Rotel RSX-1055 hit by power surge

[paulpegg]

A few days ago a sudden storm and nearby lightning hit caused a power failure with a big boom, outside where the lightning hit and inside through the speakers in my system. The plasma screen also went pure white before going down. When the power was restored, everything worked except there was no audio while watching tv through my Zenith HD-SAT520.

I had audio from the DVD and VCR so focused on the sattelite tuner. Yesterday I checked the fiber optic cable from the SAT520 to the Rotel and saw that it appeared to be functioning. I have had this system running since 2002 with no problems so it took me a few minutes to realize that I could switch the audio input from Video 1 to Video 5. Voila, the audio is back. Video 1 audio section is dead but everything else is working as before.

So, does anyone have any idea how this could happen? If a surge came in through the sattelite dish/SAT 520 then how did it manage to take out an optical input in the Rotel? Or was this just a power surge that got past the surge protector (middle range unit - no battery backup)?

In any event, I am much relieved that all I lost was one optical audio input channel and have no need for a second one at the moment.

The Rotel remote quit on me last year so I bought a Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote. This unit is programmed via their web site and I have stored all the other remotes in a box with no batteries in them since I never use them at all. I plugged the remote into a USB port and it automatically logged on to the Harmony site where I changed the behavior of the 1055 to select Video 5 when watching tv. The remote was automatically reprogrammed for this change and all is well. If you want a simple remote that you don't have to relearn every time the batteries go dead then check this one out. (The only downside to this is I can't get into the Rotel Menu to change speaker configurations, which I won't be doing for a long time anyway.)

Has anyone had a similar experience?

[H.Donald]

I had a issue with static electricty...back during the winter,in my very dry basement,I got up from my leather couch and touched my RSP 1068.
And both it and I recieved a jolt...all my settings were knocked out.
I later found out that the on/off button on the unit had fried also.I have since learned to live with it...the remote on/off button still works.One day.I'll have it serviced.
Of course come winter again...I will be very careful.I feel fortunate nothing else fried,as I'm sure you do also.

[Kevin D]

Lightning is a very strange and unpredictable beast. I've seen all kinds of crazy stuff. It was probably more luck that it only took out an optical input. With a direct hit like that, it's going to go through everything and there's not much a regular surge protection is going to do. Chances are your surge protector is now fused in the closed position and no longer protecting you.

The lightning is going to travel down every possibly path that's grounded together. That includes all audio, video, sat, and phone lines.

There's also a chance it's just confused. You could right down all your settings and do a factory reset to see if it comes back.

Kevin D.

[paulpegg]

Kevin,

You could be right, that it is just confused, but I don't have a working Rotel remote so I can't get into the system to do a reset. I tried the remote my son has with his Rotel receiver (next model up) but it wouldn't recognize it. Perhaps I will look for a used RR-969 or see if I can borrow one from our dealer.

Paul

[aud19]

Even if you have to take it to the dealer or they lend you the remote, either way they should be able to help you out

[peterS]

warranty on the surge protector?.... sounds like their problem now