Tír Na HiFi

Hmmmmm..... dear oh dear...

Right you have tried changing amplifiers and problem remains. Time to try a different source, ie tuner, cassette deck or borrow a cd player from somebody. Or buy a stereo to phono lead ( about 5e) and plug in your Ipod to the amplifier.

After that I would suggest changing the speakers, you should be able to borrow a set of book shelf speakers from somebody and try them out.

I have a feeling that the problem does not lie with the electricity supply, however I could be wrong, however I would suggest a inspection of your main fuse board which services the entire dwelling by a qualified electrician. It should be possible to remove the outer plastic cover to allow a non intrusive visual inspection of all MCB's, fuse holders, wiring, wiring terminations, earth straps etc. However extreme caution has to be observed as you will be in close proximity to live electricity, electric shocks are one thing, but arc blast / arc flash in the event of a short circuit can give rise to fire / serious facial / eye damage. What you would be looking for is signs of discolouration, burning, melted or molten plastic, wires which instead of being copper in colour are black / burnt.

Prior to removing the outer plastic cover, it would be prudent to switch everything off, trip all Minature Circuit breakers and remove the main Supply Fuse which supplys the entire house.

Standing on a dry wooden chair, keep your hands away from the fuse board and just look and smell. Burning plastic / electrical components give off a acrid smell, in addition if there is burning then burnt plastic debris should be present in the fuse box.

Years ago I was in a fairly new house and every time the electric shower was in operation the MCB on the fuse board for the lights downstairs use to trip. Simple job of resetting the MCB and everything was fine, except it started to occur more frequently. Eventually I got around to checking out the fuse board and the MCB for the shower was very badly heat damaged at the connection where the line wire was screwed into the MCB. The cable was black, and the MCB casing was partially melted. I was lucky in that I caught the fault before it developed into a potential fire which could have burnt the house down.

The problem with electricity is that if a loose connection develops, heat is generated, this causes a resistance value to be present which causes more heat and the spiral continues ever downward, eventually destroying the component. If the fault occurs downsteam of protective devices then they will operate, however if the fault is upstream of the MCB then all you have to protect you is the main household fuse which can be rated quite high, perhaps 50A or thereabouts.

If you do see damage, it would be best to employ a qualified electrician to carry out repair work.

A Ghost in the maSHINE ?

This might be of interest: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=125&hilit=shine

Thanks for all the advice, gentlemen. I don't have a multimeter, but I'm sure I can get one. Apart from that the fuseboard (which seems to be more trip-switch board than fuse-board) didn't show anything untoward last time I checked, but I obviously didn't look very closely, nor did I check wiring or anything. To be honest, if I need to unscrew anything I'd be reluctant to get in there!! For some reason I find it hard to believe it's the supply, but I have no basis on which to say this.

I tried sticking in an Arcam DV79 last night as a source. It certainly wasn't any better, but is that because the problem persists or just because the Arcam is a step down in quality. Hard to say. I have a set of standmounts that I can bring in for experimentation purposes, but last time I tried them in this room they sounded so anaemic that it was difficult to draw any conclusions. Still, we'll give it a go. Testing opportunities are limited with a 10-week-old at home, especially since she sleeps in the room above the man-cave!

Gerry, that's a *very* interesting thread, thanks for linking it. I have to say, no amp has ever given me as much annoyance as the Shine, but it sounds really lovely when it works. I wonder is it the same one, or do you still have yours? If not, what did you upgrade to?

No Simon. I had to lose it eventually. Was melting my head.
I replaced it with A Cary 300 SEI in Cloney's.

They 'fixed' the Shine several times. Put it through test periods on the bench etc. each time I got it back all seemed AOK. For a while ....

I know that when I first got mine Cloney's had 2 of them. Don't know if you got my one or the other. Sounds terribly similar though.

I really liked the Shine alright. Turned me on to valves in the first place really. But when I heard the Cary at home I had to have it.
Despite the very low output, it seems to create a much bigger and more detailed sound. Holographic too with the right recordings.

Now with the Frugels at the end of it I believe that I have a really nice, warmish 300B sound, that fills my room as much as I could want, and remains fast, detailed and natural sounding.
Thoroughly musical and engaging. Like it's easy going without missing out on any nuance or musical information. A keeper in fact.
I think.
Probably.
Bloody Hi Fi bug !!!

