Surround sound problems?

Surround sound audio problems?

• I have a samsung receiver hooked up to a surround sound system. It is hooked to a lcd tv and a playstation 3 as well. Everything is and always has been hooked up using all hdmi cables. A while ago it started doing strange things with the sound. If we'd be playing a dvd movie for instance, you could here the main sound from the movie, but any background music or audio from the movie was real quiet and you could barely hear it. This started happening a couple of years ago. Now when we are watching just the sat. tv, the sound wont even go all the way up. So it's like everything has just gotten progressively worse over time. All my wires are hooked up the same as they've always been and like I said, it seems to just get worse slowly. Is my reciever going bad. Also, could it be an HDMI cable going bad?

• Answer:

  More than likely it is your system not the cables, HDMI cables can go bad but usually this is because you are smashing them up against the wall or you plug and unplug them a lot, also they will either work or not work digital unlike analog is a system where you get everything or nothing and very little in between... if they are not being moved or being manipulated in any way there should be no reason for them to go out....heat is the main reason these HTIB units will go out over time, they just do not have the heat sinks nor the ventilation that more expensive units do...also if you have equipment hooked up in an unconventional manner often times you get an impedance miss match, this may not cause the equipment to fail immediately and it may work for a while, but eventually will cause excessive heat build up and over time the equipment will fail....impedance mismatches come from using the wrong speakers; connecting equipment that presents a low impedance load or draws excessive power, using converter boxes...etc...you can also burn the unit out by just pushing the unit to its limit by playing the speakers too loud.....these HTIB units should never be turned more than 1/2 the way up...if that is not loud enough you need a more powerful unit....