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Xilica - Repaired :-)


Ziggurat

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I'm stumped.

 

Tonight I plugged in the Xilica 8080 I purchased. Made up some cables with Euroblock connectors and jumped the negative across to ground.

 

Set things up nicely, and I have sound, encouraging quality too.

 

But...

 

No matter what amps, sources cable switching etc, I get a constant 1500hz noise coming out of the K402 horns... I just cannot work this one out.  It is definitely coming from the Xilica and is having a real impact on my sanity right now. 

 

Any help greatly appreciated... thanks.

 

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To and from Xilica all balanced or some/all RCAs? 

 

On my RCAs Xilica customer service told me to wire all 3 as normal to the Phoenix connections and on the RCA end solder negative AND shield to whatever the non-signal "thing" is called. Sorry not too technical, but hopefully you get the idea.

 

All my cables are 3-wire balanced Beldin brilliance. Using an RCA and jumper at the Xilica end did not sound as quiet to me, but even when I had them that way nothing was really noisy. 

 

Hope this helps

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14 minutes ago, rplace said:

To and from Xilica all balanced or some/all RCAs? 

 

On my RCAs Xilica customer service told me to wire all 3 as normal to the Phoenix connections and on the RCA end solder negative AND shield to whatever the non-signal "thing" is called. Sorry not too technical, but hopefully you get the idea.

 

All my cables are 3-wire balanced Beldin brilliance. Using an RCA and jumper at the Xilica end did not sound as quiet to me, but even when I had them that way nothing was really noisy. 

 

Hope this helps

 

Thanks for that, will try it. My system is all RCA to Phoenix/Euroblock. Thanks again.

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2 hours ago, Ziggurat said:

I'm stumped.

 

Tonight I plugged in the Xilica 8080 I purchased. Made up some cables with Euroblock connectors and jumped the negative across to ground.

 

Set things up nicely, and I have sound, encouraging quality too.

 

But...

 

No matter what amps, sources cable switching etc, I get a constant 1500hz noise coming out of the K402 horns... I just cannot work this one out.  It is definitely coming from the Xilica and is having a real impact on my sanity right now. 

 

Any help greatly appreciated... thanks.

That sounds like you might have the shield and the negative connectors inverted or touching on the wrong end of the connected cable  connectors.  It should be dead quiet quiescently on the output amplifiers.  If you've made up the cables yourself (especially if you're converting from RCA unbalanced to XLR balanced), check them one at a time by unscrewing all the connections from the Euro connectors, then adding back one cable at a time, starting first with the output cables from the Xilica.  If you get the same humming noise, that will give you a clue. 

 

Otherwise, make sure that the Xilica and preamp and amplifiers are all plugged into the same wall socket to eliminate ground loop issues.

 

Chris

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Right. Spent all day on this. Tried absolutely everything suggested here and elsewhere. Still getting the noise. The second you make electrical connection between the amp and the Xilica it begins. Constant 1500hz buzz.

 

Made, remade and remade again my cables, tried shielded, unshielded et al. 

 

All I can conclude is that the Xilica is faulty. There is no obvious reason it should be behaving in that manner. 

 

My first bad Ebay purchase... dang.

 

 

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On 7/13/2019 at 5:56 AM, Ziggurat said:

**** SOLVED *****

This was found to be caused by a particularly unusual power issue. It appears my computer (audio source) was somehow polluting the power board - and that part of my house's circuit. I have taken a feed using an extension cord from a known different circuit, now Xilica is DEAD quiet. Curious that none of my other components seem to pick up the noise. Anyhow.... I'm very relieved! Thanks for the help! 

 

Also note that the Xilica has an automatic muting function, called "Internal System Optimizer" (ISO).  The following is from the manual:

 

Quote

7.12 ISO Settings
This Internal System Optimizer reduces ground floor noise if no signal is present. If unwanted Noise Gate effects are audible on low sound levels it can be switched to bypass mode.

It also has a threshold level that is adjustable to mute the inputs when no signal is applied and the only output is from the internal noise of the upstream preamp connection. I've turned this feature off (menu control is available from the front panel of the unit only), but you may find it to be useful if you still have any supply power noise bleeding through.

 

Chris

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53 minutes ago, Chris A said:

 

Also note that the Xilica has an automatic muting function, called "Internal System Optimizer" (ISO).  The following is from the manual:

 

It also has a threshold level that is adjustable to mute the inputs when no signal is applied and the only output is from the internal noise of the upstream preamp connection. I've turned this feature off (menu control is available from the front panel of the unit only), but you may find it to be useful if you still have any supply power noise bleeding through.

 

Chris

 

This may be beneficial for me to figure out. My k402 mains and k510 center are very quiet currently running on the sunfire grand cinema 5ch amp. The surround channel k510s are using the last two channels of the sunfire, but have a heavy floor noise hiss. It is both audible at the MLP with no content playing and when content is playing. Dirty background noise.

 

The only difference I can think of is the LCR are on the xilica 4080. I’m using the base file that you set up for me. I have used rew to peq them myself since I’ve made a lot of changes to the room. Now the surrounds that have the hiss are run from the xilica 2040 which I set up from scratch. So I’m assuming I have not corrected the necessary settings to lower the noise floor. Do you have any insight on this? 

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I'd recommend checking the relative input channel and output channel gains between your 4080 and your 2040.  You will likely find that either your preamp gain going into the 2040 is too low or too high.  Same thing for your power amplifier gains (if any) relative to the Sunfire amplifier channels.

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Ok so this problem is not not solved as I had thought.

 

I get a 1500hz noise on any amplifier I try (First Watt, PrimaLuna, Yamaha). 

 

Noise happens irrespective of if there is an input device going into Xilica or not. 

 

Factory reset done.  Noise floor adjustment made.

 

Either this Xilica is somehow faulty or there is a connectivity issue around outputting to RCA from Phoenix. Have tried all combinations of shield jumped, unjumped, connected, disconnected etc at both ends.

 

Totally blowing my brains out here.

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I'd recommend trying a preamp that has XLR outputs and use XLR-XLR cables--if you can find one. 

 

I use XLR-XLR balanced connections on all amplifiers and preamp--except the First Watt F3 which is an unbalanced RCA-XLR cable, but which uses the shield of the unbalanced connection across the length of the cable but not on the RCA connector--a floating shield tied to the XLR side only.  That's something that you should consider, too.  The only connection where I can hear any noise at all is that RCA-XLR connection to the F3--and that noise is very low level hiss/60/120 Hz that requires a quiet room and being within about half a metre of the K-402 horn mouths to hear. I use Monoprice and Hosa XLR (microphone) cables sourced from Amazon--basically the least expensive that I can find. 

 

It's interesting that it's always a 1500 Hz noise.  You must have a fairly strong EMI emitter in the room or on the power circuit somewhere.  I'd look to eliminate that EMI source first instead of putting the fault on the Xilica.  YMMV.

 

Chris

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