CMC Forums

I just purchased a denon avr for $300 refurbished. my yamaha of many years finally died after going through 2 lightning strikes. The strikes burned out all the HDMI ports. I waited 2 years and finally got an AVR-x1500H. https://www.worldwidestereo.com/product ... x1500hbke3. It is sweet for my needs and I am not looking to use ATMOS at the moment. I have a cathedral ceiling. The surround sound is just perfect and I am catching up on what I missed. Especially 5.1 surround sound in my music WAV files using CMC of course.

Paul, I had the receiver for a week and lightning blew it apart as well as my apple TV. I was pissed. Mostly because I was stupid enough to hook the satellite box to the receiver HDMI again. I thought that changing from cable to directv would solve the issue. I bought a replacement for another $300 and this time no hookups to the satellite box. I am running the satellite feed to an HDMI component Converter and the component to the TV. I also try my best to unplug the satellite HDMi cable when I hear thunder.

Wait... I'm confused. You just suffered another lightning strike in the past few weeks? Or you're talking about a year ago?

Last week. Another one. I just had the Denon a week and poof all gone. I bought a another one last week. Hopefully this one will escape damage. The warranty did not accept lightning damage. Deductible on house insurance wouldn't help either.

What a sweet receiver Jamie. Bummer that lighting killed it and your apply tv.

I did get a replacement, but lost $300 for buying the new one. I could have used that $300 for so many other things. I guess my receiver budget is over spent for a few years out now.

That really sucks. Are you sure it is lightning? The odds seem daunting.

Yes, I heard the lightning strike outside. The speakers popped and the Screen went dead.

My brother and I are disputing where the lightning is surging. He believes that it is coming in through the power and I believe that it is coming in through the satellite dish coaxial cable. At the satellite box it is jumping through to the HDMI ports. I was watching a movie on the apple TV and I think the surge followed the electrical current through the receiver to the apple tv. Both were on. Somehow the TV was unaffected. I will turn off my entertainment system next time too.

I have an APC BR1500G UPS hooked up. I may need something to condition the power like the Cyberpower UPS that you suggested for my unraid server.

My sister's TV was not affected this time. I never replaced the HDMI ports from last year's strike. I have it hooked up to the satellite box via an HDMI to component video. That is why I am going that root for my bedroom TV.

We are always getting lightning strikes around the house. They just never burned out my equipment before until the last 3 - 4 years. We had one CRT blown of 30 years ago but that was it. My neighbor lost a modem in the 90's from lightning and I laughed regarding his predicament. I guess that I am paying the price for that response now.

Jamie

The satellite dish coax sounds like a strong possibility. It's supposed to be grounded - perhaps the ground is missing or bad. I know that there are coax surge protectors, often built into common power strip surge protectors. Not sure if they are compatible with satellite, but it's worth investigating.

I googled for HDMI surge protectors, and surprisingly they do exist.

https://www.amazon.com/Eazy2hD-Protecto ... NrPXRydWU=

yes, I just bought a coaxial surge protector. It has a screw so that I can attach a ground wire from the protector to the ground screw on the back of my UPS. I will give that a shot.

If that works with my satellite I will get one for my sister's TV. I'm attaching the protectors to where the coaxial enters the boxes. These protectors don't seem to be weather resistant so I don't dare put it on where the satellite cable enters the house on the outside.

The directv and comcast people refuse to put a ground on their satellites or cable installs. Says it opens them to lawsuits if the ground is bad. I think that they should be upfront with people during the install and state that there is no ground and the problem it involves. They should at least state that an electrician should install one. I was aware of it, but my brother convinced me that it was not needed. We have a ground on the house but it is a long distance from the satellite install, Too far and too expensive to install a proper ground he says.

He's not losing a lot of money in equipment during every storm. I would install one myself but I am not physically able to do it myself and neither am I an electrician. My brother worked with my grandfather who was an electrician.

I just thought of something that I have to present to my brother. I could put the surge protector on the coaxial cable where it enters the basement and attach a ground to the copper piping there. That may save a few bucks!

Thanks,

Jamie

Paul based on your suggestions I think I’ll go with the AMD platform. After reading about it, I thought this would be a good way to go for my HTPC upgrade. I think I may go back to adding a slot loading slimline internal Blu-ray Drive for the occasional disc I want to watch. I think I’ll add madvr and lav filters to MPC-BE and make it more remote friendly this weekend. I’ll use MPC as the main player for ripped movies and tv series. The sly little red fox should negate any issues playing 4K media when using either jriver or MPC.

I’ll have jriver function as the standalone player for physical discs, and take it out of the playback loop in CMC. I can tell windows to use it for playback when a disc is inserted. It’s so much more remote friendly out of the box then MPC and it supports full Blu-ray menus. I don’t think this will be a problem as madvr and lav are in a private playback chain for jriver. I think that’s the case. I’ll find out soon enough this weekend. Do you have any suggestions for a internal slot loading Blu-ray/UHD drive?

Your thoughts?