Extremely loud "white noise" from Squeezebox?!

[Cleve]

I tend to leave my stereo on while I'm gone, as I like some music playing in the background when I return home.

As usual, today, I had my Squeezebox 3 playing the ambient station "Bluemars" on Squeezenetwork when I left for an appointment. The volume was set to maybe 60-70 db of sound level. Basically, background or just above background. My McIntosh amp was only producing about 1/10th of a watt or less.

When I returned today, I could hear a roar from outside my house. So I hurriedly went inside - One channel of my McIntosh amp had the meter holding steady at nearly 200 watts, and the other channel has a steady 10 watts. The noise was deafening - it wasn't music - it was like white noise with bass mixed in.

I thought at first my old Sansui receiver that's subbing for my pre-amp (while my McIntosh is getting a tuneup) had gone on the fritz. A quick check of other functions (AM, FM, phono, etc) revealed that the source of the sonic bedlam was the Squeezebox itself. Changing stations didn't stop the sound, nor did raising or lowering the volume control.

I tried powering the unit on and off with the remote. The noise did not go away. I had been listening via analog connection, so I kicked my HT decoder on. There was no output whatsoever from the unit's digital co-ax output. Yet the analog outputs were still blasting out the white noise.

So I unplugged the Squeezebox, and replugged it in a few minutes later. Mysteriously, the sound on the Squeezebox returned to normal. That was about 6 pm - I've had the unit playing continuously since then - it's been performing normally.

Do I have a defective Squeezebox? Does it need to be repaired or replaced?? I really don't trust it now, and I definitely WON'T leave it on while I'm out ever again. I'm afraid of damaging my almost irreplaceable Klipsch CF-4s.

I

[jonheal]

The evidence that there is a potentially dangerous (for the rest of your system) bug in the SqueezeBox is becoming a bit more than anecdotal.

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18818

In our litigious society, something like this could cause real problems for the company.

[seanadams]

The CPU is getting out-of-sync with the DAC and s/pdif interfaces - it's unclear why at this point as we've identified no way to reproduce this, or any unit that's done it more than once. Your call if you want to send it in for replacement - there isn't enough data on this to advise yet.

[jonheal]

The CPU is getting out-of-sync with the DAC and s/pdif interfaces - it's unclear why at this point as we've identified no way to reproduce this, or any unit that's done it more than once. Your call if you want to send it in for replacement - there isn't enough data on this to advise yet.

It's unfortunate that a problem like this that occurs so infrequently as to be very difficult to address also happens to be so incredibly, horribly nasty. Murphy's Law at work, I guess. :-(

[max.spicer]

You've said before that you don't recommend connecting a squeezebox directly to an amp. I think I must have misunderstood this. I have both my squeezeboxes connected to my integrated amp via analog interconnects. How else am I meant to connect them, short of buying pre-amps.

I've never had any such problem with my squeezeboxes, by the way.

Max

The CPU is getting out-of-sync with the DAC and s/pdif interfaces - it's unclear why at this point as we've identified no way to reproduce this, or any unit that's done it more than once. Your call if you want to send it in for replacement - there isn't enough data on this to advise yet.

[seanadams]

Using the preamp volume control should give a good additional degree of safety as this will limit the output level in the DAC itself - it will also give the main volume control are more useable range. Still it's bad practice in any system to feed an amp that can overpower the speakers with no analog limiting (not to deny the nastiness of outputting white noise).

[jonheal]

Using the preamp volume control should give a good additional degree of safety as this will limit the output level in the DAC itself - it will also give the main volume control are more useable range. Still it's bad practice in any system to feed an amp that can overpower the speakers with no analog limiting (not to deny the nastiness of outputting white noise).

You're talking about the preamp volume control WITHIN the SqueezeBox, correct?

My SqueezeBox is sitting, wrapped, under the Christmas tree, so I can't physically play with it yet, but once I open it up and set it up, I want to plug the SqueezeBox's analog outputs directly into my old ADCOM GFA-535.

Sean (or someone), can you please tell me where I find the SqueezeBox's Preamp Volume Control setting? Thanks.

[mflint]

Sean (or someone), can you please tell me where I find the SqueezeBox's Preamp Volume Control setting? Thanks.

Sean covered it in this post:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=55632

[fuzzyT]

mflint wrote:
> jonheal Wrote:
>
>>Sean (or someone), can you please tell me where I find the SqueezeBox's
>>Preamp Volume Control setting? Thanks.
>
> Sean covered it in this post:
> http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=55632

it is unclear to me as to whether using the SB's Preamp Volume Control
setting would actually result in signal attenuation when the SB
experiencing this error condition. i would suspect that it would not.

to clarify a bit: i believe that what sean is saying is that it may be
unwise to directly feed the analog outs of the SB directly into the
unattenuated inputs of a _power_ amplifier. particularly if that power
amplifier, running at full output, is capable driving the connected
speakers to destruction.

feeding the outputs into a _pre_ amplifier (or the pre-amplifier section
of an integrated amp or reciever) that has an analog volume control is
safer. this because, unless the analog volume control is set to max
volume, it will act as an attenuator to the high-output signal of a
runaway source component.

--rt

[Neil Cameron]

I get this with my SB2; but only occasionally and only when Synched with
SoftSqueeze.

--
Neil


"Cleve"
<Cleve.20dlyb (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>
wrote in message news:Cleve.20dlyb (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com...
>
> I tend to leave my stereo on while I'm gone, as I like some music
> playing in the background when I return home.
>
> As usual, today, I had my Squeezebox 3 playing the ambient station
> "Bluemars" on Squeezenetwork when I left for an appointment. The
> volume was set to maybe 60-70 db of sound level. Basically, background
> or just above background. My McIntosh amp was only producing about
> 1/10th of a watt or less.
>
> When I returned today, I could hear a roar from outside my house. So I
> hurriedly went inside - One channel of my McIntosh amp had the meter
> holding steady at nearly 200 watts, and the other channel has a steady
> 10 watts. The noise was deafening - it wasn't music - it was like
> white noise with bass mixed in.
>
> I thought at first my old Sansui receiver that's subbing for my pre-amp
> (while my McIntosh is getting a tuneup) had gone on the fritz. A quick
> check of other functions (AM, FM, phono, etc) revealed that the source
> of the sonic bedlam was the Squeezebox itself. Changing stations
> didn't stop the sound, nor did raising or lowering the volume control.
>
>
> I tried powering the unit on and off with the remote. The noise did
> not go away. I had been listening via analog connection, so I kicked
> my HT decoder on. There was no output whatsoever from the unit's
> digital co-ax output. Yet the analog outputs were still blasting out
> the white noise.
>
> So I unplugged the Squeezebox, and replugged it in a few minutes later.
> Mysteriously, the sound on the Squeezebox returned to normal. That was
> about 6 pm - I've had the unit playing continuously since then - it's
> been performing normally.
>
> Do I have a defective Squeezebox? Does it need to be repaired or
> replaced?? I really don't trust it now, and I definitely WON'T leave
> it on while I'm out ever again. I'm afraid of damaging my almost
> irreplaceable Klipsch CF-4s.
>
> I
>
>
> --
> Cleve
>
> Two-channel system;
>
> McIntosh MC2205 amplifier
> McIntosh MAC4100 receiver
> Klipsch CF-4 speakers
> Denon DR-M3 Cassette Deck
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Cleve's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2048
> View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=19309