Official Cary Cinema 11a/11v Owner's Thread - Page 65

Does anybody operate the Cinema 11V? How is the quality and what is the benefit when operating an Cinema11a without the 11V?

The V is outdated by the time it was released. You will do much better with just a DVDO edge or DUO.

Having been trying to get my cary cinema 11a to work normally has been causing my grief for the past year or so (i only bought it a year ago, my mistake). It just seems to have so many issues with HDMI as well as just signal syncing in general. Initially it looked like an HDMI fault and it turns out it was, so it was about to be sent for repairs and then the retailer said i can pay for an HDMI v1.4 board upgrade. So i did that instead. Came back, hooked up the hdmi cables. in a few weeks problems started to rise and got worse and worse from signal syncing to finally no signal on hdmi at all. Then i switched to what i used to use initially which was just digital coax. After a couple of weeks even this developed syncing issues and for the past few months thats what i have been dealing with. If i change channels or rewind / fast forward etc, the signal can get lost and then it can be difficult to get it to re-sync.

Eventually i figured out the simplest way to fix it, is to keep pressing the input button till it resyncs and when that doesnt work (which it sometimes doesnt) then i have to turn off and on the cary and then keep pressing the input button..... Such a strange problem. I am going to be replacing it with the retailer's cary that he uses for demos i believe. Lets see how that pans out but considering how many issues i have had with it plus also the amount of numerous useful options or features it is missing, i think my next upgrade will actually be a downgrade in a sense.

I am going to go back to receivers or maybe an onkyo or integra processor. So much cheaper and they have all the latest audyssey chips / codecs etc and the beauty is so little issues or incompatibility problems. My friends all who have onkyos or yamahas state no issues with hdmi or in general. While for me every upgrade seems to in some way have been a downgrade due to more and more problems i encounter, the higher up in the food chain i go.. I still remember my first receiver, it was an onkyo, had really useful features that none of my other processors / upgrades have had and it worked flawlessly out of the box and did everything right (At that point).

  OK friends, I received these files today from Dan at Cary audio and the CEC fix works. However I'm just trying to be nice. I'm not taking ANY responsibility if you brick your 11A. If your not comfortable doing this yourself send your unit to Cary and let them do it for you. To be clear this is a fix for those of us who had the 1.4 upgrade but had HDMI issues afterward. Enjoy the ability to listen to Cd's without having to turn on your TV! Wow what a concept!!!!

 

 

 

C11a_HDMI_v1.4_CEC_11_8_2011.zip 104k .zip file

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HDMI 1.4 HDMI Software Installation-C11a.doc 37k .doc file

I connected my Oppo BDP-93 via 7.1 analog to the Cinema 11a as a test before buying a BDP-95 with the superior DACs. The goal of going analog was bass management with SACDs, and that was accomplished. An unexpected plus was that the pops and clicks I had thought were Cary bugs seem to be gone, leading me to suspect they were HDMI artifacts. The music now starts at the beginning, not a second or so into the piece. When I get the 95, I plan to use the analog 7.1 and XLR stereo outputs for all music, using the HDMI only for input from the DirecTV HD-DVR. Dan Wemmer at Cary and the Oppo team were very helpful in bringing up 7.1 analog -- I was confused by a lot of misconceptions.

db

I have installed an Oppo BDP-95 that feeds analog 7.1 and XLR stereo to the Cinema 11a. The sound is superb, and I get bass management even with SACDs, although the KEF 107/2s mains have very ample LF extension. As I noted in my previous post, all pops and clicks are gone, and the music starts at the beginning. Since my flawless Proceed PAV/PDSD does not have HDMI, I don't know whether the pops and clicks are HDMI artifacts or Cary's implementation of HDMI. In retrospect it has occurred to me that with the processing capabilities of the Oppo BDP-95 (speaker setup, bass management, lossless codecs), the Proceed PAV/PDSD could provide 5.1 pass through, so I needn't have purchased the Cinema 11a. Of course, that's retrospective thinking, because the BDP-95 wasn't available then and I was intrigued with HDMI as a single cable implementation.

db

after doing the above , what will be the version on the cinema 11a ?



thanks

I had the same upgrade done on my unit, an '08 model, the software version became 2.08 after the update.

I've had the update since last year actually and I've enjoyed using the CEC-free 1.4v HDMI very well. A couple of months ago though, something happened and for some reason, the HDMI board has been unable to identify the audio part of the HDMI signal. I could still see video on my TV and in fact, still pass-through audio signal to the TV. But the unit just can't process the audio signal from the HDMI input anymore. I had to switch to optical inputs just to get audio from my Oppo BDP-93.

I've been in contact with Dan himself and tried to troubleshoot the unit over the phone but we were not successful in fixing it. It was working very well up until that moment. I still don't know what happened to the unit to account for the strange behavior.

Manny

Why don't you try replace another HDMI cable to try out ? My problem was the whole 11a was freeze or brick . Need to on and off the 11a many times only then to get back to normal working condition . I m still in version 1.08

[/quote]Why don't you try replace another HDMI cable to try out ? My problem was the whole 11a was freeze or brick . Need to on and off the 11a many times only then to get back to normal working condition . I m still in version 1.08[/quote]

Thats actually what i did in the early stages...with several cables too.

Also used different bluray players.

It was so odd...it was working well, no changes made, then all of a sudden..... it just stop recognizing the audio signals from the HDMI

Why don't you try replace another HDMI cable to try out ? My problem was the whole 11a was freeze or brick . Need to on and off the 11a many times only then to get back to normal working condition . I m still in version 1.08[/quote]
Thats actually what i did in the early stages...with several cables too.
Also used different bluray players.
It was so odd...it was working well, no changes made, then all of a sudden..... it just stop recognizing the audio signals from the HDMI[/quote]

i see........have you try do the restore default on the 11a ? meaning reset the whole 11a unit to factory default unit ?

I have done the reset twice, changed all the settings several times....none worked.

Question about flashing a Cary 11a.

I want to flash it to 1.05, and there are 2 hex files. The PDF instructions provide the details on getting the unit into update mode, then updating it with a hex file, and rebooting. The instructions also say that the hex files should be installed right after one-another, first the HDMI hex, then the 1.05 hex.

My question is, do I got through the PDF instructions twice, meaning once for each of the hex files, or do I go through the instructions once, and do the hex files right after each other without rebooting?

The instructions are not clear on this, any clarification from someone who has flashed to 1.05 would be greatly appreciated.

I believe you need to be on 1'8 before you the hdmi cec fix which tell me you haven't sent your 11a in to cary yet. Get the upgrade its worth it if your going to keep it.

I have my Oppo BDP-95 connected to the Cinema 11a via the 7.1 analog inputs, all single-ended. I am passing the front left and right signals via XLR from the 11a to my 2 channel preamp which has a cinema bypass. However I am not getting any sound from my front left and right speakers. When I select a digital input instead of 7.1 bypass, such as coaxial from my DVR, I do get sound from the left and right. Why isn't it working with the 7.1 bypass? Will it not pass the left and right input from single ended to the balanced output?