Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Crackling from all DSPs with 861v4

Hi Craig

Thanks for those ideas. Whilst that may be of help, did your problem just spontaneously develop over time?

What this post has triggered in my memory is a change I made to the config prior to the problems starting. I used to have a video card in the 861 which was taken out 2 years ago, although I don’t believe it was removed from the config.

I used Fetch prior to my move to grab the config and adapted it to my new location. Whilst doing that I noticed there were two cards listed in the config with an alert next to each to say they were not present or something to that effect, so I deleted them from the config.

I wonder if there’s any correlation? Time for some more testing...

You mentioned it was causing interference when it was in J25. What did that sound like? Did it manifest in the same way as I explained?

Thanks

Jon,

Mine was like static/crackling noise and started only at warmup when I first heard it but over a few weeks it was doing it 100% of the time in all DSP modes.
As my thread on it explains that I sent the cards individually to Meridian UK but they were fine. It was only when I sent the entire 861 over they eventually noticed my CO00 in J25 and I was told Bob Stuart identified a problem in some 861's with the CO00 in that location etc so they changed mine to J17 and it fixed the problem and have never played up since.

The PDF Bob Stuart released in 2010 with the new CO00 location can be found HERE

It like a 10 min fix so if I were you I would at least try it as you have nothing to lose and it will save a lot of grief if it is indeed the problem.

That sounds quite unwise to me. I'd make sure your configuration is for the unit you are actually flashing it to, which is essentially not the case if your belief above is true.

Using fetch is never a good idea.

Start with a clean configuration for the correct cards and go from there. Otherwise Meridian or a dealer won't even look at it, I think.

(This suggestion doesn't overrule the one about position of cards earlier in the thread, it's just my reaction.)

Hi Craig, Jon,

Please don't attempt the CO00 card move on the 861v4.
This central location is only relevant to 861v6/v8, never used with v4, which always has the CO00 card located up near the mains input.

It's also not really a 10 minute fix, as you need to move the ribbon cable that connects to the CO00 card, which is a full 'lid off' job to re-dress the cable.

Cheers,

Rick

Rick, fair enough about it only a being a fix for the v6/v8 etc

Just trying to help as I had the exact same problem which plagued me for well over 9 months and I was ready to sell all of my Meridian gear as even M didn't have a solution for me.

Good luck with it Jon and let us know what the problem was when you have it all sorted.

Hi again

So, here’s an update now I’ve resolved the issue for future reference.

Simultaneous to the crackling I was having on all channels, which I had assumed was a problem with the 861, I was having a problem with the rear right DSP6K Midrange driver, see here: Lost DSP6000 Midrange.

Whilst pondering what to do to try and resolve these issues, it dawned on me that the two issues could be related. So I turned off the faulty DSP, tried again and the crackling was gone. Awesome! No cards to replace, no 2 month repair.

To confirm I tried turning back on the faulty DSP and tried again, expecting the crackling to return. It didn’t, but it has not returned in 3 weeks or so. My guess is the faulty midrange was indeed causing the issue and when it fully failed the crackling disappeared.

I have since replaced the midrange driver with an identical SEAS driver after hunting high and low for one and delighted to say that I now have a perfectly working system again.

Hope this helps others, should this ever happen to them sometime.

Excellent news. Glad you got it all working again.

Excellent news that you got it sorted. It would be surprising that a bad driver could produce crackling across all the channels- not sure how that would work?