My Hi-fi Nightmare!

[admin_exported]

Recently got a new Arcam rDac. Great, so I set it up, and boy have I had problem after problem. I should probably mention that the rDAC is not at fault at all in any of this and is a fantastic piece of art.

So, I wired it up, and couldn't work it out, mains hum right from the start.

Also, I had a major problem using Windows 7 with the rdac, Windows 7 has this glitch that keeps making pops and crackles with usb dacs. Ok, so while I was 'playing' I was trying not to let this get to me... But it was, it was winding me up no end.

I set up originally USB out of PC into rdac, then on from there into the pre,

I thought, easy.. Ground the pre to the PC.

Nope. Did that and it helped but not much.

I spent all weekend on this!!! Thinking I need to isolate the USB cable somehow, and tried doing it myself by putting some insulation tape around the end of the USB earthing edge and also some tape on PIN 1, which is a ground.

Now what.. The mains hum stopped. Woopie doo.. Yeh, till I play a song from the PC, then there is this high pitch noise thing about 50% worse than mains hum.

Now I'm thinking, ok gotta be the pre or the amp then, checked the earth in the plugs. Fine!

Tried earthing the DAC. Nope.

Could it be the DAC that is just faulty? Holy moly, I was hoping not..

I checked the interconnect with a multimeter to check there wasn't a break. Result of this was FINE.

Hmmmmmm.. Sat there a bit, pondering..

Well..

Wanna know what the problem was? .. it WAS the fekking interconnect (out the dac to the pre) after all. I only realized later on the cable I was using was slightly tarnished on the gold earth rings and wasn't grounding properly.

Swapped that to another and the hum went completely. I'm so happy and relieved now, I can tell you.

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Moral of this post, don't assume when you have a similar problem it won't be anything to do with your cabling, even after checking for continuity.

PS.. I also changed Win 7 for Vista, and its still popping but about 90% better. XP is next on my list, from what I've read that doesn't pop at all..

:wall:

.....ANY MORE HI-FI NIGHTMARE STORIES TO SHARE???

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[Native_bon]

Yeap, I had problems with hissing on my system for a whole month.. Everything else was sounding better with up gragdes but the vocals was getting worse.

Evrytime i upgradges my cables of HIFI equipment the problem just went from bad to worse. I was saying to myself how can this be. Anyway eventually i Was told to get a mains conditioner & that my upgragdes were showing up problems in my mains.

Invested in a mains conditioner & boy I was almost in shock. Sublime improvement. All the hissing gone just like magic!!

There you go my nightmare.

 

[Overdose]

You are considering changing OS to improve your audio, may I ask what else you use your computer source for?

I would recommend a Linux flavoured OS, perhaps Openelec, which uses XBMC as a media centre at its core. It is also remote controllable via app (Android or iOS). This is a very lightweight and effective OS.

Some alternatives would be more comprehensive Linux installs, such as Mint 13 or Ubuntu, both excellent OSs, particulary those moving from more popular Windows or Mac OS environments. These are more like full OSs, such as Windows, but run XBMC as a program, like Media Player.

Linux is extremely configurable and may be just what is needed.