Bah! First the sub, now this...

:cry: :banghead:

As if it wasn't bad enough that my REL has packed up again...

Now my CD player is acting up. I switched it on this morning and it played fine for about two tracks. Then the sound from both channels just dies. If I get up close to the left speaker, I can still hear the music faintly. This suggests to me that the transport and DAC are fine and that the problem lies in the analogue output stage. I wonder if it is overheating, although it has never done that before. The living room is currently at about 25C. Odd that it affects both channels simultaneously. I suppose I'll have to take it somewhere to be looked at. It's still worth £300 so I can't just bin it

As for the sub, I'm gonna replace all the resistors and capacitors with quality types. That will be cheaper than sending it back to be "repaired" again.

 

Chris,

Maybe a power supply fault/cap going down.
Lid off I'm afraid, check the main feeds, to digital/anaolgue and spinner.

 

Chris,

My Rega did something similar. Turned out to be a software glitch. Power off for 10 minutes, back on and all hunky dory.
Although i suspect you may have tried this.

 

Those big paws of yours just cannot handle sensitive kit...

 

It keeps on spinning and counting and indeed playing, just very quietly. I don't know if the Alpha 9 has separate supplies for each section. It only has one transformer. Odd that a capacitor would fail in this way. Working one moment and then failing almost completely the next. Strange!

 

Indeed. Power off is not enough for an Alpha 9. You have to unplug it. After 10 minutes it works fine - for about one track. Then the sound just dies again - but it is still playing and you can still hear it faintly in one channel.

 

You aren't by any chance in a rural or semi-rural location? You may be on the end of a long distribution run, with some farmers/dairy/factory in front. In my experience, 'brown-outs' [stop sniggering you lot!] ie 1/2 - 2 sec dips, are the worst mains problems of all and can screw all sorts of kit - especially IT.

 

Chris
maybe corrupt firmware?
The rega exibited the same symptons.

Have you contacted Arcam?

 

All the controls still operate. It will fast forward, skip tracks, pause, stop, start. Just the analogue output dies somehow.

Not yet.

We do get them. This is what killed my Alpha 8P power amp. It may also be what has caused problems for the REL - probably shafted some capacitors. When REL had it back, they replaced a resistor. This has subsequently gone again so they obviously didn't look very hard for the cause

 

Have you got any sort of power surge protection? If not I'd suggest you get some!

 

yep Chris
mine operated perfectly, but just very low distorted sound.
May not be that at all, but maybe worth a try

 

I have an Olson Sounds Fantastic and a Trichord Powerblock 1000.

 

CDPs have software controlled output muting. That's where I would look first.

Assuming no finger trouble with the amp muting and source selection...

Paul

 

A brown-out killed my Linksys Wireless access point but so far they've not harmed anything else. They're relatively frequent here in Lisbon. Surge protection (which I have on the hifi gear courtesy of the Olson blocks) won't help you with brown-outs, because they are a dip in voltage.

OTOH, I have a UPS powering my PC and that does protect it against brown-outs (and black outs too).

Michael.

 

The amp doesn't do muting. The first things I did were to grab a personal CDP to check that the amp was OK and try a different interconnect from the main CDP.

Why does a CDP need output muting? That description would fit with what I'm hearing. How do I stop it? It's not anything I'm doing. I was in the kitchen when the sound stopped this morning.

 

I don't know exactly why CDPs are supposed to have muting. I think it's because the black bits between tracks aren't necessarily actually there, the DAC is just told to mute for n seconds.

But that could be rubbish.

Anyway usually a DAC has two electronic switches in its output, one for mute and one for de-emphasis. In practice no CD is pre-emphasised so you can live without de-emphasis, and the DAC is quiet enough at idle. But if you're Arcam or any other serious manufacturer you have to follow the spec.

Paul

 

Have you tried putting the CDP into different input sockets - say the tuner socket.

It could be the CD Inputs on your amp.

Best Of luck.

 

I am only kidding regarding your avatar...

 

At least 2 of my CDs are pre-emphasised. When I had a DAC which had a De-emph light it would come on for them. There may be more, I didn't listen to all my CDs with that DAC and now the DAC64 doesn't have a de-emph LED (allthough it does do de-emph properly).

Both the CDs are classical CDs btw.

Michael.

 

Yes thanks