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  1. John Meeks

    Please Help, sub blown

    I put a new fuse in and it's working fine (I have a bunch of fuses so I had a spare). It happened when I plugged it in, so it probly just hit the wrong part of the A/C cycle when it tried to charge its caps. Nasty blow too, the inside of the fuse is all blackened and silvered.
  2. John Meeks

    Please Help, sub blown

    If you do want to mess with a potentially-charged cap, keep one hand behind your back. If you complete a circuit from one hand to the other, your heart can go into fibrillation, and if someone's not there with a defib, that's the end of it... It's not necessarily the power supply... If the...
  3. John Meeks

    Please Help, sub blown

    And, the sub does all this even if it's not connected to anything else (besides being plugged in)? Since the speaker still seems to be working fine, I'd gues something is seriously wrong with the amp. It could be many things: bad capacitor, shorted transformer windings, something with one of...
  4. John Meeks

    Please Help, sub blown

    I see you posted another message... First of all, be careful messing with power supplies. Even if you have it unplugged, those capacitors can kill you. And, I need to know more about your system before I even start to guess what's going on.
  5. John Meeks

    Please Help, sub blown

    M&K doesn't have anything about the MX-100 on their site, so I'm guessing it's a powered subwoofer. Are you talking about the amp in the sub or a separate amp? Let me see if I understand: You have an amp, hooked up to a subwoofer, and a regular pair of speakers, including woofers. The amp...
  6. John Meeks

    Please Help, sub blown

    If it makes noise, the speaker is probably OK. Did you disconnect all inputs/outputs? If so, did it still hum? I'd make sure everything's fully disconnected. Is it a 60Hz hum? It sounds like it's probly something wrong with the amp, not the speaker.
  7. John Meeks

    To stir things up just a bit...

    Actually, I think my SVS sounds quite muddy and boomy. It's great for movies, but awful for music. It's loud enough to shake the whole house. (hey, you wanted to stir things up)...
  8. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    There's a pretty good-sized McIntosh dealer near me, I should check them out...
  9. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    I still think my favorite so far is the NuForce amps, especially after reading the reviews... They also make a preamp that matches, and connecting brackets that would let me stack them neatly. You can get the two amps and preamp for $3K, if I got the DAC it'd be about 4K (probly a bit more...
  10. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    I just looked up S/PDIF, and it can do uncompressed PCM. The SoundBridge looks cool, but the computer would have to be on anyway (except for internet radio), so it seems sorta pointless. Since my computer has optical out I could just use that. Also the SoundBridge won't play files bought...
  11. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    I'm tempted to get a pair of those Nuforce Reference 9's and the DAC 1 and put them in the little carpeted enclosure (1/2 wide rackmount) on the nuforce page. I don't know if this is possible though, the amps don't look rack-mountable... Heat might be a problem too. My computer has a...
  12. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    I listen to pretty much all types of music (except country). I'll get a sub if the system requires it, but I'll keep it simpler if the speakers will give me bass. I think it sounds better coming out of the speakers than a seperate sub. My current setup is two B&W DM303's (borrowed surrounds...
  13. John Meeks

    SVS subs - How does "phase" work?

    Thanks for your reply, but I was more asking how it works, than how to adjust it. If you have two overlapping tones, if it delayed the right amount for one of them, the other one wouldn't be at the correct phase. In order to do this, you'd need to somehow convert the signal some kind of...
  14. John Meeks

    B&W DM303, SVS, lacking mid-bass

    I never had two crossovers on at the same time... I think I got it working fairly well, I put the speaker on a pad so it's not shaking the floor as much, and I plugged the port, and it seems to be working much better. I think I need to mess with the accoustics of the room some more.
  15. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    About using the computer: Most of the time I listen to music is when I'm surfing the internet, and I'm often listening to online radio. The CD player is just a secondary thing in case I have a CD I want to play. I see it as more of a pain in the neck than the computer, I can't switch songs...
  16. John Meeks

    SVS subs - How does "phase" work?

