Home theater short circuit?

Question

Last night lightning hit the house next to me. The next day, my home theater was shorted out. I could get no sound out of my speakers.

My question is this: how do I figure out exactly what got fried? It could be the speakers, the AV receiver, or the wires. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I would doubt it would be your speakers or speaker wire.  You didn't mention if your system was on a real surge protector or not.  A simple power strip will not cut it!

Lightning can create a surge through your AC lines and damage internal components like diodes and transistors.  I've even seen the traces on circuit boards disintegrated!  Most likely your receiver will have to go in for repair...

Answer 2

unplug speakers one bye one as soon as the faulty speaker is removed the reamaining ones should work.

the lightning should not have effected anything as long as the plug has a fuse try changing fuse as it should have blown from the surge of electricity

Answer 3

If your receiver was off then I doubt it effected the speakers (surges do odd things but it would be a stretch to hit the speakers). Does the receiver power on? If so, it may have an overload protection inside. Check your owners manual and see if there is a way to manually reset it. If not, unplug the receiver for 10 minutes then plug it back in.

If you have no power to the receiver at all, check your fuse box, check the back of the reciever for an overload protection breaker, check the outlet if it's a gfi or if the wires inside are fried (test by plugging a lamp in). If you have power to the outlet but still nothing, chances are your receiver is fried. Also, if you have a surge protector, take it off and plug the receiver directly into the wall outlet. With any luck, you only fried the surge (if you don't have one, get one for the next receiver and you should hook it up to all your components, cable input and phone).

Next, unhook everything from it except for the two front main speakers and try the radio. If that works, you know your amps are ok and you'll have to go through all your other connected components to see which one is the culprit. My guess is that it won't work though.

If you still get no sound, then the amps are fried and the receiver is junk.