[floresjc]

I have a one year old Insight EC preamp with the remote. I just received a Mini-Toslink to Coax converter and hooked it up to my Insight DAC with my Airport Express. I have a bevy of inputs on the preamp (CD/DVD/Spare/Special etc) and so I decided to use the "Special" since I basically had only used the CD input before.

Is there something different about this "Special" input? Right away powering up the system, I got a loud buzzing noise through the speakers and hitting play on iTunes led to a very loud muddled mess, which I promptly shut down. I've sinced moved the DAC output over to the DVD, Spare 1, and CD inputs, and the system works gloriously. Is this a case of my Special input being broke or is it a different type of input from the others?

[JerryM]

Does your preamp have the phono option? If so, the 'special' line in is for the phono input. Otherwise, I don't know. I run an AE into a T8 DAC and the DAC into the special input of my T8 pre. It works just fine.

Have fun,
Jerry

[avahifi]

Your preamp most  likely has the RIAA phono option, which is connected to the Special Inputs.  This is for the output of a phono cartridge only and will not work with any line level source.

AVA preamps with the RIAA phono option also have a brass thumbnut ground screw on the back panel for the turntable ground wire.  Units without the phono option do not have this phono ground thumbnut.  With these units the Special inputs are simply an additional set of line level inputs.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[floresjc]

Ahh, thats it, I have the brass thumbscrew. As a non-vinyl owner, it didn't really occur to me. When I bought it off the shelf, Frank told me fully loaded, and he meant it!