It's always something. Maintaining a rental home from afar is not easy. Unfortunately we have a lot of electronic stuff including home automation, security, networking that is not the kind of you can call somebody to fix. Our vacations "vacations" are spent fixing and replacing things. Here is an example.

While watching a movie, the system was shutting off intermittently. We noted that it was only during a loud noise like an explosion, even though the sound level was not turned up high. The receiver temp was not elevated. The only other issue was that the volume seemed lower on the left side speaker. I did not relish the idea of getting a new receiver; this one was working well and new ones have an uncomfortably high rate of early failures. I figured the left speaker might be related. Sure enough, there appeared to be some loose wire fragments causing a partial short between the terminals.

The current going to the speakers and the short was not a problem at low levels. However the power required to double the listening volume requires the power to be squared ie 10 watts has to go to 100. At high volumes, the amount of current going through the speaker and the short was too much and the protection circuit kicked in. I remember years ago a guest had noted that the sound cut out out after peaks so i installed cooling fans, thinking it was just the receiver overheating. I did not hear of any other issues until experiencing them myself! I fixed the issue as seen here.

Guess what? Problem fixed!!