Would appreciate any diagnostic help. Tried my 990/7125/Axiom speakers/sub setup today for the first time. Music was great for a first run, no problem. However, my CRT tv (kd-34xbr970) seems to have suffered. The picture is now somewhat distorted in the horizontal frame, particularly noticeable with text, which appears to now have a semicircular distortion of several degrees, so that text slopes upward and then downward progressing from left to middle to right. Have unplugged tv for some time and chatted with online tech, but it appears the tv will need servicing. Here's the thing: When viewing onscreen display while playing music and adjusting 990 settings, the picture would become partially snowy whenever the subwoofer would kick in. This did not happen when watching other video sources, but I'm not doing video switching, so the 990 analog out to monitor was the only video source into the tv from the 990. The subwoofer is 10 feet from the tv, connected with a balanced cable from bluejeans. All other interconnects are unbalanced. Subwoofer is plugged into a tripplite all by itself. TV, 990, and 7125 plugged into another surge suppressor, but all are on the same 15amp circuit. Circuit and all outlets have been checked for ground and polarity. System runs quiet with no apparent hum or ground loop. I'm concerned because I'm not sure what the source of the problem could have been. I know there is always the possibility of a "red herring" here - ie. the tv just malfunctioned at a coincidental time, but I'd rather not test this theory after the tv is repaired. Is this an appropriate issue for Outlaw tech support?

muttsinparadise,
I have the Axiom EP500 sub. When I first plugged it in, I was also getting a little snow storm on every beat of the sub, but on a different TV in a different room on a different circuit.
It was all due to wire management issues.
I had a coax going from my sat receiver to the TV in question. It seems that the coax was intersecting the sub cable and picking up interference.
I moved things around and isolated the sub cable from everything else at the back of the receiver and the problem went away.
If it is the cable thing, watch this video for some good cable management info. It's a really good DIY cable video and there is a good cable management discussion at the end.

http://revision3.com/systm/avcabling

Good luck

How close are your speakers to your TV? Some of that distortion could be due to unshielded speakers - particularly that big sub.

Hey Mutts, it sounds almost like an unshielded magnetic issue. But you say it only happens when you have the menu screen up from the 990? And the sub's 10 feet away so probably not. Though maybe it's one of your speakers? Weird. Is it on every beat of the sub? And it doesn't happen at all when you are watching a movie or thumping bass music while the tv is on? I have Axioms all around too ....bluejeans on everything. I run the monitor out to video 5 on my tv, but I have a plasma. I've never had a problem. I find it hard to believe that just hooking up the 990's monitor out to anything could permenantly damage a tv. It's just a component signal like any other. You tv either accepts and uses that signal or not.

Very strange. Let us know if you resolve it, I'm curious.

Thanks for the advice guys. I've included a link to px of my setup, as well as a px of the tv with noticeable distortion of the horizontal lines. I replaced the composite cable with a component for the OSD, and this seems to have gotten rid of the snowing. I also cleaned up my cabling as was suggested, thanks. It's funny, because neither I nor my girlfriend can say for sure that the tv wasn't aberrant before setting up the sound system. Putting in a service call to Sony tomorrow. The sound system is working well, except the 990 does some funny things with several of the digital cable music channels. This was true of my previous receiver as well and I suspect the issue lies with the cable provider.

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p257/muttsinparadise/Viewfrombehindcouch.jpg

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p257/muttsinparadise/horizontaldistortion.jpg

The cable change for OSD makes me wonder if the old composite was a bit less well shielded, but that's just a guess.

Does the distortion happen with sources other than cable? There's a chance that you're simply noticing a calibration problem (similar to what we often see and adjust on computer monitors). The only way I could see any of your new gear producing a condition like that would be unshielded speakers interfering with the TV tube, and the Axiom center (only one close enough to do that) is shielded.

My thoughts as well gonk. The composite was an older (15+ years) monster cable built for directional signal flow, and it's possible it was reversed. Couldn't reproduce the distortion yesterday but I was playing with a different input (CATV). Will have time to experiment with the original (CD) source again tonight. The M80's were a half foot closer but still at least two feet away originally and the sub (which evidently was the radiating source of interference) has always been 10 ft. Thanks for your help - will update after the sony service call.