It's all going back

[SteelerFan]

Goodbye NAD pre-amp, amp and Cary amp. Couldn't get rid of the hum no matter what I tried. They even sent me a second NAD amp they had opened up and worked on the grounding to no avail. I could get 2 of the 5 channels to quit humming and that's it. 3 weeks of trouble shooting was enough for me. I never even got around to watching a single movie.

Maybe it was my fault but I don't know what the heck I was doing wrong. I thought seperates were the way to go. After the dust settles and I'm sure I've got my money back I'll have to start looking at receivers again.

I'm heartbroken over the Cary amp, if I could have just put up with the hum it really made my RF-7's sing. And as it broke in it just kept getting better. What a shame, I'm almost tempted to keep it for my 2 ch system in the hope I'd figure out what was causing the hum. Even had the B&K PT5 ordered to pair with it but canceled it. I'm not going to gamble.

Back to my Yamaha DSP-A1000. It's got one thing going for it, not even a hint of a hum. I even tried hooking it up to the NAD pre-amp to use as an amplifier only and it was dead quiet. If only it wasn't so bright.

I've got some nice Cobalt interconnects, otherwise I'm right back where I started.

[Champagne taste beer budget]

Sorry to hear this, SteelerFan. Just try and keep telling yourself, the journey is part of the destination. I'm sure that when it all settles out, you'll end up with something that sounds just wonderful to you, without a hum in sight.

[Fish]

Sounds like a real drag,and a lot of needless hassle.I'm not sure many companies even know/want to know exactly how their products perform in the real world.After all that you would think a guy could sit down and really enjoy what the hard earned money and work was for,but noooooooooo.Better luck next time.

[IndyKlipschFan]

Don't forget to check out the Aragon gear! I have the Stage One and 2007 amp. Smooth, clean, and very wonderful with Klipsch.

Were all chasing the rainbow of sound for each of us. When you get it right, your hair will stand slightly, and the goosebumps will rise up, and trust me.... You will know.

[Darren]

Bad news - sorry to hear it. Don't let this discourage you though - "upgrades" do generally improve your system, I think you just had some bad luck.

[TauRus]

Steeler, before you give on this gear check one thing out: is your power clean? DO you have light dimmers in this room? Do you have power line conditioner?

A friend of mine had exactly the same story with the Outlaw amps. He even exchanged the first amp and still was geting the same hum. He was also about to send the stuff back to Outlaw when I advised him to power the amps through the PLC. It worked - all the hum was gone. Later I found out he had a light dimmer. He took it off and replaced with a regular switch. This helped also. Now he is a happy owner of separates.

Try this out before you send the stuff back.

[prodj101]

don't give up and go back to the dark side known as "receivers." get the B&K. I use a PT-3 (preceeder of PT-5) and it sounds great with my Mcintosh.

[yromj]

SF,

Man I hate to hear that. I agree w/ the others, don't let this one experience deter you from going seperates. Why not keep the Cary and get another pre/pro. Like you said your Yammie was humless (word?) w/ it; so why not try another pre/pro? Maybe you can give a Rotel a shot, or an Aragon as someone else mentioned. Just some thoughts.

John

[Frzninvt]

At the NAD rep's and my dealer's request I unplugged all the RCA leads feeding my three amplifiers from the NAD T163 A/V Preamp and powered up the system. It was absent of any noise when I did this so I believe that it is safe to assume the noise & hum is not being generated by my apt's voltage supply and that the DBX amplifiers are not introducing any noise themselves. With the preamp plugged in to the amplifiers and the volume set to "00" (Infinity) their is faint noise, but the moment I increment it to -74 the first step up the considerable noise and hum return. Is it safe to say that the NAD T163 is the cause of the interference using these tests. I have recently relocated gear, moved power wires from signal wires, changed power cables, bought a new line conditioner, etc. and the problem still persists. The dealer said NAD would be supplying me another preamp to replace mine before the weekend. I am not looking forward to redoing all those connections and going through the setup menu again. Perhaps I will connect the minimum of items and test first, if I get noise I don't know what I am going to do. I did not care for the B&K Ref 50 that I had for like two weeks, and this will be my third NAD T163. I should have stuck with my Denon AVR-4800 sorry to say.

[SteelerFan]

Thanks for the support fellows. God knows I tried. I've done nothing but crawl behind my rack and plug and unplug. I've got a dedicated 20amp circuit so I know it wasn't a dimmer or something. The circuit worked perfectly with the Yamaha. I just had the bad luck to get ahold of 3 bad amps, I can't think of another explanation. Someone at the dealer told me NAD has been having issues with their amps. The Cary I don't know, but when I hooked up the Yamaha as an amp I had no noise issues at all.

I've learned one lesson for sure; I'll never try to buy this stuff over the net again. I'll be much better off with a local dealer so when he keeps telling me to "trouble shoot" my system, and trying to blame it on my interconnects or my Klipsch speakers or whatever, I can just drive down to the store and wrap my fingers around his scrawny little neck.