Watts Up...?
Aug 2, 2021 at 3:22 PM Post #2,551 of 4,536
Can I ask what you mean by ‘more reliable?’

I only plug in my HMS and TT2 when I use it. I worry about power surges in the house.
one of the major things that kills electronic circuits happens at switch-on.
the sudden inrush of power is not good.
Like a light bulb that goes blink at switch on.
Also some circuits reach a sort of happy equilibrium after a certain time, so if left on, they remain there!
Stand by (if designed correctly ) means all the low power critical sections remain on, and only the power wasting sections or possibly those bits with a known limited lifespan get switched off (Vacuum tubes, hard drives, certain capacitors). So the device remains standing by for action at switch on.
 
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Aug 2, 2021 at 6:55 PM Post #2,552 of 4,536
Feddar… i also have concerns about lightening where I live, we have been hit once before. My solution is to have surge protectors on all circuits, for critical gear like computers I add an extra individual one to the power outlet for that device. You can buy voltage dependant resistors very cheaply and make them yourself if you are keen. I must have ten surge protecters in the house. Call me paranoid… but to really understand my OCD nature I can also report that I include all significant electronics on my house and home contents insurance. And yes, when lightening struck all damaged equipment including computers were replaced!

Be interesting to see if others have similar concerns?

I am evaluating an Mscaler today and if I end up with one I’d assume I’d leave that on permanently as well?

TonyW
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 3:00 AM Post #2,553 of 4,536
Can I ask what you mean by ‘more reliable?’

I only plug in my HMS and TT2 when I use it. I worry about power surges in the house.

Some years back I was in Bali for a week; the TT2 had more leakage than usual, and it turned out the mains was 316v RMS. No failures for a week's operation. That would be one hell of a surge voltage for Canada. If you are worried about mains surge voltages, then use mains suppressors.

As to reliability in semiconductors, you have 3 major problems - over-voltage, electron migration, and thermal cycling. Over voltage surges and thermal cycling principally occur at turn on/off; and with electron migration, because the die temperatures are very low in my designs (typically only 20 deg C over ambient) this is not high enough to cause electron migration issues (the silicon die is typically rated at 150 deg C).

The other relaibility factor are with electrolytic capacitors. I over rate these in voltage and temperature, and they simply don't fail in practice. Indeed, leaving them on improves performance.

Another benefit of leaving it on is humidity - it will always be dry. Ingress of water into contacts causes corrosion, and this is the failure mode exacerbated by thermal cycling.

My rule of thumb is to leave things on for less than 20W. And I have only ever encountered failures of electronics upon turn on - the exception being when you do something dumb with it!
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 4:25 AM Post #2,554 of 4,536
And I have only ever encountered failures of electronics upon turn on - the exception being when you do something dumb with it!
Ah, yes, most of us have encountered the self inflicted magic smoke at one time or other. 🤣
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 4:25 AM Post #2,555 of 4,536
Being subtropical we get our fair share of severe electrical storms too so I invested in a locally made Thor brand system, main box does over/under voltage stabilisation and protection then the dedicated power boards do surge and spike protection as well as active noise cancellation,
The bonus is, it comes with a 5 year warranty and a $500,000 connected equipment warranty, I’ve seen the input voltage depending on the time of day anywhere from 230 - 250v while the output stays at a constant 240v, only time I turn the whole thing off via the main unit is being away for the weekend or longer …
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 4:36 AM Post #2,556 of 4,536
Some years back I was in Bali for a week; the TT2 had more leakage than usual, and it turned out the mains was 316v RMS. No failures for a week's operation. That would be one hell of a surge voltage for Canada. If you are worried about mains surge voltages, then use mains suppressors.

As to reliability in semiconductors, you have 3 major problems - over-voltage, electron migration, and thermal cycling. Over voltage surges and thermal cycling principally occur at turn on/off; and with electron migration, because the die temperatures are very low in my designs (typically only 20 deg C over ambient) this is not high enough to cause electron migration issues (the silicon die is typically rated at 150 deg C).

