Denon AVC-A1 blown?

Hi there guys,

I use a Denon AVC-A1 surround amp in my second system, but think I may have blown it. Anyway the story goes, I was doing a bit of vacuuming and moved some of the speaker cable in the process (rather inflexible Naim NAC A5). I later noticed a bit of a burning smell but assumed that it was the new vacuum cleaner! I later realised it was the Denon after it stopped playing music and said "Protection" on the screen. Looking around the back of the amp the banana plugs were touching, due to the poor binding posts, inflexibility of the NAC A5 and the fact the QED airlock plugs use metal surrounds.

Every time I turn on the AVC-A1 it now comes up with "Protection" after a few seconds, so is effectively useless. I was wondering if there is any way i could "reset" the amp to make it work again, or have I really gone and blown something? Seeing as I use it mainly for stereo, if one of the channels is out of use, would it be easy enough to rewire another of 4 channels to it instead? Is this a case of an complicated piece of equipment that will be more expensive to repair than it's worth?

Anyway any advice is greatly appreciated! Cheers!

 

Denon home theatre amps and receivers have a reset mode; I just can't remember what buttons you need to hold down while turning the power on. I suggest you call a Denon dealer and ask what button to hold down.

The good thing about Denon HT amps is they don't use STK amps and have discreet output stages for each channel so repair cost should not be too much (depends on labour charges)

 

Have looked that up and apparently it's Stereo + Direct when you turn it on, but it doesn't seem to be working. Does anyone know a good hifi repairs place in London who might be able to fix it on the cheap for me bearing in mind it's only really worth about £250 anyway?

Cheers,
Francis

 

try these av forums, they'll have more answers I guess -

http://www.avtalk.co.uk/forum

and

http://www.avforums.com

 

Also, wop the lid off, remove cables, and vac those binding posts and inside the amp - NACA5 is a real PITA - if you can't use banana plugs on it, my advice'd be to swap to something like the 69p-metre cheapo stuff from Richers as it's a heck of a lot safer

Anyway, yeah, my AV processor was doing this once, and it was down to one stray strand of wire that had broken off of the cable - a vac around it and it was fine. It might just work for you - it's got to be worth a go