End of my tether

Yes, of course. When you remove the XPS, just mute the preamp and then turn off the XPS, wait a few minutes for the caps to discharge, remove the burndy, replace the shorting plug, put the mains lead into the CDX2, turn it on, unmute the preamp and you are away. No need whatsoever to turn anything else off.

I actually meant the On/Off switch on the back of the CDX2 :slight_smile: but thank you. Very clear on the steps after that now. Quick cross train for my spine; shower; Hoover some of the house and then it’s a (fixing) music focused weekend all the way.

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No need to spend lots of dosh on a Multimeter for basic tasks you can pick up a nice Draper or equivalent meter for around £25.00.

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You can go a lot cheaper than £25. If you go to eBay and search for multimeter, there are numerous for under £10. Pretty well any one of these would be fine for the job you have to do here.
Best

David

Order placed. Thank you for your help. @davidhendon thanks also but I don’t and never will use EBay. In the meantime, Draper multimeter should arrive by the 4th so I can then measure impedance across the speaker connections and rule something else out.

Now then, turned CDX2 power switch to off and played some of last nights music as a further baseline for today. Should not have made any difference at all as I understand it. Absolutely has. Rather worrying really. There’s no logical reason for that wguch I can possibly imagine.

Brought Mrs. H. in to listen to one of her test tracks. Didn’t say anything in case I influenced her. She volunteered there had been an improvement but still something missing. I agree. Last night I had to turn the new FKA Twigs down as the vocals were shrieky; sibilant and distorted. I know they’re meant to be distorted in places but definitely not right. This morning I felt okay putting it up. Still lacking colour/timbre/tone for want of a better description but something changed with the flick of a switch.

Anyway, appears I’ve a new lease of life thanks to the tolerance of all you people and there’s more to be done later today.

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I have gone right back to the start of this thread…if I were you and you have tried all the usual things…you will have to borrow substitution black boxes and see if that solves the issue…this will mean some trips and cooperation with your dealer…its a pain…

Well done you :slight_smile:

That’s effectively where I’m moving to slowly but my dealer, rightly, wants me to rule out certain things before travelling 40 miles. So,

  • small DAC installation today will eliminate any ground leakage or other interference from the Sky box side.
  • switching CD inputs once or twice will rule out a failing input on the 202.
  • removing the XPS2 will rule that in/out allowing for the normal presentation changes when doing that. It may also of course suggest a Burndy issue.

That then leaves a 202 which I’ve now been told needs a recap anyway; a 200 which had a comprehensive repair no more than 5 years ago and a HCDR2 which is of similar age. As regards the last two I’d be stunned if it was either but it is possible I guess.

However, much easier to do and judge once the 202 has been recapped and actually a loan pre from my dealer to ensure I have sound during the recap would also give further clues

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Yes, that’s what I was referring to. When the XPS is being used it doesn’t matter whether the switch on the CDX2 is off or on, as it’s bypassed and not connected.

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Hi Mike,

good to see you’re tackling things and hopefully find the solution to what should be a lovely setup.

Just to say here that I once had a Naim pre-amp recapped and from what can gather Naim changed all of the tantalum capacitors and the volume pot. Needless to say it came back sounding miles better than it ever did. I think my pre-amp was about twelve years old when I had that work carried out.

Not saying this is the fix but maybe well worth doing anyway whilst you’re sorting through your system…

Dealer raised it on Tuesday. Never occurred to me as I have literally never read of a one being recapped on here. so, work my way through a few things and then it’s getting done. Dealer said it needs to be done between 10 and 12 years old. Mine is 11. So, yeah. Anyway, off to install a Schitt Modi 3 DAC to take the Sky box out of the equation.

I had my 102 serviced by Class A. It clearly wasn’t faulty before it was serviced but it was much nicer when it came back :blush:

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Hmm. This is why the sight-impaired get frustrated.

It appears that in the cable jungle I have confused what’s doing what. I had recalled the Sky box was sending audio to the pre. It is not.

What’s actually happening is that the TV analog out is coming out of the wall and going into a small noise suppressor, which I recall a previous dealer introduced to sort a ground loop. From there the audio goes straight to the pre.