The other relaibility factor are with electrolytic capacitors. I over rate these in voltage and temperature, and they simply don't fail in practice. Indeed, leaving them on improves performance.

Another benefit of leaving it on is humidity - it will always be dry. Ingress of water into contacts causes corrosion, and this is the failure mode exacerbated by thermal cycling.

My rule of thumb is to leave things on for less than 20W. And I have only ever encountered failures of electronics upon turn on - the exception being when you do something dumb with it!

Thank you for the detailed explanation on why the TT2 is better left on (fully on, not standby).

I would have just one ignorant question I have been wondering about: why does the unit often feel hot (not HOT but not merely warm either) if left ON, on MUTE, no music playing from the source. Is this how it should be? It's somewhere between very warm and hot even though it's not being asked to do any work, output anything.
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 5:20 AM Post #2,557 of 4,536
Me personally, i even more like electronics on because then they are warm :D I love interaction and response from electronics (lights, warm).

Btw, i am happy owner of TT2/HMS/2GO2YU. TT2 amazes me of how well and full and energetic it sounds. And to mention upon receiving TT2 last week, i actually switched it of just several times for few hours. I let it play or be on almost forever (i also tend to think it sounds a tad warmer if unit is warm).
Rob, thank you for achieving this level of music reproduction. It definitely gives emotions and joy.
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 9:47 AM Post #2,558 of 4,536
Some years back I was in Bali for a week; the TT2 had more leakage than usual, and it turned out the mains was 316v RMS. No failures for a week's operation. That would be one hell of a surge voltage for Canada. If you are worried about mains surge voltages, then use mains suppressors.

As to reliability in semiconductors, you have 3 major problems - over-voltage, electron migration, and thermal cycling. Over voltage surges and thermal cycling principally occur at turn on/off; and with electron migration, because the die temperatures are very low in my designs (typically only 20 deg C over ambient) this is not high enough to cause electron migration issues (the silicon die is typically rated at 150 deg C).
Thank you, didn't know about electromigration.
If I get it correctly, current going through a conductor, would eventually eat into the metal (layman's term) causing the conductor's impedance to increase and eventually go open-circuit.
The narrower the metal conductor, the higher the current, the higher the temperature, the longer the exposure - hastens the effect.
In chips with fractions of nano-meter wide conductors, effect becomes real - though I read it is under control these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration
 
Aug 3, 2021 at 6:17 PM Post #2,559 of 4,536
Some years back I was in Bali for a week; the TT2 had more leakage than usual, and it turned out the mains was 316v RMS. No failures for a week's operation. That would be one hell of a surge voltage for Canada. If you are worried about mains surge voltages, then use mains suppressors.

As to reliability in semiconductors, you have 3 major problems - over-voltage, electron migration, and thermal cycling. Over voltage surges and thermal cycling principally occur at turn on/off; and with electron migration, because the die temperatures are very low in my designs (typically only 20 deg C over ambient) this is not high enough to cause electron migration issues (the silicon die is typically rated at 150 deg C).

The other relaibility factor are with electrolytic capacitors. I over rate these in voltage and temperature, and they simply don't fail in practice. Indeed, leaving them on improves performance.

Another benefit of leaving it on is humidity - it will always be dry. Ingress of water into contacts causes corrosion, and this is the failure mode exacerbated by thermal cycling.

My rule of thumb is to leave things on for less than 20W. And I have only ever encountered failures of electronics upon turn on - the exception being when you do something dumb with it!
Thanks for the detailed info, as usual. I’m still a little confused. Is leaving the TT2 on stand by as good as keeping it on fully?

Also, is there a way to turn the lights off the HMS when it is still powered on? I have it in my bedroom, and I don’t generally use a night light. :wink:
 
Aug 4, 2021 at 3:38 AM Post #2,560 of 4,536
Thank you for the detailed explanation on why the TT2 is better left on (fully on, not standby).

I would have just one ignorant question I have been wondering about: why does the unit often feel hot (not HOT but not merely warm either) if left ON, on MUTE, no music playing from the source. Is this how it should be? It's somewhere between very warm and hot even though it's not being asked to do any work, output anything.

