[nwavesailor]

Saddle soap first, then wait a day and apply mink oil. That should do the trick:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N3B7NRQ

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000HJBKU8

I wonder if the mink oil, or the Lexol leather conditioner I have, would take the sheen off the leather covering of my HA-2SE?

 

[ekrauss]

The saddle soap could take off the sheen but the mink oil should restore it. If it doesn't, any kind of parade gloss leather polish will put a shine on it.

 

[nwavesailor]

The saddle soap could take off the sheen but the mink oil should restore it. If it doesn't, any kind of parade gloss leather polish will put a shine on it.

Thanks, I'm being a total PITA but thought I might actually like the look of the black leather with lees sheen...............Either way I am a HUGE fan of my HA-2SE!!!

 

[TimeLord]

I'm waiting . . . I'm here to help . . .

I think everyone can appreciate your willingness to help, but with all due respect, why do you need to be a go-between? Any customer of Oppo should get a response.

I didn't experience the problem until someone wanted to demo my HA-2 and HA-2SE, because I use them with an iPhone in airplane mode. The guy testing it plugged the HA-2SE into his iPhone 7 and the problems started. Since I had read about others with the problem, I recognized the issue pretty quickly and replicated the issue on the HA-2.

I don't believe that Oppo is not aware of the issues with both the HA-2 and the HA-2SE. In the past, Oppo representatives, like HasturTheYellow, have closely monitored this thread, especially since they established it.

Because of my use case for these devices, it's not an issue that I need to work through with Oppo. But the problems exist and from what I have seen on this thread over a few months, Oppo is not being responsive and it's as simple as that. All the people posting complaints can't all be lying.

 

[ekrauss]

I think everyone can appreciate your willingness to help, but with all due respect, why do you need to be a go-between? Any customer of Oppo should get a response.

I didn't experience the problem until someone wanted to demo my HA-2 and HA-2SE, because I use them with an iPhone in airplane mode. The guy testing it plugged the HA-2SE into his iPhone 7 and the problems started. Since I had read about others with the problem, I recognized the issue pretty quickly and replicated the issue on the HA-2.

I don't believe that Oppo is not aware of the issues with both the HA-2 and the HA-2SE. In the past, Oppo representatives, like HasturTheYellow, have closely monitored this thread, especially since they established it.

Because of my use case for these devices, it's not an issue that I need to work through with Oppo. But the problems exist and from what I have seen on this thread over a few months, Oppo is not being responsive and it's as simple as that. All the people posting complaints can't all be lying.

I am a little confused as to why people are saying they didn't get responses from Oppo Customer Service as I know that's not Oppo's modus operandi.

Therefore, I ask again, anyone who truly wants an answer, tell me EXACTLY what you want to ask Oppo and I will cut and paste it verbatim and send it to them.

 

[ekrauss]

Thanks, I'm being a total PITA but thought I might actually like the look of the black leather with lees sheen...............Either way I am a HUGE fan of my HA-2SE!!!

Nah, not a PITA at all. I'm happy to brainstorm any ideas for fixing the leather.

 

[TimeLord]

I am a little confused as to why people are saying they didn't get responses from Oppo Customer Service as I know that's not Oppo's modus operandi.

Therefore, I ask again, anyone who truly wants an answer, tell me EXACTLY what you want to ask Oppo and I will cut and paste it verbatim and send it to them.

If you're keen on contacting Oppo, there's no need for an EXACT quote for you to copy and paste. Simply point Oppo to the last 10 or so pages of this thread and they'll have more than enough information about the issue with the HA-2 and the HA-2SE. I for one would love to hear what response you get from Oppo on how they'll resolve the issue and why they have been absent from this thread.

 

[halo9]

So after my last post saying I have not heard or had any RFI/EMI, rebooting or popping issues I decided to play around some more to try and replicate this issue. I still have not had any luck but I have replicated something else. Over the next few days I will be driving about 500km in and out of reception constantly throughout remote Western Australia. I will stack the units and have music playing on my headphones, according to Dennistdk this should do the trick. Until then this is what I have found. WARNING - this is a long post to try and explain it all.
 
When testing yesterday I noticed something strange when I paused the music and went to grab a coffee, when I got back and hit play it went to the iphone speakers and when trying to choose the output on the phone the Oppo DAC was not in the list anymore. I recalled seeing something mentioned in the threads so went back and read through the last few months.

 and you have to click "play" again - and pray the audio goes to the HA-2 and not the phone's speakers).

  if i dont press play quick enough i have to turn off (by rotating the volume knob) the dac and back on again to get it to start

 
This needed investigating. I arranged the following set up so I could switch between them and observe. Please take note of the different input setups A & B.

