2. misc-audio
  3. 1309914035

Have you ever turned on your system, only to find

the sound was totally wrong? Nothing focused, imaging gone, soundstage just disappeared? The bottom end had no impact, the voices were from everywhere, yet when I moved my position slightly left or right, the voices moved in that direction. The music sounded as if it jumped from in between the speakers out into the room very close to my chair. I was going nuts! I repositioned the speakers for the next 4 hours only to find that whatever I tried wouldn't bring back my marvelous sound.
Then I remembered I swapped cables between amp and pre last night. The pre has 2 outputs, one inverted from the other. I plugged both into the right side, one normal, one inverted. What a boob! Anyone have similar mis-steps they would like to share?
128x128abucktwoeighty
tobias
1,534 posts
 
My tube monoblocks have a switch on the front panel that inverts phase.

My adult kids use the system occasionally and don't always remember where the power switch is. That's all you really need to know -- that and Murphy's Law. But it took me a bunch of listening sessions to figure out where the trouble was.
mihaitaa
111 posts
 
My W4S ST-500 just arrived from its previous owner. Gave it a cursory inspection, hooked it up and... the image is off center. By a significant margin.
I employ the balance control of the W4S DAC2 and it brings it back, but still doesn't sound right and why should I have to employ the balance control? I didn't have to before, with the other amp...
Check the interconnects, OK.
Check the speaker cables, OK.
Start sweating a bit. Well, you bought used, here you go, floats in my head. Now what?
Pretty pissed I turn everything off and go to pick up my daughter from her dance class. While driving my mind keeps searching for an explanation and the bulb comes lit. There are two switches on the back of the power amp, selecting XLR/RCA inputs. The previous owner had them on XLR, I switched them on RCA, for my XLR cables didn't arrive yet, maybe there is something there...
And sure enough, when I came home and checked, one of the switches was only halfway switched. Pushed it completely and everything was just fine.
Phew!
rcrerar
215 posts
 
Umm, yep. I used to own an all Linn system that included a Klout power amp. The Klout had multiple sets of RCA outputs for daisy chaining, to facilitate active multi-amp systems. Linn decided to put these RCA outputs right below the main set of RCA inputs. You guessed it, one time I plugged the main pre-amp outs to the amplifier outputs. The resulting sound was a dull summed mono. Took me two days to figure it out, Duh.
tholt
547 posts
 
Similar experience as Mihaitaa. I have w4s monos and was fiddling around back of one and accidentally hit the xlr/rca switch to rca (am using xlr) w/o realizing it. I actually brought the amp in for inspection (i'm local) since all of a sudden no sound was coming out of the speaker, and i thought I had fried the amp somehow. Down the troubleshooting list they finally got the to the xlr/rca switch, and flipped it back to xlr. Everything fine, except me feeling like a dumb*ss
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
How can a qualified electrician be so careless . It's a very simple procedure .
More to discover