Yup, going to give it one more try later today. It really ought to be as easy as @davidhendon describes. The very last thing I want to get into now is the-routing everything and adding more cables.
If it doesn’t work on the second attempt then I’m moving onto my dealers next suggestion which was to listen to the CDP then move the Hi-Line to a different input and see what happens. That will suggest whether a pre input is failing. After that, out comes the XPS2.
Might it be worth trying the optical cable from your Toshiba DVD player (I think you said it had an optical out) to the dac and thence to the pre to demonstrate that the dac is operating correctly?
Appears the optical on the DVD player needs to be activated from within the player settings. I’m exhausted from work today so maybe tomorrow.
Now the proud owner of a new multimeter with instructions too small for me to understand. Thus far this has cost £166 and the only improvement I have is from moving the TV audio from Aux 2 to 1!
Plan B is where you sell the whole existing shooting match and replace it with £150k’s worth of ND555/552/500/Focal Sopras (i’m only joking about the speakers !).
I recommend you stick with Plan A for a while longer and accept that the £166 is the seed-corn of a succesful adventure.
I must say that having spent about £20k on this system I resent the 3 figure sum more at present as the DAC produces silence and the multimeter has instructions in 6 point. This is admittedly coloured by putting the TV on tonight so that the boy and I could watch the final episode of War Of The Worlds to be greeted by total silence. Beginning to look like the cheap audio cable coming out of the back of the TV and behind the wall may have been the culprit. Another excellent reason for going Sky box to DAC if only…
This is also coloured by utter exhaustion after 2 heavy work days piloting new IT software and if nothing else I know when to not listen. So, maybe tomorrow night.
Had a call from an NIE Networks Engineer on Tuesday morning. Wanted to know if it was OK to swing by and check out my connection. Fine with me.
He phoned me from my driveway, said I’d be out in a couple of minutes as I had to excuse myself from a webex.
Went out and had a chat. Gave him a brief summary of the issue and history. He said that he’d noticed my connector to the network was of the “old aluminium type” (white s shaped cable in photo below - though this is an after photo with a new one in place).
Described that these connectors are prone to corrosion and can then produce a “pulsing effect” gesticulating with his fingers at what I would estimate around 1 hz. Said he’d like to replace that first and see if it helped.
Powered everything down and gave him the nod to proceed. Took about 15/20 minutes. Long enough for me to wash the lunch dishes and tidy the kitchen. Power came back on with the usual chirrup from the dect phones and the smoke alarms. Immediately powered everything up and went to R3 (creek tuner standing in for my Nat02). I thought it sounded better. Violins less “primary school orchestra”.
I was non-committal to him and he said try it for a few days and if it didn’t work out then get in touch again.
Back into my office and thought I’d try a record…3 hours later I stopped to eat… another 2 hours that evening…Out for Christmas dinner (first of a scheduled 5) last night but squeezed in a couple of hours when I got home. Definite change for the better. Night and day. Sounded broken before (well it was). Blimey…etc.
Sound has continued to improve over the past 48 hours and assuming it’s not some unrelated horrible coincidence we have a solution.
Hoping you all have a very Merry Christmas. I’m cautiously optimistic that I will!
Quick questions. The answer will no doubt be obvious to many but not to me.
If I do as my dealer advises and measure resistance/impedance across the terminals on each speaker then do the speaker cables need to be disconnected from the speakers for me to do that?
If I need to disconnect then is that yet another power down scenario?
Thanks in advance.
Also…
Bearing in mind postal issues and the approaching holiday is their any point my taking my pre to my dealer next weekend to start the recap process @Richard.Dane? Would it be better to wait until early 2020?
Mike, if you want your amp recapped send it to Darran at Class A in Sheffield. He’s fully Naim approved, uses Naim parts, is cheaper and importantly turns stuff round in a few days rather than a few weeks. He’s done a few bits for me and is thoroughly recommended.
Mike, I think this Wednesday is the last day Naim can accept any kit for service that needs to come back before Christmas. As such you may be best waiting until Naim return from Christmas break in the New Year.
Mike on your question about measuring impedance across your speakers, this is the answer!
You only need to disconnect one wire while you measure that speaker. The thing to avoid is letting the disconnected/unplugged wire touch the other one. So if they are separate plugs then unplug one and tuck it out of the way. If they are both in one plug at the speaker end (unlikely) then you can pull both out.
In either case you don’t need to power down but you should turn the volume all the way down first.
Although it won’t hurt to power down the 200, leave it for a minute and then remove the wires from the speakers. It’ll just save any accidents and is one less thing to worry about.
My experience of Darran a couple of years ago was that if you pre-book and bring the kit and are prepared to wait, he’ll turn it round that day. I took in an 82/NAPSC/Hicap/2*135, so 5 boxes, at 10am, walked to Sheffield City Gallery, wandered around that, went for a late lunch, Darran rang me to say the kit was ready before I’d finished eating, I was on the road about 3.30. And it was a stunning improvement.
Not for a minute suggesting you are unaware, there is a nice basic article on WikiHow about measuring speaker resistance and impedance. Just being cautious as it will need more than a multimeter to do the impedance.
It doesn’t seem to suggest I’ll need more than a multimeter. I just need a reading from each speaker which isn’t too far off what each light to be in order to discount a cap or resistor failure. More to convince my dealer than me.