[nadirmg]

nadirmg, reading your tale of woe I remain concerned the DAC has issues bad enough to fry an amp. When you discussed situation with Klaus is there a plan to assure DAC is 100% A-OK before repaired amps are plugged in?

Hah.... the woe continues. It's a tale worthy of Lake Woebegone.

As soon as I plugged my amps/speakers into the DAC and played music, the left amp promptly overheated and smoked. The problem in this equation has always been that DAC. They already replaced a DAC module but it it's clearly the variable out put, and potentially more that's wrong because even with the amps fully tested and repaired, it still fries anything I plug into the left variable out channel.

Klaus recommended I go ahead and take out the DAC from the equation and play both amps directly through the stream. The rationale being, "if they're going to fry again even without the DAC, let's go ahead and force that outcome".

After several days of moderately to heavily playing sound from the streamer to the amps, they are fine, even after the left amp smoked a bit. Amazing!

Klaus and I are in agreement that, unless something changes, the amps are safe to play.

More on the DAC in a bit.

[nadirmg]

I stand corrected, the little ones on the tweeter were 4-40 screws. You should be looking at a #4 screw for easy application.

Thanks! I think I'm going to get a flexible extension for my power drill and see if that won't help me out. I've heard good things.

[nadirmg]

Just wanted to say I am sorry you are having to deal with so many setbacks! You have a great attitude and enthusiasm so hang in there. I hope Klaus will be able to determine what happened because it seems like if you hadn't had a dac chip that was bad you would not have had to go through all this and your amps would still be in your living room. Hint hint.

Thanks dude.

Klaus at Odyssey Audio was an absolute champ. His customer service is unparalleled. Working with Musical Paradise has been like going to the DMV AGAIN after you've paid $2k for a drivers license because they made a mistake. But enough about Musical Purgatory....

My speakers and amps are safe right now. The DAC is in Canada getting repaired..... it's too late to return it, so I'm hoping they will find some something wrong with it and fix it under factory warranty since I bought it brand new.

If they don't find anything wrong with it, it's going to become $2k paperweight. I'm not going to risk my system again on hardware that has multiple defects/failures right off the factory line.

[nadirmg]

It's time for a subwoofer. I want one. BAD.

I'd love to go through GR-Research to get my sub and build it myself, but with the Rhythmik amps are on backorder until who knows when, I'm looking at other options. And CHECK THIS OUT.

If I go directly through Rhythmik, I can get their F12-G model. What does the 'G' stand for? It's stands for "GR-Research" and uses the GR-Research driver. I'm still a complete newbie here, but I do want my cabinets to have GR Research drivers in them, so the Rhythmik F12-G is what I'm going with. It also comes in gloss white ($90+) and will match my NX Studio cabinets pretty closely.

Here's what I'm not sure about. The upgrades. Here are my options (highlighted in red):



I'm not trying to get fancy. I just want to connect my sub through SUBW out from my Bluesound Node 2i which is functioning as a "preamp" for now. But I do want the ability to use this sub later on in an upgraded rig if I do decide to get a preamp (or if Musical Paradise magically gets their act together, I could use the DAC as a preamp).

Here's the back of my Bludsound Node 2i



Given that I'm NOT a professional and hardly even consider myself an audiophile at this point, which of these upgrades do you guys think I need to get? I just don't want to get standard model and end up wishing later on down the road that I'd spend $50-80 on an upgrade that could have spared me the regret. I just want things to work and not have a "DOH" moment later one. I've had enough of those..

If it helps, this is the back of my rig (before the DAC incident) (ignore the red comments) and it's what I'm working with now.



I think it basically comes down to the basic configuration, an LFE option, or two different XLR options.
I have zero plans to use this system as a home theater, so I think I can pass on the LFE option.
I'm not currently using XLRs in my setup at all am I'm not too keen on changing that.

I think I'm just going with the basic one. Any reason why I shouldn't?

[morganc]

I think you want the PEQ3 upgrade but that's my beat guess only.  I'm sure brighter minds know more than I!

[nadirmg]

I think you want the PEQ3 upgrade but that's my beat guess only.  I'm sure brighter minds know more than I!

Thanks dude!

I wonder... what's the benefit of me having the RCA LFE option?

[nlitworld]

The rca lfe in makes it where the phase and crossover are disabled and handled by your av processor. Handy if you need to set it through that, but not what you're looking for so not worthy of the "upgrade". Connect as sub out to line in connections, or run speaker wire and connect off your amp to impart the same sound signature all the way through. It won't take any power off the amp (likely 1/4 watt resistors used) so no concern there.

[nadirmg]

I was hoping that would be the case!