1. Input A - HA-2SE connected to an iphone 7+ (IOS 10.2.1) playing music via Hibymusic
2. Input B - HA-2SE connected via USB to laptop and music playing on Foobar using Kernal Streaming plugin
3. The other tool I used was a stopwatch for timing.

 
In each case I ran every test multiple times and the results are exactly the same on each run. In other words it is very repeatable.
 
When there is no input to the Oppo (output from source is paused), the DAC emits a popping/clicking sound (here on just referred to as pops) at between 33-34 seconds. The closest I can measure is 33.3 seconds but from now on I will just refer to 33s.

1. On input A this will occur 33s after the music is paused AND the screen goes to sleep. Mine is set to sleep after 60 seconds so when I hit pause, 93 seconds later I hear the pops. If I hit pause and then 5 seconds later I hit the sleep/wake button I hear the pops 38 seconds later. I have tested this at many different timings and it is always 33s after the screen goes black AFTER pausing.
2. On input B it is 33s after I hit pause.
3. I believe this popping noise is most likely the amp switching off to save power.
4. Before this popping noise is heard you can hit play/pause on input A or B and the result is instantaneous, starting and stopping of the audio on the headphones as the button is pressed.
5. After the popping noise is heard and you press play there is a small delay to resume audio on input B (approx 2 seconds). 
6. Now on input A the same thing happens BUT it occurs after the phone has been woken, not when play is pressed. If you wait the 2 seconds you will hear the pops again (amp turns back on), even though no audio is playing, and if you hit play music resumes instantaneously again. I will assume that something in the apple MFI implementation is communicating to the DAC to tell it to turn the amp back on.
7. If you wake the phone fast enough and hit play before 2 seconds is up there is still a slight pause on input A before the music resumes just like on input B. Also like on input B you observe the pause but don't really notice the pops as the music usually drowns it out, unless it is a quite passage like in classical.
8. I will put this 2 second delay down as the time it takes for the amp to switch on and occurs when powering the unit on also. (Please note: It may be other parts not just the amp but I would think this is the most power hungry part of the DAC and usually contain switching circuits, which I believe to be the source of the pops).

 
Now on input A at 33.3 seconds after the screen goes black you hear the pops (amp off), then if you continue to wait, at 182 seconds you hear some popping sounds again, except this time it is the Oppo unit dropping its connection with the iphone.

1. If you wake the phone after 182 seconds and hit play, the music plays through the iphone speaker and if you try and select a different output the Oppo DAC is not listed anymore.
2. If you wake the phone at 180 seconds and hit play, everything works as described above after the short 2 second delay.
3. To note is this is 182 seconds after pausing and timed from when the screen goes black.
4. On input B this does not happen, you can leave it for 10 minutes and when you hit play there is only the small amp delay.
5. Once the iphone has lost the connection switching the DAC off and back on restores the connection but if you simply unplug the lightning cable from the phone and back in the connection is restored also.
6. Surprisingly on the iphone if you keep the screen active and don't let the phones screen turn off (sleep), then not only do the pops not occur at 33s but the connection is not lost at 182 seconds either. The DAC works with instant response and no audio is passed through to the phones speakers. I tested to around 7 minutes to more than double the time when the issue was occurring with no issues.

 
My take on this. The 33s resume delay is a power saving feature as it occurs regardless of source. The 182 second drop out on IOS after the phone goes to sleep is an IOS bug as it does not occur on my other source, nor does it occur if the iphone is kept active while paused. I will be reporting this to Oppo and also Apple as an IOS bug.
 
I think the RFI/EMI issues are different altogether and hope I can replicate them to see how and if they fit into this. But I am curious now to know if the 33s pops that occur when paused and screen is off have lead people to believe this is part of the EMI issue. And before people jump on this, I am not disputing this is occurring at all and would love to get to the bottom of it.
 
If I don't have any luck over the next few days replicated some EMI issues I will put the unit next to some radio antennas at work that transmit signals many times stronger than any mobile could ever achieve to give it a push along 

 
Lastly has anyone been able to recreate the disconnects/reboots due to EMI on anything other than an iphone?

 

[ekrauss]

If you're keen on contacting Oppo, there's no need for an EXACT quote for you to copy and paste. Simply point Oppo to the last 10 or so pages of this thread and they'll have more than enough information about the issue with the HA-2 and the HA-2SE. I for one would love to hear what response you get from Oppo on how they'll resolve the issue and why they have been absent from this thread.

I'm not the one who is keen on contacting Oppo, other people in the thread are.  I am not going to wade through the thread and try to figure out what their exact problem is, what cellphone they were using, what type of file they were playing, etc.  If they want me to send their issue directly to Oppo, they need to tell me EXACTLY what they want me to say, and I will recite it verbatim to my contacts there.

 

[TimeLord]

halo9 Nice job nailing down the timing and describing the behavior clearly. This particular behavior has been discussed in the past and it's not a bug. The behavior occurring on input "A" is a battery saving "feature."

