[freeflier]

Hey Y'all,
Someone on one of these threads claimed he fried his cans pluging into the CS because there is a momentary short as the jack slides in. I've been trying to find the thread so that I could be sure to avoid the problem (I'd hate to toast my beloved K701s) but I can't find the post. Has anyone else heard anything about this issue?

Ps I beleive that the best time to really "hear" what a piece of equipment is capable of is when one stops "trying" to listen and simply "experiences" the event. This usually happens for me when the novelty wears off and I can't be bothered listening with critical ear anymore.
This recently occurred with the CS and while I knew it was a good piece of equipment (as my posts will attest to) this was driven home when I heard some piano "imperfections" and was surprised to find that my Benchmark Dac1 did no better at reproducing the passage. I'm now quite convinced that the CS is about 98% as good as the Dac1 at small fraction of the cost and with a lot more features. What an awesome deal and anyone in the market for a decent dac should really consider this piece seriously.

Pps. I'm using some moderately good line conditioning and upsampling to 88 Khz.

 

[GreatDane]

I think this is it:

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJ15k I agree with most of what ferbose just said, I just want to add for the current and future owners to take care of those TRS/Jack plugs, when you put it in there is a short time where the system is short circuited, and about 1-2months ago I was pluging and unpluging stuff while everything was powered up and I must have not pushed a plug to the bottom of the socket as I burned my CS and the headphone out of my mp3 player. My experience with the CS customer service was pretty good (the US one, when I called the french one they were awful but that s usual in france), the people were very helpful and they agreed to repair/replace my unit without hassle. It s currently on it s way back to me, the only thing regrettable is that their turnaround time for a repair is approx 3 weeks which I find kind of long. Anyway, great product at a great price, the preamp function with TRS (ie you could use balanced connections, which I m going to do once I get y unit back) is itself worth the price.

 

[freeflier]

Thats the one.

 

[music_man]

it does not short the outputs. it simply does not maintain the ground between clicks. there is a reason pro equipment is designed this way. if you are using pro equipment you must know it's care and feeding. consumer equipment has more safety built in at the expense of good sound.

this will destroy your headphones and other equipment. only if you take your sweet time inserting the trs plug. push it in firmly and you are fine. knowing this, i have never had a problem. you do not have to push it in karate style, nor should you. just push it right in with no pause between clicks(rings).

you should not have a problem unless you push it in half way and stop. push it in with one fluid motion. the way you are supposed to anyhow.

many jacks do this. people just don't know about it because how many people pause while pushing in a trs plug? if you do, don't!

there is no "design flaw" there. it is fine. just use it as intended.
the guy that had the mishap must have paused while he was pushing it in.

also, never make connections while equipment is "live". of course make sure that your trs jacks are pushed all the way in. use good ones that go all the way in and do not get "hung up" on the barrel. trs requires a little more thought than rca. it provides a better connection. balanced for one thing.

just follow those rules when making connections to pro gear and you should not have a problem. of course there can be other problems with pro gear. like grounding. that is why maybe some people should not use pro gear in their house. i'd imagine most head-fiers would not have a problem. the best buy crowd might want to stay clear of it.

music_man

 

[freeflier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif also, never make connections while equipment is "live". music_man

I know this is no-no but I think I hooked up my new CS in the incorrect order ie I plugged it in before hooking up the SPDIF cable. What kind of adverse consequences could result from this?

 

[JJ15k]

I was the one who had an incident with the CS, but I do realize that the CS is NOT at fault and I simply did not plug the jack in correctly.
I received my repaired unit and the issue was apparently a fried opamp.
I m glad I got the unit back it s really useful.

 

[music_man]

probably none.
if both components did not have their power on at the same time. if you are rather unlucky then there may have been damage done. the damage that results from this type of mishap is very evident. don't think something happened and just ruined the sound. if you shorted something you will know the results. at the least it is a blown amp/opamp/resistor/cap etc. the result will not be subtle. you will know something blew out. or it could be no sound at all. the worst is smoke/fireworks/bad smell. if none of this happened right after you made the hookups consider it fine.

don't do that agin of course. power off and unplug from the ac any decent equipment when making high or low level connections. recently i did not take my own advice and dropped a banana plug into a live amp and boom!
that is just one other reason you unplug stuff. anything that goes wrong you have a chance to undo before there is damage. this is very cheap insurance. don't be lazy. i know all to well about these mishaps from working with some lazy "seasoned" engineers.

music_man

 

[music_man]

i forgot to mention. always turn the volume to zero on any headphone amplifier before plugging or unplugging the phones! you do not need to unplug the amp(from the ac) nor should you. in this case it is important that the ground remains intact in case your body has static. this is milivolts. so touching it with no ground present could blow the amp or more likely the transducer in the phones.

music_man

 

[odmanca]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man don't do that agin of course. power off and unplug from the ac any decent equipment when making high or low level connections. recently i did not take my own advice and dropped a banana plug into a live amp and boom!

