Tonewinner at300 thoughts?

[Klipschoholic]

The RCAs are not causing the buzz in your system, and XLRs will be no better in that regard.

The first thing to understand is that a ground loop by definition is a potential between grounds, so that a current will flow between the grounds. So changing cables and outlets is not a solution.

What you have to do is find the ground, or grounds, that are not at system ground.

A very frequent cause of ground loops are cable systems and Ethernet connections.

So this is how you go about isolating a ground loop.

First you just plug in the power amp. Now with everything disconnected from the receiver or preamp except the power cable, connect it to the power amp with your RCA cables. Is there hum? If not then the receiver/preamp are at the same ground potential as the power amp. If there is hum then there is a faulty grounding in either one of those units.

If no hum, then connect the cable system to the rig. If you have hum then the ground loop is coming from the cable system. If there is hum disconnect the cable system. If no hum, then leave it connected. Now connect the Ethernet cable. If no hum leave it, if hum disconnect it.

Now do this for every unit that is connected to the system. This way you will identify which unit or units are causing the ground loop.

Once you have completed and identified all ground loop sources report back and I will suggest potential solutions.

Ok so I connected everything one by one. Denon 4500 and the 2 xls 2502 amps for my l/r/c speakers no buzz. Now I connected the xli 3500 amp just power cord no buzz. When I connected the rca from the denon 4500 to the xli 3500 that is where the buzz will play in every speaker and subwoofer. That rca from the denon to xli amp I added the blue jean cable hum isolator and it did make the buzz about 50% quieter, but would like the buzz completely gone.

 

[lovinthehd]

The sunfires are hrs12. Took the plate amp off then and added 2 passive radiators on each sub box. Using the xli 3500 to power them. Well I guess what I mean by "not moving even at -30db volume on the denon" is the subwoofers don't create much of a sound at -30db volume on the denon even at +6db level in the denon. I usually have to increase the volume to -15db on the denon for them to create some good bass. The sunfire subs are in their original boxes and air tight. I cannot get the xli amp to even clip without the subwoofers connected. So I was thinking the denon should have more than enough preout voltage to make the amp clip. So that is where my thought of getting a pre amp with xlr would create more preout voltage based on specs of xlr preout voltage on pre amps.

So what happens if you use the xli on the mains instead of the xls, same hum?

How did you go about redesigning those subs particularly?

 

[Klipschoholic]

So what happens if you use the xli on the mains instead of the xls, same hum?

How did you go about redesigning those subs particularly?

I'll have to try that when I get home. I bought them from a crazy audio guy not to far from me. I heard the sunfires when they were "stock" and sounded great they are pretty amazing for the footprint. Than he took the plate amp off the sunfires and used the plate amps for his klipsch 15s. So he added 2 shallow Boston acoustic passive radiators and the bass extended a lot more dug deep and carried with authority.

 

[}Fear_Inoculum{]

This thread got derailed hard. Anyway TS, not sure if you're a member over there or not, but here is a thread on the AVS forums about the TW AT-300. A bunch of members put in orders and they have now received them. So far, mostly good things to say about the unit. For the price point, it seems like a steal. I'm debating getting one myself to be honest.

TONEWINNER AT-300 - 16 CHANNEL PREAMP/PROCESSOR

www.avsforum.com

Cheers,

}Fear_Inoculum{

 

[TLS Guy]

I'll have to try that when I get home. I bought them from a crazy audio guy not to far from me. I heard the sunfires when they were "stock" and sounded great they are pretty amazing for the footprint. Than he took the plate amp off the sunfires and used the plate amps for his klipsch 15s. So he added 2 shallow Boston acoustic passive radiators and the bass extended a lot more dug deep and carried with authority.

That guy you bought your subs from is crazy alright, and a complete idiot as well.

I was in close contact with Bob Carver when he developed those Sunfire subs, he even came to my home.

The driver is designed for a sealed enclosure and its Thiel/Small parameters are not in any way correct for a passive radiator design and the box would be far too small anyway.

Next Bob Carver added humungous amounts of EQ to the bass to even make it a sub. All sealed subs require equalization below F3.

So I don't know what you have, but a sub it is not. There is no way that sub is going to produce low bass output in that configuration. So you are on dire need of properly designed subs, as what you have are just idiotic honkers.

Now to the hum. What I want to know is, do you have hum if the Denon is just connected to one power amp, and all inputs to the Denon are disconnected? If you do, then your power amp has an internal grounding error.

 

[lovinthehd]

I'll have to try that when I get home. I bought them from a crazy audio guy not to far from me. I heard the sunfires when they were "stock" and sounded great they are pretty amazing for the footprint. Than he took the plate amp off the sunfires and used the plate amps for his klipsch 15s. So he added 2 shallow Boston acoustic passive radiators and the bass extended a lot more dug deep and carried with authority.

