Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming DSP5200 / 218 very muffled sound, help please

Hi Ian,

It sounds like there is potentially a hardware issue with the speakers. If you have re-typed each speaker, that effectively soft-resets them, so settings like EBA will be at default values (i.e. the same on both speakers).

When you press CLEAR on the remote, only the Master speaker will respond with CON or NCON, the Slave speaker is effectively a slave and won't respond to any remote commands.

The only other thing you can try is to send a digital source directly into the Master speaker, retype it so it is using the COAX input (so LM COAX). You don't need to change anything on the Slave speaker.

Any digital source will do (an old CD player or DVD player should work fine - max output rate 96KHz).
If the sound is better, then it will be the 218 that has a problem; otherwise, the speakers will require attention.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers,

Steve

I think you are right, I have tried everything swapped out cable wise but next step is a different source direct to the speakers.

Will have to go in the loft and dust off my old CD player.

Hi Steve,

I have now removed the 218 and connected the Sonos direct to the master coax connection. Still does not sound good.
You asked if there is any output form the tweeters, I am not convinced that there is. The Issue could still be the Sonos box so I need to try something else. If it were a speaker hardware problem why would that be evident on both?

Thanks

Hi Ian,

It is possible that there could be either a problem with the comms board or the amplifier board. I've seen amplifier boards fail and take out the tweeters.

It's hard to tell without the speakers in front of me...

Do all the testing you can to rule out external factors, but if the speakers are still sounding bad, then they may need a service.

Drop me a PM and we should be able to sort something out.

Cheers,

Steve

Just a quick update on this issue.

Steve has been helping me diagnose what is wrong and it appears both tweeters have failed, probably cause by faulty transistors. I have some final tests to complete but very likely the case.
Very frustrating that both speakers should fail at the same time, I am assuming it may have been a mains surge that took out the power here a couple of weeks ago.

A final update on this issues. Steve has done a great job of checking my speakers and replacing the tweeters. No other damage so it seems this fault is down to my own abuse of them by driving them too hard.

Resurrecting this thread in the hope that there was something else not mentioned that may help out a friend of mine.

In the last week I persuaded a friend to buy a bargain set of DSP5200SE, with a 210. All apparently ex-demo stock for a shop that closed. He got them set up on Friday and apparently all was good, but since playing with settings, he has found that the right, slave, speaker loses the tweeter after a while. He says he did a reset to normal settings, which restored it for a while, and then later on the right tweeter slowly turns off.

I have sent him this thread and suggested re-Typing, but if anyone has any ideas of what could have gone awry, I would appreciate it. I am feeling rather guilty at the moment and he is stressing.

Thanks
Oli

Update this morning is that everything is working. He is going to leave them playing without touching any settings and see how they go. So far so good, after 1hr.

Guessing that if the tweeter is on the way out, it might be prone to overheating and cut out when it gets too hot, but does the whole speaker normally turn off it detects it is too warm?

If the speaker gets too hot, then the speaker will shut down and display hOt on the display. (I think you also get another light on the right-hand side that indicates thermal protection)

You should be able to go into the setup of the speaker (Type 0) and cycle through the settings to set the internal ambient temperature for thermal protection (defaults to 24 degrees)

Check the temperature of the rear panels of both speakers (if the failing one is hotter than the other, then that may indicate other issues).

It is unlikely to be the tweeter; it is more likely that it could be the DSP or amplifier boards.

Drop me a PM if you're still having issues.

Cheers,

Steve