I bought mine 2nd hand off of a friend who was moving to another county and didn't want to carry speakers across the ocean with him. Before I bought them I listened to them very carefully for about 10 minutes to make sure all channels were workinig and clean...even blasted it for a few minutes to see if there would be any thermal shutoff. Nope. They sounded great and he gave me the friend discount -- $100 for the whole package.

 When I purchased I was aware of the high failure rate and the overheating problems. I figured that a) the truly damaged amps were lemons, and it wasn't actually a design flaw, and b) most people blowing their amps were probably listening at very high levels. I thought I could dodge the issue by being a responsible owner.

 So for four months I kept my speakers around 50-60 *maximum*, and I always turned them off as soon as I was done listening. Well last week after watching a movie and falling asleep, I woke up and forgot to turn the unit off, dashed off to work, and later that night when I got home the unit was dead, dead, dead. At first I though my 5.1 drivers were bad or something. I tried restarting my laptop, reinstalling the drivers, etc. I just couldn't fathom that the amp would overheat itself into failure mode when there wasn't even any music playing.

 Fast forward through me reading about 500-600 forum posts on this topic, and I now realize that the amplifier in these things is in the class of amp that draws large current even when no sound is coming out. Doh. When I took EE classes in college, we used linear regulators on small projects, but used switched regulators on anything medium sized or above. Having never done any work with analog electronics, though, it never occurred to me that they would use a linear regulator for a circuit this big. It makes sense to me now after reading about the noise issues of a switching regulator, but I was still truly caught off guard. I really think if I had continued to turn the unit off after every use then they would still be working today.

 Anyway, this is a long rambling post which mainly begs to ask two questions.

1) Even if this amplifier is poorly designed and doesn't conduct heat efficiently enough, why isn't there a thermal shutoff before the system fries itself? That seems like the bigger WTF to me. Sure, Klipsch outsourced the amp design and construction, but they could have at least built in safeguards. I'm surprised none of these things have caught on fire. The pictures I found online today of some of these blown amps look like they weren't far from burning the house down.

2) Has anybody here sent their amp to that guy on ebay? If he can be trusted and is still in business, I would much rather spend $60 getting him to fix the root problem, rather than $90 for Klipsch to send me another faulty amplifier. From what I've read, that is all that their amp "service" consists of...

Anyway, I didn't get a chance to see if headphones work yet. I didn't realize until just today that to operate in headphone mode you have to push a button. I could never figure out what "HP" meant when I tapped the power button because I never had the original owner's manual...yes, I am stupid. :)

Thanks for any pointers you can provide.

Edit: Well the thread is locked for some reason, which I don't understand. Is this how Klispsch acknowledges their failures? By silencing the people who speak up?

Anyway, I did see your post. Unfortunately I bought mine 2nd hand from a friend so I don't have the store receipt. I was figuring that since Klipsh is able to replace the amp board and bring the system back to life, there must be some way to fix the board myself in a more permanent way. I love these speakers and would like to try to fix the problem itself instead of fixing the symptoms (which from reading these forums, it seems that the symptoms inevitably and always come back to haunt you.)

I'm a music fanatic and I was impressed with these speakers from the first moment I turned them on. This is the first set of speakers where I can actually hear the MP3 compression. I played my Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream CD (had it since I was 12) and the difference between the CD and the 128bit MP3 is unreal.

 Later this summer I'm going to take it apart and see if I can fix it. Hopefully its just a few fried components, and the traces themselves are unharmed. It doesn't seem to hard to replace a couple components as long as they are available on digikey or parts-express. I'm not very good with analog electronics but I have a handheld scope and some digital electronics tools so i'm going to give it a whirl later on when I have time. I'll let you know if I figure something out. Ideally I will install some cooling (Peltier maybe) and get this thing fixed for good.

dude i hear ya,

did u read my post?(about 4 threads down from yours) http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/940344/ShowThread.aspx#940344

well klipsch will fix this for $60 and u pay shipping providing u provide original store bought reciet.my lawyer just said say the word to start a civil suit after reading others with the same exact problem.

One minor correction.  The Ultra and THX 5.1 power supplies do not draw a high current when at idle (no sound output).  The THX amps each draw well under 50 mA each, and the Ultras draw an average of only 100 to 120 mA.  When more power is required, the power supplies quickly raise their voltage so that the satellites receive up to 55 volts (instead of 7 to 10 volts at idle) and the sub receives up to 70+ volts (instead of 10 to 11 v at idle).  When one or more of the six amp boards fails, it can draw up to a couple amps at idle, and is one of the rarer causes of the power supply then failing.

And one point of clarification.  There are two people or more who have repaired the 5.1 Promedias.  The guy advertizing a repair service on ebay does not do anything for cooling (and even speaks against it, with some inaccuracy).  Heat build up finally discolors the circuit boards and has caused some of the older boards in confined parts of the panel (in particular the older THX panels, which have been left on for many days) to turn to carbon and begin arcing.  That is the slower form of 5.1 death, not the quick failure, which the guy advertizing on ebay may do a fine job addressing (no personal experience with him, just with my own mods).  I am not here to advertise, but if you want info about cooling and how it can work as part of the solution in a tuned enclosure, I'm willing to answer questions.

stpete I am very sure you know who I am by now, and I am sorry people on eBay just stopped believing in your fans, I have 16+yrs experience in the electronics field I have some good knowledge in HDTV DLP LCD Video Technology  also Car Audio, Home Audio and Computer Audio, we have 2 electronic shops here in the Dallas area also I've been a member of www.repairworld.com ,www.nesda.com for years and have attended several seminars related to electronic servicing and as well as customer service and even eBay University, I work very hard for what I do and also study very hard, I spent 6 months just to figure out a way to keep the Klipsch amps from dying (not just fix them in a way they would die again sooner than later) and you want me or other people to believe that just by blowing hot air into the power supply of the Klipsch promedia amps will fix or avoid the problems? I know you are a good person, I can tell by your feedback on eBay I guess is because you offer good service to your customers, but people here need a permanent solution not temporary,I have fixed hundreds of Klipsch Promedia 5.1 amps and I would like to know of at least 1 amp that I worked on that failed again because of heat related problems, and keep in mind that ( I do not use  or need "fans") I never spoke against you before, until now... and thats only because you are trying to make me look bad,  and what I wrote on my eBay listing was only honest answers to questions from customers, I never said the "guy that sells fans" or anything like that, If you want to speak techie language thats cool, just  send me an e-mail but I won't  do it here because we are not in a technical forum and most people here would not understand (voltage drop, ohms mA , A, dB, wave forms,current draw,etc) so if you want to be friends thats good if not thats too bad, but my knowledge was not acquired  by trying to talk bad of other people.
Elliott 

Take this to private messages please.  Also, we do not allow any kind of soliciting on this forum, especially un-proven repair services.  We cannot be held liable.

Thanks!