End of my tether

…just when I thought things couldn’t get any worrse…

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Have answered that already in a previous post if you can be bothered scanning back. I’ll save you the hassle (since you’re clearly hassled enough) - just do as has been suggested and disconnect all sources except for the CDP for a couple of days. If you can also power down anything nearby (any AV kit) that might have an SMPS that’s become noisy, that would be worth a try.
If it all worked well at one point, it can again. You just need to go through the process of elimination to find the culprit.

As above, going to remove Sky/DVD and power them down for a couple of days when we won’t be watching/recording TV.

My CDX2 is an original 2002 model. If it’s not failed in 17 years I doubt it’s going to fail now. The laser mech at some point will fail but the analogue out? That’s a new one.

Anyway, in the meantime I have taken a first tentative step. It’s impractical to deal with my actual dealer on this so I rang my local Audio-T (9 miles away as opposed to 40) and if I take the Hi-Line in they will loan me the lavender DIN to DIN interconnect.

That will enable me to immediately see if it is a second cable failure and, if they get the chance and have the desire, they could compare the HL to another in stock (assuming they have one) and see what happens.

Doing this late tomorrow after football or Wednesday when I’m passing through Manchester anyway. Watch this space I guess.

Guess I’ll also have to find a moment to disconnect TV as if Audio-T can’t compare HLs and AV is the problem then presumably it would still impact with the lavender in place.

Fingers crossed.I’m sure we’re all rooting for you Mike.

(But don’t get too excited yet !)

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Good luck

Indeed. Your earlier description of the sound of the system with CDX2, Naim amps and the Zu speakers wouldn’t take much to push it from an exuberant, exciting ride to something a lot less listenable if things weren’t just right. As others have said, good luck Mike and i’ll be interested in what you find.

James

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Nothing wrong with epos 11 speakers at all. In fact hard to beat and very well suited to your boxes. In Top hifi’s top 20 speakers of all time, I have a mate with a very beautiful cd5i 72/250 es11’s and es14’s both sets sound just fantastic. How about giving the wee epos a go. They are fast with great mids, Plus the bottom ends not that shabby. Only hope the woofer surrounds haven’t O-Zoned out, 30 minutes to setup and just see if they sound with the same issue.
I know you said you cant be arsed, but looking back the amount of energy you have put into this thread you could of pulled down your system 3x over.

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As a QA Engineer, I am a bit puzzled here.

You have a repeatable bug. Great. Now time for a regression assignment.

Software first. Turn it off and on again.
Reset or reboot.

Nothing changes? On to Hardware

First thing I’d do is Disconnect and reconnect all cables.
Next, swap out the CD and plug anything into the 202 with RCA’s. Does it sound better? It’’s the CD. If Not?
Next thing is the Zu’s I have read you are “wedded” to these, but please try. Get anything, any speakers, beg borrow or steal a pair.

I see you have a full recap on PS, and a rebuild of the Pre. Don’t rule out that this work has been done poorly. Testing those will unfortunately require the Dealer’s assistance. Either take them the 50 miles to the dealer, or offer petrol to bring some boxes to you.

I would think, at the end of the day, the Nova is a very good solution for you.
I had one and it’s a brilliant system. If I had not upgraded to my current system, I would be very happy with it. It would drive your efficient speakers very well.

I’m paying attention to this thread, so I am very curious to hear how it turns out

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Thanks. I very much doubt I’ve spent as much time on this thread as it would have taken to do as suggested and you may have missed the whole point of my original point i.e. reaching the point where the desire to even attempt it has gone and the point where, frankly, I don’t see why I should. As several people have observed, whilst tweaks may improve things, ultimately stuff just needs to work.

I’ve moved to the point where I’ll try a couple of things which don’t require much effort and, more to the point, make sense.

So, it has been switched off; reset; rebooted or whatever we wish to call it multiple times.

All cables were disconnected and reconnected in January 2019 when I did a complete rebuild prior to new sofas arriving and post a scenario where mids/bass went and the only change I could note was accidentally kicking a speaker cable. System was superb post rebuild.

Swap out the CD? No. Why? Doesn’t make sense. Things break on CDPs. They don’t just play great; go off; play great again randomly.

Speakers. Again, doesn’t make sense. The cabling is fine and the speakers are full range. Unlikely a 10” driver would simultaneously go on both speakers and as it’s full range which bit of the one driver would go that would give me some light bass but remove the mid range? Given that I am at the end of my tether here I can’t think of anything I would want to do less or that there is a reason to do so.

There has been no rebuild on the pre. Someone asked me to reset it. I didn’t think it was relevant or would impact but I also thought some of the suggestions were lacking in logic so did it to make that point. It made no difference.

The recap on the XPS2 was done by Naim. The difference when it returned was night and day. Again I very much doubt there was any issue there.

I’ll get a lavender interconnect and see what happens.

Actually that can happen, even to CD players - when components on the analogue side age and start to go slightly out of spec.

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Forgive me if I have misunderstood, but from this I take it that you are not inclined to disconnect and reconnect the cables now because you did that earlier this year. Given that that cured the problem you had then, is that not a very good reason FOR doing it now? In fact it points to a possible fault with a cable connection, so methodically disconnecting and remaking each connection, powering up after each change (and down again for the next), possibly several times in succession, might identify the location of the problem, though not whether the cable end or the socket. But if the system sounds normal on TV, then only the cables not forming part of that chain. And given that it is apparently both channels affected, then only connections affecting both - which may just be power supply mains connections and bundies.

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I’ve had a look and I can’t see a thread on this or the archive which mentions anyone ever having had this issue.

Yes, a misunderstanding. I did a rebuild but I’ve no idea what fixed what and either way it wasn’t permanent.

I think a NDX2 and SN2 would be a great contender against your system, add a Core and it’s a very tidy simple system, and can be upgraded with PS’s if desired.

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Yes, but the rebuild cured it?
If I did not misunderstand that, then that is precisely my point - it doesn’t matter that you didn’t identify the cause, but the reconnecting cured - so the circumstantial evidence is that the problem was around one (or more, but odd if more than one) of the connections, hence why that is an obvious place on which to focus investigation now, ignoring the connections clearly not implicated because the TV input works OK. But not just doing all in one go, instead doing methodically in order to identify the actual connection involved if it is indeed is one, because happening again and so soon would seem to point to a fault (e.g. something like a dry joint), not just a pin not fully located or a bit of oxide. If that does identify a particular connection, then it would just need assessing whether the cable or the box, and it can be fixed permanently.

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I had it with my CDX2.

Exactly
The resistance to even try is baffling

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Maybe because he is at the end of his tether?

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Trouble is the OP is facing faff to get to the bottom of this (what we believe to be) fault, and he also faces faff to replace his system when he returns from his hifi sabbatical.

Which is the path of least faff?

The OP also appears to be in a place where he is totally disinterested and where logic is no longer a compelling argument.

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