I'm Probably Doing Something Very Stupid But....

[ian996]

I have a pretty nice system that majors on imaging and I was having a very pleasurable listening session this evening which, for no particular reason, started off with a bunch of mono recordings on vinyl.

There was something about the sound that was very slightly "off"...I was hearing something subtly different, but couldn't put my finger on what it was until I switched back to CD and some tracks with a definite left/right balance, when it was immediately clear that the Left /Right balance had reversed.

In order to stop myself feeling sea-sick (which was what was happening with very familiar sounds coming out of the "wrong" speakers ). I've reversed the outputs from my pre-amp (so left source channel is feeding right power amp and vica versa) , and everything is back to normal.

So, any ideas on what has occurred? (I'm a subjective audiophile, so I long ago abandoned the idea that I have any real understanding of what is actually going on). I've heard anecdotal stories of stereo images reversing, but this is the first time I've experienced it...has the earth's magnetic core reversed without anyone telling me about it , or is there a more prosaic explanation?

[ian996]

OK...it seems that the issue is with my CD player - Turntable is still generating the correct image...I had a brief power cut last night, so just trying to figure out what has "flipped" on my digital front-end.

[legzr1]

Does your CD player have a phase inversion switch?

[ian996]

legzr1 said:

Does your CD player have a phase inversion switch?

- that was my first thought, and I toggled it a few times and it kind of momentarily discombobulates the image slightly, but it doesn't reverse it.

I'll have another look in the morning when the affluence of incohol has worn off a bit.

[GravelBen]

ian996 said:

I'll have another look in the morning when the affluence of incohol has worn off a bit.

Often a wise move.

[ian996]

ln the sober light of morning, something is still a little odd - I now have my pre-amp out wired correctly and my CD input reversed to give me correct stereo image via both sources.

I have tried Inverse and Normal settings on the CD Phase switch and this is not impacting the image orientation.

As mentioned above, there was a short powercut at about 3:00 am the previous morning (seconds only, just long enough to reset mains powered clocks etc), as if something had been switched at the supply end. This meant my DACs were in standby mode - these must have also powered down during the power cut.

Not a huge issue - system is actually sounding (subjectively) excellent, I'm just a bit bamboozled regarding what has happened. I shall do a bit of Googling, but any suggestions welcome.

[legzr1]

Strange.
What CD player is it?

Just had an issue with my steamer/DAC - little screen froze so did a quick power cycle to unfreeze it and no sound from analogue outputs - digital outputs were fine. Tried everything and nothing work - unplugged it overnight, tried next morning and everything is fine.

Apparently cutting the power then switching straight back on caused an issue when a signal was fed to the DACs before they’d rebooted!

Unplug the CD player and leave it a couple of hours.

[ian996]

legzr1 said:

Strange.
What CD player is it?

Wadia 971/931/922. No technical support anymore, but I'll fire off an email to the old distributor to see if he has any ideas.

Other than that, as you say, I'll revert to turn it off and on again and see what happens..If in doubt, reboot!

[legzr1]

Lovely kit - heard a late 8XX a while ago and loved it. Real shame they’ve all but disappeared.

There is a good chance a reboot of the DAC will work as Wadia do things differently to the normal ‘firmware on a chip’ and have been using DSP solutions long before they became fashionable.

[P700DEE]

Very odd. Left right switch is not usually possible except by swapping the leads. I would expect your Wadia to be dual mono driven and both channels impossible to switch. Phase inversion is irrelevant as this only swaps +ve and -ve on each channel so determines if the speaker initially pushes or pulls.

[ian996]

legzr1 said:

Lovely kit - heard a late 8XX a while ago and loved it. Real shame they’ve all but disappeared.

Thanks! I've always liked the Wadia "house sound" and, over the years, have had an 830, a 270/27ix and now the 9 series which really is quite something.

P700DEE said:

Very odd. Left right switch is not usually possible except by swapping the leads. I would expect your Wadia to be dual mono driven and both channels impossible to switch. Phase inversion is irrelevant as this only swaps +ve and -ve on each channel so determines if the speaker initially pushes or pulls.

It's probably something to do with the architecture of the player, a controller drives two monobloc DACs , so possibly the controller got itself in a tangle during the power outage, and started sending the wrong signal to the wrong DAC. I'm doing a fair amount of listening this weekend, but will switch off tonight then restart sometime on Monday and see what happens.