After 20 years of faithful duty, my Carver AVR100 receiver may have finally bit the bullet. I’m surprised it lasted this long as it survived four years of college life and multiple moves without a glitch. It has powered my Snell E2 floor-standing speakers beautifully and, even though it’s only a 4-channel amp with Dolby Surround (as in 4.0…compared to today’s 7.1 systems), it sounds great with movies.

So now I’m researching whether it can be repaired and if so, how much would it cost. Blue book says it’s worth only $100–$200 when fully functional, so if it’s a costly repair, we’ll probably just replace it. Even though we watch a lot of movies at home—free rentals from the library are a great thing—our home theater system is quite dated. We still have a 27″ tube TV and we planned to finally upgrade to a flat-panel this year. But this incident may move a new receiver, higher in the list.

Anyway, here’s how it went down…

It was a stupid move; the volume was fairly high (for TV output), then I switched to the line input and went to plug in an MP3 player. Yes, in that order…oops! When the jack hit the MP3 player plug, there was a loud “POP! Buzz…static…” followed by the smell of electronics. I quickly turned it off and unplugged it.

After the dust settled, I turned the volume down and plugged it back in. Now when I push the power button, it has the familiar “click” but followed by a soft buzz, until the second familiar “click” occurs, at which point the buzz is gone. The two clicks are normal start-up sounds for this unit; the buzz is what’s different.

When I turn the volume knob, there’s static. Turning the knob before this incident produced some static (as one might expect for its age) but now it’s more pronounced. If I turn it up really high, I can barely hear the source signal (Line, TV, etc).

The static actually sounds “full”, in frequency range and volume, as if the amp is sending it at full strength to the speakers, so I don’t think it’s a blown amp. After reviewing the manual (which I still have!) I wonder if I triggered the “protection circuitry”. But nowhere does it say how to reset it. I checked the fuse on the back panel and it’s still good.

I opened the lid and checked around but couldn’t find any visible damage; no melted wires or singe marks…at least that I could see without further disassembly.