I have been quickly unplugging and replugging the lightning connector whenever it happens. This way I don't have to readjust my volume when turning off the Oppo units.

Unless you can convince Apple to change the way their battery saving processes work (highly unlikely) then we're stuck with this.

 

[Jimmy101]

The issue is simple enough. When phone and HA2 are stacked the HA2 disconnects due to RFI. The problem is solved when in airplane mode which indicates that RFI is the culprit. Airplane mode is not an acceptable solution because I need to be accessible 24/7. They need to fix the problem. Please tell OPPO verbatim and I will be happy. Thnx

 

[ekrauss]

Will do. When does the disconnection happen, and what exactly do you mean by "disconnects"? Do you mean that sound starts playing through the iPhone speaker instead of the HA-2? Can you give me a little more info about your configuration? What iPhone model, what version of iOS are you using, what Lightning/USB cable if not stock, and if the issue presents itself only when playing certain types of files of sample rates, and if your iPhone is at a certain volume level (triggering the internal digital volume attenuation in the ESS chip) or if the HA-2 analog volume knob is at a certain level? Is the behavior consistently repeatable, or is it sporadic? What circumstances trigger it? This might not necessarily be be an issue with the Oppo hardware or firmware. It could lie in iOS. That's why the more information about your configuration, the better. Thanks!

 

[dennistdk]

Will do. When does the disconnection happen, and what exactly do you mean by "disconnects"? Do you mean that sound starts playing through the iPhone speaker instead of the HA-2? Can you give me a little more info about your configuration? What iPhone model, what version of iOS are you using, what Lightning/USB cable if not stock, and if the issue presents itself only when playing certain types of files of sample rates, and if your iPhone is at a certain volume level (triggering the internal digital volume attenuation in the ESS chip) or if the HA-2 analog volume knob is at a certain level? Is the behavior consistently repeatable, or is it sporadic? What circumstances trigger it? This might not necessarily be be an issue with the Oppo hardware or firmware. It could lie in iOS. That's why the more information about your configuration, the better. Thanks!

 
Read the last few posts I made in this thread. It's described in extreme detail several times - and I have had 10s of people contact me directly with the exact same issue. All have gotten useless replies (if any) from Oppo. The problem is without ANY doubt caused by the HA-2 having bad shielding and "rebooting" because of EMI - not the phone, cable or iOS's fault (not unless you consider increasing the power to the antenna a fault in iOS).
 
It happens with every cable (zeskit, stock, unbranded, apple etc.), every (offline) music app, every iPhone from 5S and up (I don't have older models). It's easy to replicate - just stack them together in a faraday cage and within a minute or two the HA-2(SE) will "reboot" and loose connection 9 out of 10 times (if you are using high sensitivity iems you can actually hear the RFI noise increase as the phone slowly turns up the antenna gain - up until the point where the HA2 gives up). If you keep them 10-20 cm apart with a long cable it won't happen. You cannot replicate it if you are in an area with good coverage as it usually comes when the phone is either roaming or on really low power 2g/edge network - so you cannot replicate it with airplane mode like people have tried - as it won't adjust the antenna gain if the first signal it sees is strong.
Personally I travel by train each day (130km x 2) and I experience the dropouts (both HA2 and HA2SE with several models of iPhone) about 10-20 times during the trip (which goes through several tunnels). 
 
As I said before - the GSM noise leaking into the amplifier is probably somewhat acceptable (it happens both the the Mojo and Dacamp), but the HA2 rebooting is a big mess (it pauses the music, requiring a pressing of play - and hoping that the HA2 has reconnected or the music will blast out of your phones speakers - not smart when you are in the public and listening to weird stuff).
 
As for the other "old" issue of the HA-2 that keeps popping up in the thread about it going into sleep mode and disconnecting after a minute or so (was it 33 seconds?) - I still believe this should also be fixed by Oppo (other MFI dacamps don't have this issue - at least not the ones I have tried).
 
Anyways - I did really like the HA-2(SE) and the features - and if you live in a city with good cell coverage you will probably never experience the issue (i didn't before my job required me to travel a lot). 
 
Also I know that some people have not been able to replicate it. I believe it might be because there is a wide range of mobile frequencies that are used for 2g, 3g and 4g/lte (and they are quite different from country to country). Maybe only some frequencies causes it to reboot - it happens however on the 3 different carriers I've tried here in Denmark.

 

[Jimmy101]

What he said ^^^

 

[Jimmy101]

Plus it heppens when streaming Tidal or
the dowloaded Tidal files. Also occurs
when playing downloaed files. And
youtube. Allthe time and if I go i to my
grcry store or bank forget it. It cuts out
within seconds. Never happens with my
HiFi M8. NEVER