Troubleshooting Lost Surrounds

[Martin McCaffery]

Thanks for the tips and discussion. I'll be starting off reseating connections, including the Odyssey boards and then move on to cleaning the contacts when I get some DeOxit.
To fill in some of the blanks, the CP650 is 20 years old, and has to be replaced. (yes, we are poor, non-profit in fact, and COVID has more than decimated our income). I've not priced new sound systems yet, but assume we will have to upgrade our automation at the least (ACT) and all that involves. Not looking forward to it.
We're still 5.1, so the rear and side speakers are the same.
I would prefer to keep analog ability, but, let's face it, I should be gone in two years and we are not going to start showing 35mm again unless something really drastic happens.
There is about a 40ft run from the sound processor to the projector. Different rooms. Lots of space for something to go wrong.
A case# has been opened, no idea when a tech can get here.

[Leo Enticknap]

Good luck. If you can eliminate the easy to check possibilities first (bad contacts and AES cable gone bad, essentially) then you're down to a hardware issue with the Odyssey board or CP650, and, forewarned, the tech can bring replacements for installation if needed, if (s)he can actually source them. In that scenario, the tech will need to know the exact part number of the Odyssey board(s) - should be easily visible on them.

[Steve Guttag]

Look on the bright side...the ACT was on the pricey side. The remaining cinema automations are cheaper (significantly)...with the JNIOR being at the low-end, price wise. Then again, you only need to replace the ACT if it is ACTing up.

[Frank Cox]

So it would be a Second ACT!

[Martin McCaffery]

"There are no second ACTS in Americans lives..." F Scott Fitzgerald (probably after living in Montgomery for a few months getting drunk with Zelda)

[Marcel Birgelen]

Looking at old pictures of "ye-olde-Zelda"... there were worse things to get drunk with in Montgomery than with Zelda.

And then... according to the current lore, the "good-old-man" never actually said or wrote that quote, at least not in that context. :P

Regarding your 35mm capability: Roughly one month after you finally decided to ditch that old CP650... film be damned... someone will be knocking on your door with a bunch of pristinely preserved 35mm reels of THAT very movie you always wanted to run in 35mm.

[Martin McCaffery]

And the winner is...The Odyssey Board.
The board was sagging and, even when reseated, wouldn't hold for long. We could replicate the loss of surrounds, but didn't try to get the snap, crackle and pop. I've strapped the board to take the weight off if it.
Thanks, again, for the tips. I am now sticking my toe in the water about a new processor and switching over to JNIOR automation when we do. Just looking at the amount of stuff we can remove from the sound rack (and all of the corresponding cables) is almost motivation enough. We'd even have room to keep the 650 for some imaginary film use in the future