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif i forgot to mention. always turn the volume to zero on any headphone amplifier before plugging or unplugging the phones! you do not need to unplug the amp(from the ac) nor should you. in this case it is important that the ground remains intact in case your body has static. this is milivolts. so touching it with no ground present could blow the amp or more likely the transducer in the phones. music_man

music_man,

Thank you for your advice, but I'm a bit confused by your two posts above. In one you suggested to power off equipment and the in next you advised against unplugging the amp from the AC.

So am I correct in rephrasing your advice by saying this? Unplug the CS from AC when making connection but don't unplug the headphone amp? But what about the integrated headphone amp in the CS? You can't power it on or off separately from the rest of functions in the CS.

If you're concerned with unplugging the headphone amp will result in a floating ground, and the eletrostatic charge will kill the amp/phones, should I practice the following instead:

Always power off (through switch or unplugging) any equipment to which connections are to be made. Touch a large metal casing or use anti-static device (such as strap or discharging pad, available for a few bucks from electronics/computer stores) to rid any static before making the connections; and do so frequently for a prolonged connection/disconnection session?

 

[music_man]

as i said: whenever making high or low level connections to/from audio equipment you should first turn volumes and gains to zero. then power off all the equipment with it's switches(if it has them). then remove the ac cords at the wall/power strip side from all components. this is because power is still present in many parts of components even when their switches are in the off position. this way if you short something you can fix it before you are left without a chance to do so. that is the only real reason for unplugging from the ac. the first two steps serve to protect your gear from itself. the unplugging protects you from your own mistakes. trust me it is worth it. i know what i am doing and have wished i had unplugged in retrospect more than once.

examples of these types of connections are: speaker wire,s/pdif,aes-ebu,any rca or xlr.

this does not apply to headphone amps. you should leave them plugged into the a/c. first turn the volume to zero. then switch off the unit if this is possible. then remove the headphone jack. this is specific to headphones and turntables only. you can damage a headphones transducer or a tt's cartridge with negative feedback when a floating ground is available as a path. the chances of damaging the headphone amp or phono preamp are kind of slim. damaging headphones or a phono cartridge is very possible if they are disconnected whithout a path to earth present. this is because these items deal in miliamps and milivolts. always remove a tt's ground strap last. 2 volts/5watts draw on a 120vac, transient clip is more than enough to fry these items and is very possible just from making connections. the static in your clothes has 100 times or more that voltage instantaneously. other types of connections can be damaged but are much less sensitive. in those cases the mistake proof protection unplugging from ac offers outweighs the risk of eltro-static discharge energy.

ever hear a turntable growl when you unplug the rca's with the volume up? or your headphones "pop" when you pull the cord from the amp? you might not want to do that if you have a $1,000+ cartridge! or any decent headphones. mc carts are really easy to kill this way. one time could spell the death of it. likewise with headphones.

as usual i did not say anything contradictory in my last post. just read it more carefully.

yes, you should always touch a wall plate before touching your audio gear. that is assuming your wall plates are indeed grounded. if they are not find another ground. this is to protect quality audio gear. very cheap consumer gear is not that affected by these issues for the most part. poor quality audio circuits tend to be less fragile. good circuit design with direct paths and high spec components are much less forgiving. rub your shirt and you can charge a 1 farad cap right up! your stereo will thank if you do not treat it that way lol.

many people don't think this is necessary. some of them end up very sad one day. i'd rather avoid that entirely.

on another note, people here make big deals out of cabling. that is fine if you like that. on the other hand to those of you who do not care about that, i would be rather carefull what you are plugging your equipment into.
nothing requires $1,000 cables. however, many of the $10 surge strips from office depot(etc) are downright dangerous to your equipment and especially to yourselves! that does not need a long explanation just trust me on that.

it is very important that your dwelling is wired correctly. or none of these practices will even help you. then if you do not want to buy a surge strip from a solid namebrand you are better off plugging right into the wall.

of course, if you have gear of any value(including the cs) you really should have a real line conditioner or ups. one nice thing about these is they instantly inform you if your home is wired right. thats good.

i hope no one minds this soap box episode. if this saves one persons butt they will at least thank me(hopefully).

music_man

 