Yep like TLS said, those are much more likely frankensubs now. Not really a Bob Carver sub IIRC, just a product from Sunfire after he sold it. Much better subs out there even if unmolested....

 

[lovinthehd]

This thread got derailed hard. Anyway TS, not sure if you're a member over there or not, but here is a thread on the AVS forums about the TW AT-300. A bunch of members put in orders and they have now received them. So far, mostly good things to say about the unit. For the price point, it seems like a steal. I'm debating getting one myself to be honest.

TONEWINNER AT-300 - 16 CHANNEL PREAMP/PROCESSOR

www.avsforum.com

Cheers,

}Fear_Inoculum{

Thanks for the link, think I'd seen Tonewinner is the brand of the factory that makes some Emotiva gear (and others).....off to read more.

 

[Klipschoholic]

Yep like TLS said, those are much more likely frankensubs now. Not really a Bob Carver sub IIRC, just a product from Sunfire after he sold it. Much better subs out there even if unmolested....

They sound awesome for movies and music. When the volume is up loud they produce nice lows and very accurate sounding. Did different sign waves to them and they go down to about 18hz no motor noise or anything. But that was my main thing if my pre out voltage isn't enough as I need to have the avr volume cranked to really make the subs do there thing. The guy had just a 500 watt amp on them when I heard them again and he didn't have to crank the avr or sub levels to where I do to make the subs do there thing. And that kind of brings this back to the tonewinner or some preamp with xlr preouts. Seems like xlr preouts double voltage of what unbalanced preouts put out.

 

[Klipschoholic]

That guy you bought your subs from is crazy alright, and a complete idiot as well.

I was in close contact with Bob Carver when he developed those Sunfire subs, he even came to my home.

The driver is designed for a sealed enclosure and its Thiel/Small parameters are not in any way correct for a passive radiator design and the box would be far too small anyway.

Next Bob Carver added humungous amounts of EQ to the bass to even make it a sub. All sealed subs require equalization below F3.

So I don't know what you have, but a sub it is not. There is no way that sub is going to produce low bass output in that configuration. So you are on dire need of properly designed subs, as what you have are just idiotic honkers.

Now to the hum. What I want to know is, do you have hum if the Denon is just connected to one power amp, and all inputs to the Denon are disconnected? If you do, then your power amp has an internal grounding error.

Nope no hum if the Denon is connected to one power and all inputs to the Denon are disconnected.

 

[lovinthehd]

They sound awesome for movies and music. When the volume is up loud they produce nice lows and very accurate sounding. Did different sign waves to them and they go down to about 18hz no motor noise or anything. But that was my main thing if my pre out voltage isn't enough as I need to have the avr volume cranked to really make the subs do there thing. The guy had just a 500 watt amp on them when I heard them again and he didn't have to crank the avr or sub levels to where I do to make the subs do there thing. And that kind of brings this back to the tonewinner or some preamp with xlr preouts. Seems like xlr preouts double voltage of what unbalanced preouts put out.

Maybe, would like to see some measurements on the subs but perhaps they simply just don't get that loud as you want otoh. The XLi only needs 1.4V of pre-out for utilizing the full power of the amp and your Denon should do that easily, plus you have a .775V option if you want to tweak the gain a bit beyond that. Which sensitivity setting are you using? Also, since the XLi was made for both types of connections, doubt there's a great advantage to using the balanced inputs. What is the pre-out level on the Tonewinner?

 

[Klipschoholic]

Maybe, would like to see some measurements on the subs but perhaps they simply just don't get that loud as you want otoh. The XLi only needs 1.4V of pre-out for utilizing the full power of the amp and your Denon should do that easily, plus you have a .775V option if you want to tweak the gain a bit beyond that. Which sensitivity setting are you using? Also, since the XLi was made for both types of connections, doubt there's a great advantage to using the balanced inputs. What is the pre-out level on the Tonewinner?

I'm using .775V for it. So I was able to get the clip light to blink a little on the XLi amp by turning the master volume up to +18 past reference on the denon while having the sub level on the denon at 0 lol. I wanted to see if it was even possible. From what I read the tonewinner has 9v xlr preouts.

 

[TLS Guy]

Nope no hum if the Denon is connected to one power and all inputs to the Denon are disconnected.

So the ground loop is coming from something connected to your Denon. Now connect inputs back to the Denon, one by one, and if hum returns then pull that input. If no hum leave it. That way you will identify sources that have grounds with a different potential than system grounds. Dollars to doughnuts it the cable system, Ethernet or both.

 

[TLS Guy]

This thread got derailed hard. Anyway TS, not sure if you're a member over there or not, but here is a thread on the AVS forums about the TW AT-300. A bunch of members put in orders and they have now received them. So far, mostly good things to say about the unit. For the price point, it seems like a steal. I'm debating getting one myself to be honest.