The Sky box is connected to the TV by HDMI and the DVD player is in turn connected to the Sky box via SCART.

No way to get the TV off the wall and see if there’s an optical out. So, if I want to change anything I have to take an optical out of the Sky box and feed that to the DAC and then the pre. That’s better in terms of latency but where then does that leave the DVD sound? My assumption is that it would be silent?

My assumption is that the HDMI from the Sky to the TV just carries video?

Our ancient but wonderful Toshiba DVD player appears to have an optical out and a coaxial out, which looks similar to a single phono.

The options seem to be

a) buy a coaxial lead similar to the Chord optical and feed that to the coaxial in on the Schitt DAC?

b) just unplug the optical from the Sky box and plug it into the DVD player as and when needed?

Is this making sense?

One inaccuracy above.

Sky connected by Scart and HDMI to TV.
DVD connected by Scart to TV i.e. the Scart on each box does not as I thought connect them to each other.

And now… no TV sound at all via DAC. Slight crackling noise on right speaker. The audio cable going from the DAC is the same one which was working fine earlier when connected to the analogue audio coming out of the TV.

No DVD sound either.

Optical out from Sky to optical in on DAC. DAC definitely set to optical out. Phono out of DAC to Aux 1 on 202. Zilch.

Pulled Scart out of Sky and left HDMI and optical in. Nothing.

Pulled HDMI out with Scart left in. Nothing.

CD sound is still working.

Pioneer Kuro 50”. Can’t see any changeable settings right now which would impact and all settings on the Sky box have been checked too. Kuro volume on remote has been checked and was up. Can’t get the Sky remote volume to show anything on screen. Could that be an issue?

Any help appreciated right now.

If you are connecting sky box to DAC via optical check the sky box is set to stereo not Dolby. Some DACs (like my NDS) can’t handle Dolby
Could be the cause

Yup, thanks but already checked.

My assumption is that the box is outputting picture and sound via HDMI. If I pull the HDMI out I get no picture or sound. Assuming I’m right how do I get the Sky box to select optical out?

Heeeelp!

I have multiple HDMI sources into the Panasonic tv which is getting on for 7 - 10 years old. It has optical output. If you provided the make and model someone would be able to find the manual online and see if it had optical and where it would be located.

Any Scart sources would probably feed the optical as well. Our sounds extremely good into nDAC even with a 5m Audioquest Forrest optical cable.

Phil

Scart cable wow…over here everything is HDMI. I’m guessing Sky box is you TV box. Does it have a menu?

With the optical cable plugged into the TV or skybox, does the other end glow red. If it does, you have a digital signal and vice versa.

To be clear. The analogue audio out from the TV was going to the 202.

The Sky box was connected to the TV via SCART and HDMI. The DVD player is also connected to the TV via a separate SCART.

I disconnected the analogue audio from the TV and instead took an optical out from the Sky box to the Schitt Modi 3 DAC and an analogue out from the DAC to the 202. Total silence bar some vey quiet crackling on the right speaker. The DAC has 3 settings - USB, optical and coax. The correct (middle) setting was selected; power was lit and the optical cable fitted nicely into both devices first go with the word Chord showing upwards. The Sky box optical out appears to be working as red light can be seen if the cable is removed.

The SCART from the DVD player clearly sends picture and sound to the TV. That’s tested and confirmed. The SCART from the Sky box to the TV appeared to serve no purpose as both sound and picture remain fine if the SCART is removed. So, that’s staying out.

My assumption therefore is that I need to find some setting that tells the Sky box to send picture only by HDMI to the TV but audio by optical to the DAC then 202 and/or maybe tells the TV to receive only pictures from the Sky box.

Sky VIP help were embarrassing. She’d no idea what I was talking about and was audibly doing internet searches! Apparently I’ll get a call back from a techy. I doubt it’ll ever come.

I know it’s not the audio cable as the connection from the DAC to the 202 was part of the same cable which came out of the TV to the 202. Having removed the DAC and reconnected the sound is back.

So, what the heck do I need to do to get Sky optical to have primacy over the HDMI output?

My tether is being severely tested here so all help gratefully received.

If I can’t resolve this quickly then I’ll leave the TV as analogue for now and move on to switching the CD input.