I ordered it yesterday morning and I think it will arrive tomorrow! I can't wait to hear how adding a good sub deepens the experience!
Aaron

[nadirmg]

Musical Paradise update from Gary:

"I tested the DAC preamp output with a tube amp and a solid state amp, it works perfectly. Then, I connected my oscilloscope to the DAC L and R preamp output to check if there is any DC voltage output and do a FFT full frequencies scan. Both channels are good. No DC output offset. When the volume pot is about half way, the output AC signal voltage is about 17dbV (7V) under 1Mohm load (under 100kohm, the voltage will be a lot smaller <2V) . The carrier high frequency is about -40dbV (0.01V only). Both channels are about the same. I guess there are only three possibilities in this case.
1. The RCA cable you use may be defective or non-shielded cable.
2. The mono amps have some other unknown compatibility issues.
3. Maybe the VCAP odam output coupling capacitors in the DAC sometimes (randomly) have a leakage to create a small DC offset.
To be safe, I recommend changing them to four Mundorf MCAP supreme Gold silver oil capacitors, then ship the DAC back to you."

Guys, I'm at a loss of what to do.

Klaus fixed my amps and they work just fine without the DAC.
When I add the DAC in, the DAC fries the left amp.
MP's Gary says the DAC is fine but gives the 3 possibilities above.

The ICs I used a cheap pieces of crap from Amazon, so I need to upgrade those anyway..
I could have him upgrade the VCAP odam output coupling capacitors like he suggests in option #3 but....

I'm stumped. Maybe his suggestion of #2, (that there's a hidden incompatability issue) is the thing.

Any ideas?

[uncola]

I had kismet monoblocks for years they were so reliable I thought of them as bulletproof.  I wouldn’t risk them with that dac any more.  Check out audial tda1541a based dacs, I love my aya5

[sunnydaze]

I'm not trying to get fancy. I just want to connect my sub through SUBW out from my Bluesound Node 2i which is functioning as a "preamp" for now. But I do want the ability to use this sub later on in an upgraded rig if I do decide to get a preamp (or if Musical Paradise magically gets their act together, I could use the DAC as a preamp).

Keep in mind that if you do this (connect sub using Node SW out, and run Node into MP for its DAC and preamp functionality, or into regular line stage for volume control) that when you adjust volume (using MP or line stage volume control) your main speakers will be out of synch with your subwoofer.  In other words, volume of mains will change, but subwoofer will not.  The only way that volume of both will change in synch is to use the Node volume control.

[nadirmg]

I had kismet monoblocks for years they were so reliable I thought of them as bulletproof.  I wouldn’t risk them with that dac any more.  Check out audial tda1541a based dacs, I love my aya5

Yeah, I will be looking for a new DAC. I just don't think they get along well.

[nadirmg]

Keep in mind that if you do this (connect sub using Node SW out, and run Node into MP for its DAC and preamp functionality, or into regular line stage for volume control) that when you adjust volume (using MP or line stage volume control) your main speakers will be out of synch with your subwoofer.  In other words, volume of mains will change, but subwoofer will not.  The only way that volume of both will change in synch is to use the Node volume control.

In the absence of having a DAC, I've been using the Node Volume control through the iOS app anyway, so I'm good with that for now.

Eventually I want to use nlitworld's idea.

[nadirmg]

Connect as sub out to line in connections, or run speaker wire and connect off your amp to impart the same sound signature all the way through. It won't take any power off the amp (likely 1/4 watt resistors used) so no concern there.

Does this involve splicing speaker wires or just using something as simple as a splitter? I'm not following exactly how to do this.

[sunnydaze]

Does this involve splicing speaker wires or just using something as simple as a splitter? I'm not following exactly how to do this.

No.  Run speaker cables from your main amp binding posts to your sub's binding posts, identically to how you connect your main L and R speakers.  It's called "high level" or "speaker level" connection.  You can Google on it to learn more.

Doing it this way means your sub and main spkrs will be controlled together by whatever volume control you use anywhere in the chain.  As opposed to the comment I made earlier about them being out of synch if you connect sub via Node SUBW OUT, and then use a volume control downstream of the Node to control output of main speakers.

[nlitworld]

Yup, the rythmik subs have the high level input so that makes things super easy for straight 2ch playback, especially if you go 2 subs for stereo. My SVS subs don't have that, so I made a high level to line level converter for mine. Not difficult, just another afternoon of soldering resistors.

[nadirmg]

Since I’ve got PTSD from frying components in my system, I want to make sure I’m not oversimplifying this.

Below you’ll see a picture of the back of one of my amps. It’s got binding posts. Currently I have banana clips that run speaker wire to my NX Studios.



Using those same binding posts for that one amp, do I just take off the banana clips and put the speaker wires (going to my NX Studios) into the branding posts and then also insert an additional set of speaker wires going straight into my sub?

Is it that easy or is it more to it than that?

[nlitworld]

Yup, that easy. It will be a miniscule load your amp sees for adding the sub.

[nadirmg]

Yup, that easy. It will be a miniscule load your amp sees for adding the sub.

Sweet! Sub is arriving today! I’ll be listening to it this afternoon/evening. Next step will be to get some GOOD speaker wire from GR. The stuff I have from Best Buy, I’m sure is the bare minimum.

I also replaced my freebie RCA ICs with BJL1s. They are shielded at safe.

[sunnydaze]

Since 2 sets of wire are going onto a single amp post, make sure you terminate them differently.  Do one in spades, one in bananas.  Or you can combine bare wire with the banana plugs.

Another way to achieve high level sub connection is to piggy back off your mains.  Run cables to you main speakers in the normal way, and then run cables from your speaker posts to the sub's high level inputs.