So the power dissipation is pretty constant 12-13W whether it's muted or just playing as a DAC or regular headphones. Driving 8 Ohm loudspeakers the power will increase from this.

Thanks for the detailed info, as usual. I’m still a little confused. Is leaving the TT2 on stand by as good as keeping it on fully?

Also, is there a way to turn the lights off the HMS when it is still powered on? I have it in my bedroom, and I don’t generally use a night light. :wink:

Yes standby on TT2 is fine - the primary power circuits are all working, but the OP stages are off. If I wasn't lazy I would use standby.

I thought about the lights on M scaler a lot - you need one light on, to show the unit is still powered up. That's why when it goes into low power mode, one LED is still on. You can of course dim the lights by pressing both DX buttons at the same time.
 
Aug 4, 2021 at 3:58 AM Post #2,561 of 4,536
For you guys to know is that for example 2yu light ca nbe switched of as it has 4level of brightness of which one turn off completely. Though i am not using it.
But this actually changed logic becouse previous devices H2 TT2 HMS, doesnt have this option. So 2yu has exception in that regard:) curious why it wa sdecided that way.
 
Aug 6, 2021 at 2:23 AM Post #2,562 of 4,536
Aug 6, 2021 at 5:57 AM Post #2,563 of 4,536
Hi guys. Want to start by thanking you for your contributions to the head-fi space. I have been reading through multiple Chord related threads for years now.
It was these threads that made me decide to buy a Dave and M Scaler!

I now have an issue in that regards and I hope you can help me in my investigations to figure out if it can be fixed by configuration or if either Dave or M Scaler is defect.

I will add as many observations as I can remember to let you in on the issue.


The background story
When I first brought home the M Scaler I had massive issues with pops and clicks. I quickly bought some medium model Chord Company BNC’s but they only helped a bit. After a lot of try and error I discovered that


1. The M Scaler supplied BNC’s were indeed defect
2. A setting in my Bluesound Node 2i for some reclocking the DAC stream had to be switched off

After that it worked. It still had some weird behaviour. For instance if I switched the BNC cables around, in both ends, meaning switching completely around, I got pops and clicks. If I used BNC IN 1/2 in Dave I got pops and clicks.


So only BNC pair 3/4 works and only with the BNC cables set in a specific way.


By the way, the clicks and pops only existed with full upscaling. Going to “blue” always worked fine indifferent of setup.

But I was a happy camper at that point using S/PDIF and later on toslink, as I managing to at least make it work. And I had read about others with similar issues of sensitivity.

The present
I just bought an Innuos Zenith mk3 that only has USB OUT. So I have started out with an expensive cheap USB cable (around 35 $).


I’m using the Zenith with its own Sense app (at least for starters).


But this reintroduces the clicks and pops on anything higher then 176 kHz. Even going single BNC to Dave with 352 kHz created constant dropouts every 3-6 seconds.

My questions
From my prior experience when I got the M Scaler my main issue was software related from the player/Node 2i. So my initial guess is that the BNC cables are fine (but could be wrong).


I have always felt that either Dave or M Scaler must have a fault as it was so sensitive to change.

So do you have any experience with Innuos and settings that mess up the M Scaler?
Does it sound like either Dave or M Scaler needs to be fixed?
Do you have any ideas to configurations I could try out to zone in on the primary issue?

Any suggestions and help will be highly appreciated as this is coursing me much distress.

If this is the wrong thread to post this in please let me know. I did it in the hopes to get help from Rob Watts as well for obvious reasons.
 
Aug 6, 2021 at 6:25 AM Post #2,565 of 4,536
Your best bet is to contact Chord support - either through your distributor or direct to Chord.
Hi Rob, thanks for taking the time to answer. That really means a lot!

If the consensus is a defect in the Chord gear of course I agree. And I already wrote my Distributor about it to pursue that route.

but does anyone have experience with settings within Innuos software that can be the culprit?
 

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