How to repair a Surround Sound System fault

[DIYKitkat]

I have a Panasonic SA-HT540 DVD Theater surround sound system which is misbehaving! There is no sound from the center speaker.
After a process of elimination I have worked out that the two connectors supporting the center speaker are not working. How do I know this? Well, I swapped the speaker onto another pair of connectors and a known working speaker onto the potentially not working connectors and then back again. Both speakers work on the other port, but not on the faulty one. I also swapped the speaker cables to ensure I had tested all components - cables fine too.
My question is this: Is it repairable?

If it isn't repairable then I want to ditch it and get a replacement without the associated speakers and I would appreciate any recommendations.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nozzle]

Have you measured the resistance with a meter? If it's infinite, you have a broken connection, if it's not, it should be fine. Then you need to find the broken connection inside the housing and solder it. If the coil is OC, you're buggered

Nozzle

 

[DIYKitkat]

Have you measured the resistance with a meter? If it's infinite, you have a broken connection, if it's not, it should be fine. Then you need to find the broken connection inside the housing and solder it. If the coil is OC, you're b*****r

Nozzle

Thanks Nozzle - I will get a hold of a meter and take some measurements. Thanks for now

 

[Lucid]

Right, so you've swapped speakers and determined that the centre speaker works fine, but you get nothing when connecting to the centre channel sockets with a known good speaker. Your diagnosis on that basis is that the "connectors" don't work.

I have to say that in 30+ years of working with electronics I have rarely encountered a situation where connectors fail completely. Something like a dry solder joint generally manifests as an intermittent failure until expansion/contraction and oxidisation erodes the physical connection completely. There's always a first time, of course. But unless you've moved or dropped the system then I think the issue is more likely to be a failure in the circuit beyond.

All in one kits are sold with speakers. The head units are not sold separately. The only chance to get a head unit individually is to buy a used one. However, the reliability of the head units is poorer than speakers; it's usually the disc drive that goes first, so you're unlikely to come across a 100% working head unit being sold without speakers. So my recommendation is to buy a complete kit, either new or used. If you wish to swap speakers then make sure they're the same impedance.

 

[Sam Gangee]

Have you measured the resistance with a meter? If it's infinite, you have a broken connection, if it's not, it should be fine. Then you need to find the broken connection inside the housing and solder it. If the coil is OC, you're b*****r

Coil? You seem to be diagnosing this as a loudspeaker fault but it's an amplifier fault. A meter won't help. It needs an electronics technician or engineer but such guys are now rare and probably wouldn't want the job.

I had a faulty amplifier like this a few weeks ago. All it needed was an internal fuse. However, only high-end systems have fuse protection on the loudspeaker feeds. Cheaper ones let the electronics burn out instead.

 

[Nozzle]

My bad, I read it too quickly and jumped to the conclusion it was the speaker at fault, rather than the amp.

You could measure AC volts and see if anything is coming out - but really it sounds like not. Internal fuse would be a good place to start, yes.

Nozzle