Well guys, received my VSX-84TXSi Elite receiver Monday and after close inspection, the unit is flawless minus some of the flaps missing on the fiber optic connectors which apparently is an overall problem for Pioneer. As far as the flaps go, the seller contacted Pioneer and the seller is sending me the replacement parts and I should be receiving them this week.

Anyways, you would not believe the cabling I've eliminated just swapping units out. Here is the problem I've run into since hooking the unit up which I'm still not finished doing yet. Once I hooked up all cables I have a really, really bad buzzing sound coming out of the speakers. I think I've narrowed it down but I need some help just to make sure. When powering up the receiver and amp, IF the HDMI cable is disconnected, I do not get the buzzing sound, as soon as I reconnect the HDMI cable, it comes back. I've tried 3 different HDMI cables with the same results. Now here is where it gets interesting, instead of running my HDMI cable from the receiver to my wall plate, which then runs to the projector, I tried running direct from the receiver to the projector and get the same thing. This is what I tried next and I'm not sure what made me think of it but I grabbed one of those heavy duty extension cords and plugged my projector into a totally different outlet instead of the one installed at the projector and with all the HDMI cables connected like they should be (from the receiver, to the wall plate then to the projector) the buzzing was gone.

I know very little about electricity other than the fact that it tingles when it bites but now I’m a little confused. When I was running the 990/7700 combo, I believe I had a similar problem with analog connections from the 990 to the amp but when I changed over to the balanced connections, the problem went away. I tried numerous analog connections from the Elite to the 7700 and still had the buzzing sound so I know it’s not bad cables. The other thing I noticed yesterday was if my satellite box was connected to the Elite via HDMI, the buzzing was worse. What I don’t understand is, when I ran my HDMI cables to the Monoprice switcher, then to the wall plate, I had no buzzing sounds either.

I’m at a loss here as to what could be causing the problem. Is it that the receptacle to the projector could be causing my problem? I believe the electrician that ran the line for the receptacle in my ceiling used the same line that’s attached to my recessed lighting. Is it that my satellite box is causing the electrical buzzing sound, I just don’t know. I want to say it’s probably going to be a combination of both but I’m just not sure how to eliminate it. The other thing I did was run my speaker wires directly to the Elite to see if I still get the buzzing without even connecting the amp and I do still get the buzzing sound just not as loud. So, with everything said, what other help can anyone offer? What other configurations can I try to try and narrow it down to what is causing the buzzing sound. Any help would be greatly appreciated.