Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems DSP33 not always coming out of standby

An odd problem which I suspect no-one will be able to help with, but worth asking:

I've started using X10 to power up all my DSP speakers, switched by the trigger output from the controller - idea is to save power when the controller is in standby. All works well with the exception of the secondary DSP33 - it sometimes stays in standby with the LED on the back dim. It's almost as if there is a race condition between the main and slave speaker. My DSP5000s work fine, though in that case one is switched directly by the controller, and the slave by X10, so I suspect the slave always get's powered on slightly later.

Any experience of this, or thoughts?

Hi David,

I power off my 33s all the time when I'm not listening. The last DSP33 in the comms chain (I think) fails to come on regularly. I've assumed it's a comms cabling issue which I need to sort out when I get a moment...

I haven't checked to see if it still thinks it is in standby though. It probably is.

Cheers,
Joel

I put everything on x10 too including the controller. Everything is controlled by an IR to X10 box. I have not programmed my remote yet but I could put delays where needed. I was not sure I want to power down everything everytime. And current Manually do it on the x10 controller. DSP-33's are definitely the most finicky. Even with plenty of time they don't always come on.

One other thing I've been considering is to use a 511 for parallel comms rather than daisy-chaining.

I think not coming out of standby is a known issue for the DSP33's. M's response (I think in v1.07) was a sledgehammer fix to make the speakers, once out of standby, stay fully on !

This was a bug bear of mine, until I measured the power consumption. Looking at the Wiki, it would appear that with light dim (ie standby), power consumption is 7W, but when on, but no audio signal, its 3W more at 10W so not a huge amount.

However, at 5W for my 2 M33's in standby and 10W for my 3 DSP33's, with 40W consumption and not doing anything, like others, I now turn the whole system off with X10 when not in use. Since doing this, I can't say that I have ever had the issue of speakers no coming out of standby, but if they have, it was nothing that a volume or source change did not fix without me being aware of the problem.

The odd thing is that once that speaker stays in standby, nothing will bring it out of standby, even a voume change or source change. I have to turn it off and then on again - if the speaker has recently been on (ie within a minute or so) then it always comes out of standby.

511 for parrallel comms - of course it is still effectively serial (ie one master and lots of slaves). By making up a lead I do have parrallel comms (ie 3x masters, and only 2x slaves). I guess one option I have for my problem above is to extend that model so that the problematic slave 33 is also a master - I just can't be bothered to fit another M lead into that already crowded DIN plug.

Glad to see some others here who have played with X10 - guess my initial scepticism was not justified!

Me too.

I was going to plug my G98 (master) straight into the 511 with a short master cable and then have three slave cables from 511 to the speakers; so all three speakers would be "equal" from a comms perspective.

I'm not using an X10. I simply switch the speakers on in sequence. As it happens, I switch the problem speaker on last; I'll have to see if there is a difference if I switch it on first...

Well, have fixed my problem by switching the L/R (Main/slave) pair around. They both now always come out of standby. I wonder whether there was also a hardware fix to the afore mentioned 'come out of standby' problem - my problematic speaker was certainly an older model (sn DSP33C 1001xx, vs DSP33C 1003xx), though I would have expected that 100 prefix to have changed for any hardware changes. Or perhaps, if there is a race condition, perhaps one is just faster at powering up than the other.

And I have fixed my problem using a 511 patch box. I've just acquired a pair of DSP33 surrounds , so needed to use a 511 anyway. The setup is:

G68 -- Master --> DSP33 (Front C).
G68 -- Master --> 511.
511 -- Slave --> DSP33 (Front R) -- Slave --> DSP33 (Front L)
511 -- Slave --> DSP33 (Rear R) -- Slave --> DSP33 (Rear L)

I think that part of the problem is that DSP33s don't daisy chain well more than a master/slave pair. I suspect that the DSP33 in the middle of the comms chain is confused as to whether it's a master or a slave (i.e. its auto-master/slave sensing is messed up). By restricting the DSP33 to pairs this is avoided. I've powered the speakers on and off many times now and none has failed to come out of standby.

As an aside, I don't think that 1003xx marks a hardware revision.