My story is below: 1) I bought this unit early in 2009 so its out of warranty 2) I have it connected to an LED TV via a digital audio cable 3) My previous TV was connected to it via component inputs 4) I bought the new TV in February 2010 and it has been working without a hitch until this past Wednesday (July 7, 2010): I turned the TV, the satellite box, and the surround sound unit off when went to bed the night before --when I turned it on the next morning there was no sound 5) When I reached behind the surround sound unit, I expected to find the digital audio cable had come loose: it was inded loose but still in the jack in the back of the surround sound unit 6) When I wiggled the cord, i got static out of the speakers and when I found a "sweet spot", I got the sound to come out of all the speakers (as normal) BUT there was a delay between the video and the audio (and it was on every channel). 7) I called Panasonic tech support and they told me that the unit needed to be taken in for evaluation: I did that and they said the optical port was bad and that it was the first time they had ever seen that happen in that specific unit. 8) $60.00 later, I brought the unit home yesterday and plugged it back into my existing digital audio cable (a 12' moster cable I bought from Crutchfield) and it worked fine when I first sat down to watch TV. 9) We turned the system off while eating dinner and turned it back on to watch a movie later on. Again - dead quiet - no sound and the same crackling sound if I moved the cable around inthe port. 10) On a whim, I went to Target today and bought a very cheap Sony digital audio cable and plugged that into both the TV and the surrpound sound unit. I noticed that the tips on the ends of the Sony cable were longer than that of the Monster cable and when I plugged it in, the sound was perfect. There was also no change when I tried to move the cable around in the back.
Given my story above, I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem. Was my $60 monster cable actually defective or is this really an issue with my surround sound unit (give that this happened both before and after repair with the existing cable)?
I still think Ive got some electronic gremlins or something but I've been scratching my head over this one -- the repair guy told me he'd never seen a Panasonic unit in for this type of problem and I've had other units and systems that used the digital audio port and never had a problem.