The question you must ask is if your source material is capable of 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound. If you’re listening to music through your receiver, it’s unlikely that most songs are only combined for two channels, not five or seven. Surround sound is becoming more common in movies and television shows, but it is not always present. If this is the case, you may need to configure your receiver to convert a 2.1 mix to 5.1 or higher.

Receiver settings vary, but you should be able to find this choice under something titled DSP Settings or something similar. Again, experiment with various settings to see if it makes a difference. You can always test a source that you know is capable of full surround sound to see if your receiver or speaker is the issue.

Home Theater: Staticky Speakers

Static is almost often an indication of a problem with the speaker connection. A wire may have become dislodged from its original place, and all that is needed is for you to wiggle it back in. Is the problem still not resolved? To further investigate the staticky speakers, we need to know if the static presents all the time or sometimes? If so, what exactly are they? Changing out different sources is a smart way to narrow down your choices.

If you’re using a Blu-ray player, try a different one or watch something on a streaming service and see if the static repeats itself. The process of elimination should assist you in determining which component of your system is causing the issue. If you use a power amplifier with your receiver, you can discover that the problem is with the link there, which is much more common than you would expect.

In the end, dealing with static is almost always a problem with a loose link, and once you know where it is, it’s pretty simple to repair. Unless, horror of horrors, your speakers blew because they were mismatched with your amp. You should review this guide to ensure that this does not happen again.

Home Theater: No Bass

Check out the frequency settings if your home theater has no bass. Setting your subwoofer’s crossover will also make a significant difference in how your bass is viewed. Begin at 80Hz and work your way up. If you still aren’t hearing bass in your surround system, it may be a connection issue. When interacting with subwoofers, there are a few things to keep in mind. Traditionally, the most popular locations for a subwoofer are in a room corner, away from the walls. 

Contact Specialized Audio and Video

As you can see, there are quite a few home theater problems. One way to avoid all of these problems is by hiring a professional audio and video company. DIY audio and video usually end up taking more of your time and money. Specialized AV in Sacramento is happy to help with your audio and video services. Give us a call today for a free consultation on our home theater design.