[freeflier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif probably none. if both components did not have their power on at the same time. if you are rather unlucky then there may have been damage done. the damage that results from this type of mishap is very evident. don't think something happened and just ruined the sound. if you shorted something you will know the results. at the least it is a blown amp/opamp/resistor/cap etc. the result will not be subtle. you will know something blew out. or it could be no sound at all. the worst is smoke/fireworks/bad smell. if none of this happened right after you made the hookups consider it fine. don't do that agin of course. power off and unplug from the ac any decent equipment when making high or low level connections. recently i did not take my own advice and dropped a banana plug into a live amp and boom! that is just one other reason you unplug stuff. anything that goes wrong you have a chance to undo before there is damage. this is very cheap insurance. don't be lazy. i know all to well about these mishaps from working with some lazy "seasoned" engineers. music_man

Thanx for the reminder MM.
I've definitely gotten lazy over the last few years. I've actually turned everything off in the correct order, made changes, then powered up in the correct order and STILL gotten a nasty thump in the speakers. (this may have been because I powered down the my Tact processor without putting it in standby first). With consumer gear it's all a little confusing since you have power switches which actually only put you in standby, you have power switches that actually disconnect power and you have equipment with no on/ off switch at all (like the Dac1 and CS). It's all very confusing especially when when you add to that the fact that one needs to unplug the Dac1 and CS but disconnecting the power to a power amp (without first going to standby) is not a good idea. Anyway, even though I've gotten sloppy after going through the process about a billion times, I guess if engineers (who have done this a Gagillion times) still try and stick with correct procedures then I can as well.

I don't doubt what you say because in a studio you are going to see a types of behavior and it's consequences but I've never heard of this issue where static discharge can blow a headphone. I wonder why headphone manufacturers like AKG don't warn about this? Also I've noticed that, regardless of whether I turn the volume down or not, when I turn off my Hornet there is a definte "pop" in my E500s as the caps discharge.

 

[GreatDane]

music_man,

I've read through this thread and it was mentioned that good power conditioning is recommended for optimal performance of both headphone amp and DAC sections in the CS.

I started a topic in another forum wanting some opinions on the subject but no bites yet. Do you have any advice on this topic?

Here is the topic I'm refering to.

 

[puiah11]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreatDane /img/forum/go_quote.gif music_man, I've read through this thread and it was mentioned that good power conditioning is recommended for optimal performance of both headphone amp and DAC sections in the CS. I started a topic in another forum wanting some opinions on the subject but no bites yet. Do you have any advice on this topic? Here is the topic I'm refering to.

In addition to purchasing the CS I picked up this furman unit.

The reason I believe power conditioning is beneficial is because if you have a crappy transport (cheap-o) or your a/c power in your area is polluted it will degrade sound quality.

The power supply for the CS is basically a big brick (the size of a couple giant baking potatoes). I'm not sure if the CS has any internal power components but it seems the PCB just accepts the power and ground and that's it.

I haven't done any A/B testing b/c I don't really feel like doing that. Right now my system is power condit --> sony cd transport --> optical --> CS (also connected to power condit.) --> at cans.

The furman unit really helped open up the bass. I didn't have the CS at that time and instead was using a cmoy with the same setup as described above. The furman made the bass much more clear and loud. Before that the CD transport was just hooked up to the wall.

I believe if you purchase better quality source components the power conditioner becomes just a surge protector because the CDP will have better power coils and such.

But if you're just talking about the CS itself w/ or w/o power conditioning I wouldn't know if it was necessary or not. With the transport and CS both plugged into the furman unit it sounds great. (how can I quantify that other than to say it sounds nice??? I have no measurement tools other than my ears.)

I don't know if A/C power factor or a/c line pollution has any change on SQ but perhaps a EE can talk about that.

I know that in computers if your PF is not .99 or 1 the power supply returns a/c pollution (reactive loads) to the mains and that it degrages the performance of the local lines. For instance you toaster I would assume has a pf correction of .5. Seasonic power supplies have a pf of .99

In some countries they bill in PFPH or power factor per hour or something like that. In the USA they don't bill in regards to PF, only KWH.

Use 'the google' and you'll find more info about PF and such.

 

[GreatDane]

Thanks puiah11 for the comments. I peaked at that Furman unit at Musicians Friend and it sells for $430 if I'm looking at the correct one. That's more than I'm wanting to spend right now. It looks like a good choice.

The thing that I'm not sure about is if I would benefit from a conditioner or a transformer type unit like the Tripp Lite IS250 that I linked to. From my very limited knowledge in this area, it seems like an isolation transformer would improve my not-so-good power supply in my house, not to say it's that bad. I like the idea of having the power to my gear isolated from all of the other devices in my house (dimmers,appliances,etc).

My source that I'll be using with both a digital and analog connection is a Pioneer Elite DV-45A, nothing special but I hope to upgrade to a nicer player some day. I like the 45A because it can play so many formats.

 

[music_man]

i posted a long reply telling all about this stuff in the other thread you started, greatdane. anyone wanting to better understand power conditioners may want to read that.

music_man