Hey all. So a week ago or so I posted about audio drop outs. These drop outs were intermittent, random, and resulted in either strange static, or a high pitch squeal from all speakers.
Given it was Christmas and New Years, I didn’t bother boxing up the Marantz 8805. I decided to wait until the holiday period settled.
We have spent a couple weeks dealing with the issues. Some days it wasn’t very problematic. Others, it happened quite a lot.
So, anyway. I hadn’t really played much music but when I did it sounded, in a word, bad. Not how a $30,000 sound system should sound. It sounded harsh, and as my fiancé put it, irritatingly noisy.
Today I had a light bulb moment. And as a part time club DJ and music producer, I’m kicking myself for not picking up on this earlier....
I haven’t/hadn’t run Audyssey. So all my channel levels were set to 0dB. And since I’m outputting via balanced XLR to my Elektra Theatre power amplifiers, there’s likely a 6dB gain compared to RCA.
Basically, I believe I’ve been running all my channels “hot” to my power amp and everything has sounded as if my volume was too high on the input source. Even if the overall master volume was within normal levels, everything has still sounded super loud and harsh. Particularly in the upper mid and lower highs.
Even with my 8805 set to -35dB, music from Apple Music on my Apple TV 4K was irritatingly noisy and loud.
So today I adjusted the levels. Not with Audyssey yet, but manually. With each channel ranging from -8dB up to -6dB, I feel like I have a new sound system. It sounds smooth and warm and airy like my old 8802 sounded three years ago before I moved out of my home.
Dince making this adjustment I have not had a single cut-out or audio issue. Touch wood - I’m assuming my circuitry either in my Marantz or my Elektra amps were “freaking out” due to the hot signals.
Can anyone here corroborate my findings? Am I right in assuming this was causing my issues all along? Could I have done permanent damage to my components? This could also explain why some shows and movies had no issues while others did, since some streaming services have a lower output signal gain than others.
Could the hotter signal have caused my amps to potentially draw too much power off our 20 amp circuit upon which ALL of my equipment is connected?
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Scot.