TONEWINNER AT-300 - 16 CHANNEL PREAMP/PROCESSOR

www.avsforum.com

Cheers,

}Fear_Inoculum{

No, I'm not a member over there, but I would be very reluctant to buy one of those amps. These forums are awash in HDMI problems and failures with boutique brands. HDMI is so complex that only the big majors have any chance of getting it right. In addition I would be very worried about reliability. If it only last a couple of years or so it is a bad deal.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you are not going to hear the differences in those measurements and totally dwarfed by speaker aberrations, even mine.

I have had really good luck with Marantz pre pros, and have had years of use out of three of them, and two years out of he last which is so far going strong.

The hardest thing to assess is whether a piece of gear will be reliable and stand the test of time. So track records are important. Gear from that Emotiva quarter has a horrendous reliability record. So I personally would not consider any product even remotely connected to that Emotiva outfit without reliability data over several years.

Any unit is worthless once the red light blinks.

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm using .775V for it. So I was able to get the clip light to blink a little on the XLi amp by turning the master volume up to +18 past reference on the denon while having the sub level on the denon at 0 lol. I wanted to see if it was even possible. From what I read the tonewinner has 9v xlr preouts.

That does sound odd, you should easily be able to clip it with that sensitivity setting. What are you using for sub content when testing for clipping? Have you tried swapping the XLi in on the speaker pre-outs to see if the same situation (buzz and hard to clip?)

 

[lovinthehd]

No, I'm not a member over there, but I would be very reluctant to buy one of those amps. These forums are awash in HDMI problems and failures with boutique brands. HDMI is so complex that only the big majors have any chance of getting it right. In addition I would be very worried about reliability. If it only last a couple of years or so it is a bad deal.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you are not going to hear the differences in those measurements and totally dwarfed by speaker aberrations, even mine.

I have had really good luck with Marantz pre pros, and have had years of use out of three of them, and two years out of he last which is so far going strong.

The hardest thing to assess is whether a piece of gear will be reliable and stand the test of time. So track records are important. Gear from that Emotiva quarter has a horrendous reliability record. So I personally would not consider any product even remotely connected to that Emotiva outfit without reliability data over several years.

Any unit is worthless once the red light blinks.

Then again the test of a 7705 wasn't so hot either https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/marantz-av7705-home-theater-processor-review.11359/

 

[mtrycrafts]

...

People say lots of silly things about pre-conceived notions about audio gear that have little to do with reality.

Who wants reality?

 

[Danzilla31]

I am super curious about this unit there are a few fellas on avs that have bought them so we will be able to see how they hold up

Someone will no doubght send one in to Amir to review as well

 

[}Fear_Inoculum{]

No, I'm not a member over there, but I would be very reluctant to buy one of those amps. These forums are awash in HDMI problems and failures with boutique brands. HDMI is so complex that only the big majors have any chance of getting it right. In addition I would be very worried about reliability. If it only last a couple of years or so it is a bad deal.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you are not going to hear the differences in those measurements and totally dwarfed by speaker aberrations, even mine.

I have had really good luck with Marantz pre pros, and have had years of use out of three of them, and two years out of he last which is so far going strong.

The hardest thing to assess is whether a piece of gear will be reliable and stand the test of time. So track records are important. Gear from that Emotiva quarter has a horrendous reliability record. So I personally would not consider any product even remotely connected to that Emotiva outfit without reliability data over several years.

Any unit is worthless once the red light blinks.

That's the one thing that's making me reluctant to buy it, the unknown reliability of the unit. If it had a 3 year warranty, I'd have no problem paying the money for it. 2 years.......that's a concern IMO.

Regardless, the limited information I've seen about it so far has been overwhelmingly positive so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt (for now).

 

[TLS Guy]

Then again the test of a 7705 wasn't so hot either https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/marantz-av7705-home-theater-processor-review.11359/

Yes, but it sounds excellent and you will not hear those differences that were measured. After a somewhat bumpy start Firmware updates came thick and fast, and the unit has been rock solid stable and shown no temperament at all. If it can drive this rig, it can drive anything. Amir fusses and waxes eloquent over issues of absolutely no consequence.

 

[lovinthehd]

Yes, but it sounds excellent and you will not hear those differences that were measured. After a somewhat bumpy start Firmware updates came thick and fast, and the unit has been rock solid stable and shown no temperament at all. If it can drive this rig, it can drive anything. Amir fusses and waxes eloquent over issues of absolutely no consequence.

When it doesn't even measure as well as a Denon avr? Audibility perhaps, isn't that what the Marantz "tuner guru" was implementing? The pre-out performance isn't all that good, either. Tonewinner could be better, who knows?