    I don't understand how the "phase" adjustment works. I know that a switch can reverse the polarity to the speaker. But, if I set the dial to, say, 90 degrees, how does it adjust the signal to that? If you go back to the switch analogy, at one setting, a current flowing from + to - would...
  17. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    Double-post... I didn't think it worked the first time because it said "server not responding"...
  18. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    I appreciate the suggestions... :) Why would a high-quality CD player be better than a computer with a high-quality external soundcard? In either case, it should be all about the DAC. It's like people saying that those gold-colored CD's, or the ones with a green line around the outside, or...
  19. John Meeks

    From scratch $10K stereo system?

    I'd like to set up a stereo system from scratch. I already have a HT, I'd be setting this up in a different room. My budget is $10K, and I'd like the following: Speakers Amp Preamp Cables (don't want anything fancy) CD player Computer hook-up Room treatments I play most music...
  20. John Meeks

    B&W DM303, SVS, lacking mid-bass

    Well, I wanted to buy a Radio Shack analog dB meter, but they don't make them any more. The only one they had was broken, and the guy said they're not getting any more. Are there any other ways to calibrate the system? I've tried various settings on the phase, and some do sound better than...
  21. John Meeks

    HDMI restriction remover or -> component...

    The TV is a Toshiba 65H80, which I bought on recommendations from this forum. There are only analog inputs. What are all the people supposed to do who just bought a TV, that was guaranteed HD-ready? A TV is supposed to be good for 20-30 years, I'm not gonna replace an almost-brand-new TV...
  22. John Meeks

    B&W DM303, SVS, lacking mid-bass

    Reciever is an Onkyo TX-DS696 I've tried using the crossover in the SVS, which goes as high as 160Hz, and I can hear the lower frequencies at that setting, but they don't integrate well with the other speakers. Maybe one of these days I'll get a set of B&M 603's...
  23. John Meeks

    HDMI restriction remover or -> component...

    Is there a magical little box available that will pass-through HDMI but remove the restriction flags? Alternatively, is there a HDMI -> component converter that will ignore the restrictions? If there isn't now, there's sure to be in the near future (probably gray-market from china)... This...
  24. John Meeks

    Best test tracks...

    What sounds do you guys use to test systems? I've found one that's exceptionally good at revealing any flaws in a sub setup: the Changes track (I believe it's 7) on The Parent Trap (1998) score by Alan Silvestri. If you get it, make sure you get the score and not the soundtrack, they're...
  25. John Meeks

    B&W DM303, SVS, lacking mid-bass

    Stuff I've heard in speaker stores... I don't know the specific speakers. Probly way out of my price range. I like the B&W's because they're extremely detailed, but I wish the 300 line had something with woofers. Using the sub for mid-bass just doesn't sound right for some reason. I can...
  26. John Meeks

    B&W DM303, SVS, lacking mid-bass

    The speakers get their own channels, and the sub gets the LFE. I've tried setting the speakers to "small" which will send some of the bass to the LFE channel, but it doesn't seem to do much. It just doesn't have the "richness" that I've heard in other setups.
  27. John Meeks

    B&W DM303, SVS, lacking mid-bass

    Ok, I have a HT setup, with 4 B&W DM303's and the matching center channel, and an SVS sub (one of the older ones), but there really isn't any woofers anywhere. The sub works fine for the low frequencies, and the other speakers are good for what they do, but music just doesn't sound right. Any...
  28. John Meeks

    B&W DM303 and SVS - need more low-to-mid

    Ahh, I think that was at least part of it. I also moved the sub around and found a place where it sounds a bit better too. For comparison, I'm trying to get it to sound as good as the same pair of speakers hooked up to my Pioneer SX-780, which sound excellent (I think it's a bit warmer than...
  29. John Meeks

    B&W DM303 and SVS - need more low-to-mid

    I tried hooking the sub up to the line-out on the amp, and turning the internal frequency filter off, so that it tries to play everything. This setup sounds better, about 75% of the way to the way I'd like it to sound, but I'm not sure if it's good for the sub to be trying to play the higher...
  30. John Meeks

    B&W DM303 and SVS - need more low-to-mid

    Any suggestions on a good SPL meter? And, I'll probly make my own test CD with cool edit...
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