Where are Cloney's at with your Shine now ? Seems to me that they're bound to see it through 'til all is well ?

Cheers,
Gerry

They've been extremely helpful but I only ever had it on loan with a view to buying, so now I think they're at the "hit it with a hammer or put it in a skip" stage.

Right, I'm bumping this thread because things have started to get interesting. As you'll have gleaned, I have new amps that I'm happy with, and for the first time in a long time the system itself is stable, so I can start to get to grips with this.

First things first, I am now 100% sure this is not my imagination. Of course, I still don't know WHY I'm having the problems, but they're real.

At this point, the culprit would seem to be the electrical supply. As I mentioned elsewhere, I borrowed a voltage monitor from Ivan recently to try to get a handle on all of this. Now, I'm not for one second suggesting that small fluctuations in voltage are the *cause* of the problem, but they're probably a good indication of the general load in the area, and we can only assume that the greater the load, the poorer the quality of mains, whatever that means. One way or the other, there seems to be a very serious correlation between lower mains voltages and bad sound.

Tonight, the sound is the worst I've heard in over a week. Checking the monitor, the voltage is lower than I've seen in over a week too. The best sound I got all week was later in the evening when voltage was over 230. Most evenings (after dinnertime) the voltage seems reasonably stable around the 228 mark, and I get pretty good sound. It's not at the "late night" level, but it's good. Tonight it's at about 222 and it's really really thin, midbass has disappeared, soundstage is hinted at rather than obvious, and everything sounds forced: hifi rather than music. Interestingly, I've twice had the experience of a "good" listening session going "bad", and in each case that's been accompanied by a drop in voltage. I don't seem to be able to tie the voltage to anything going on in the house itself, it seems to be a function of the neighbourhood.

Another interesting side effect, and again I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining it, is that low voltage and bad sound is accompanied by a shifting of the soundstage over to the left. This has happened with every amp I've tried and has been independent of switching the speakers around. I'm more and more convinced that the thing suffering most from the sound is the CD player, and this would seem to be linked to that.

A thought: while nominal voltage all across Europe is now 230V, in the UK it was historically 240, and reading around online it still seems to be centred at 240, often higher. Is it possible that some hifi manufacturers are tailoring product more for the UK voltages than elsewhere, and that the further we get from 240 the worse things become? As I said above, I don't really believe that my problems are related to under-voltage, but it's just a thought.

Most electrical equipment is designed to work within a % of the rated voltage, hence most equipment will still function correctly 10% either side of the design point. 10% of 240V is 24V. Domestic equipment is generally not super critical, i.e. highly accurate science laboratory stuff.

Obviously there will be some items which require very precise voltage regulation, but these are not normally found in domestic settings.

Have you tried relating it to any weather occurances, Fran mentioned about a overheating connection on a external power line to his house. Do you get low voltage when it is pouring rain, or windy conditions.

Perhaps the transformer down the street has a tendency to develop a small earth leakage when the rain is falling?

In addition measuring voltage is only one part of the electricity, there is also the frequency, this is important also.

Thanks Adrian. As I said, I'm not suggesting that voltage dips are the reason, but it certainly seems clear that there's a correlation between the measured voltage and the sound. I'm blaming it on dirty mains due to local usage, and of course that may not be the case, but I certainly haven't been able lo link it to anything else bar time of the day. I know that everything still works within a tolerance, and indeed I can confirm that: CDs continue to play!

After I wrote this earlier I thought sound improved significantly. Played another disc and indeed things were much much better. When I checked voltage it was back at 230. Coincidences are one thing, but after a while you have to wonder...

Diapason wrote:Thanks Adrian. As I said, I'm not suggesting that voltage dips are the reason, ..... I'm blaming it on dirty mains due to local usage, ..

I think it's a perfectly reasonable deduction. It's certainly not unheard of.
Before you go off a buying a set of Lars approved power conditioners consider the option of AC to DC, I know Brian O went down that route and it worked. Fran knows far more about these black arts than I do...

Si, are you taking the measurements at exactly the same location (ie set of sockets) as your hifi?