Sudden Issues

[Mattrox217]

Hello,

I had a strange thing happen while listening today. I was about 20 minutes in to listening when suddenly the volume slid down to zero. I did not touch the DAC or the volume on the computer, it was the Crack that lost volume. I quickly shut it down and let it cool for about 5 minutes. When I powered back on, the volume came back up but with a couple of problems.

First, the volume in the left side is lower than the right. I flipped the headphones around to make sure it's not just me. It's just lower, not non-existent. Second the clarity doesn't seem to be there on some notes. This seems like a headphone problem, but when I change sources from the Crack i'm not hearing a similar veil over certain notes.

I flipped the unit over to check that all LEDs were on and yes all are lit up brightly. Does anyone have any other suggestions on what I can check? I'm going to unplug the Crack and let it completely cool before trying again. I'll note that this is the first issue I have had with my Crack; everything worked perfectly from first fire-up. I have not done any maintenance to it and it in the year or so that I have had it. Thank you in advance!

Mac (Spotify) > Monoprice DAC > Crack+Speedball > HD 600

[fullheadofnothing]

Voltages...?

[Mattrox217]

hey fhon, sorry for the delay, I had to dig out my meter. Here's my measurements. All pretty regular...


1 - 82
2 - 185
3 - 0
4 - 185
5 - 82
6 - 0
7 - 112
8 - 0
9 - 112
10 - 0
11 - 0
12 - 0
13 - 185
14 - 0
15 - 205
20 - 0
21 - 225
A1 - 82
A2 - 0
A4 - 0
A5 - 0
A6 - 82
A7 - 0
A9 - 0
B1 - 82
B2 - 185
B3 - 112
B4 - 81
B5 - 185
B6 - 112
B7 - 0
B8 - 0

T21 seems a bit weird... Not sure if that should be worrisome?

[Paul Birkeland]

I would be almost certain that there is a flaky solder joint in your amp that's just now giving you a hard time.

You might want to take a wooden chopstick and listen to the amp through an inexpensive pair of headphones.  You can poke around in the amp with the chopstick until you hit a spot where the sound of the amp changes or you get a pop through the headphones, then you know where the flaky joint will be.

Since the voltages all look about right, this is very unlikely to be tube related.

-PB