Issue with Anthem ARC

[hifihillbilly]

I am trying to get my new MRX-720 set up. When I try to run Arc I am receiving a message that reads "critical audio problem. Please check the microphone and speaker connections". I have and cannot find any issues. Has anyone experienced this or have heard of this? I would appreciate any input. Thanks

 

[lovinthehd]

Make sure no foreign matter is in the jack on the avr for the mic? All your speaker connections are without little stray strands shorting anything? Good condition cables/connectors otherwise? Hard to know....could even be a false flag that you need to reset the system for...sometimes just ignore and continue running the software/measurement routine....

ps Or wait and call Anthem when customer support is available....

 

[hifihillbilly]

Make sure no foreign matter is in the jack on the avr for the mic? All your speaker connections are without little stray strands shorting anything? Good condition cables/connectors otherwise? Hard to know....could even be a false flag that you need to reset the system for...sometimes just ignore and continue running the software/measurement routine....

ps Or wait and call Anthem when customer support is available....

Thanks for the suggestions. Everything looks good. Looks like I will be calling Anthem support tomorrow. Very disappointed bit I will do manual set-up for now.

 

[PENG]

Thanks for the suggestions. Everything looks good. Looks like I will be calling Anthem support tomorrow. Very disappointed bit I will do manual set-up for now.

Any visible sign of damage to the mic cable? You can check continuity if you have a multi-meter. If purchased from a local dealer, you should be able to exchange it for another one.

 

[hifihillbilly]

Any visible sign of damage to the mic cable? You can check continuity if you have a multi-meter. If purchased from a local dealer, you should be able to exchange it for another one.

Any visible sign of damage to the mic cable? You can check continuity if you have a multi-meter. If purchased from a local dealer, you should be able to exchange it for another one.

No signs of cable damage. I tried another cable and received the same result. I'm using a Microsoft Surface pro 2 and wondering if the problem is related to that. Not sure though. Thanks again for your help PENG

 

[PENG]

No signs of cable damage. I tried another cable and received the same result. I'm using a Microsoft Surface pro 2 and wondering if the problem is related to that. Not sure though. Thanks again for your help PENG

I have no experience with Anthem AVRs, I only have a MCA power amp. The error message you are getting indicates some sort of connections related issue. If the cable for the mic is not the issue, may be the laptop's usb port? It seems that every time I tried to hook up my Umik-1 mic to my Macbook pro, it wouldn't sense the mic. So you may want to try plugging the mic cable into another usb port, but I am sure you have tried that too already. Other than that, you are going to have to talk to Anthem.

 

[lovinthehd]

Have you tried a system reset?

 

[PENG]

Have you tried a system reset?

I thought he said he did.. I did a search and one guy said it was the fire wall, and disabling the fire wall on his PC fixed it.

 

[lovinthehd]

I thought he said he did.. I did a search and one guy said it was the fire wall, and disabling the fire wall on his PC fixed it.

Yeah pretty sure my pc's protection software would need to have a permission granted....but I don't see where he indicated he tried a system reset (or even a soft reset, which would be a good thing to try first).

 

[PENG]

Yeah pretty sure my pc's protection software would need to have a permission granted....but I don't see where he indicated he tried a system reset (or even a soft reset, which would be a good thing to try first).

You are right, I must have mixed it up with someone's post when I was doing the search. Great point, he should reset it to factory default first.

 

[hifihillbilly]

You are right, I must have mixed it up with someone's post when I was doing the search. Great point, he should reset it to factory default first.

I have not performed a factory reset. Is this done by loading factory defaults from the save/load settings menu?

 

[lovinthehd]

Generally it's returning the avr to factory settings/defaults via a routine defined in the manual similar to rebooting a computer (should be defined in your manual). This will wipe out any particular settings you've made, though, so sometimes a soft reset (simply unplugging the unit for a while) is a better start.

 

[lovinthehd]

Look on page 33 of your manual for the reset.

 

[hifihillbilly]

Look on page 33 of your manual for the reset.

I did try the reboot with no luck. Do I need to download the mic calibration file? I have tried to do this with the mic serial#. It has a file extension of .cal
I cannot open it due y this. May go ahead and try the reset. Thanks again for the help with this.

 

[lovinthehd]

Not familiar with the ARC mic, but if it has a calibration file it should be loaded to the software using it (I have a measurement mic I use with two different bits of software that both accept the cal file). Surely if the ARC mic has a calibration file it should be used....is it a matter of the ARC software or your pc in using an external mic?

 

[hifihillbilly]

I think the mic calibration file may have something to do with it. I am done messing with this thing for today. I have performed a manual set up and it sounds pretty good. Will call Anthem tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll let you know what I find out. Have a Goodun'

 

[Joe B]

Do you have the latest version?......v1.0.1.8867
Evidently, there were some bugs in the initial release:

Version 1.0.1.8867:
- Added a new shortcut in the start menu that forces ARC Genesis to use the angle library rather than the GPU's (ims 1399)
- changes to preferences are commited on immediate exit (1371)
- loading indicator is now shown with device image image in middle on screen (1366)
- 'button' ui element can now support two lines of text (1380)
- removed duplicate completion text for reset eq screen (1373)
- added a browse for calibration file to mic selection screen (1390)
- fixed an issue where calibration files that included 'Anthem', 'Paradigm' or 'MartinLogan' in the filename were not supported (1390)
- fixed an issue where some code paths did not properly handle unicode text/paths (1390, 1391)
- added a web download link for manual calibration file download (1390)
- fixed the issue where some users were unable to download calibration files, or would get the 'critical audio problem' during the initialization phase of measurements (1390)
- filtered duplicate devices in the supported devices screen (1379)
- paired (left/right) MartinLogan Masterpiece series speakers now have a unique curve color for the left/right speaker (1384)
- fixed packaging of mac release where license.txt and firmware update files were not being copied to the application bundle (1400, 1378, 1398)


Version 1.0.0.8849:
- Initial 1.0.0 release

Hope this gets you going:
https://www.anthemarc.com/downloads/#downloads

 

[hifihillbilly]

Thanks Joe. I do have the current version. I wish it would have been the issue. I'm sure it will be a simple fix (at least I hope so) once I get in touch with Anthem. I will let the folks on here know what the solution is. Everyone has been very helpful and I appreciate it. Thanks again.

 

[hifihillbilly]

Ok, so after speaking with Anthem it appears there is a list of devices that are not compatible with proper downloading and running the ARC software. As luck would have it my Microsoft Surface Pro2 is one of those devices. I am still waiting on confirmation from Anthem but they seemed pretty sure this is the issue. I do not have another device to use so it looks like I will be borrowing one or purchasing the mic for the mobile application. The positives from this ordeal is now knowing how to navigate through the Anthem 720 menus, etc. Another positive are the folks here on Audioholics. I really appreciate everyone's time for helping me with this issues. Cheers!!!!!

 

[lovinthehd]

Good luck. That's some picky software....curious, what version of Windows are you running?