15-Mar-2023, 01:54
Bit of a complicated / convoluted question here, please bear with me.
I am using phantom I and II for a home theater, fed from my marantz AVR. I have RME ADI-2 A/D converters to feed optical line in to the phantoms. Nominally, it works great, but the issue is that even with a low noise floor from the A/D units, the phantoms never actually go into idle mode. Ie: there’s always a small hiss as the amplifier is on (set to 70% fixed). Note, I’m not using the phantoms in optical direct mode, which allows me to just connect 1 of each pair to optical input, and also allows me to mix phantom i and ii in the system, as phantom ii has no direct mode (and I didn’t want to pay extra for custom units which would have no wireless capabilities if I change system in the future)
ANYWAY, to deal with the always on hiss (even when the marantz is off and not feeding signal to the RME, the optical output from rme is still live and phantoms don’t turn off) I got an Audiophonics 12v trigger slave power device. So when the marantz is on, the trigger turns on the power strip which feeds the RME ad converters, problem solved! Hiss is gone, then the marantz comes out of idle the converters turn on and phantoms go out of idle too.
Problem is that with some sort of random schedule, there seems to be a “handshake” issue between ththe phantoms and the a/d converters. Everything turns on but then the sound goes in and out, and it’s the phantoms switching from “seeing” the optical input to not getting an input. If I restart the system once or twice it fixes itself, but it’s very frustrating.
I am guessing there’s some sort of clock synchronization issue, where upon initial startup the ADI-2 sets some clock synch which the phantoms key to, but then once fully turned on the RME switches clock or something and then the signal is out of sync with what the phantom “expects”, after a restart (or a sampling frequency change in the rme” the handshake happens again and everything works normally.
Anyway, all very complicated and convoluted. Any ideas on how to fix? I had a thought that I can use an external “always on” clock for the RMEs, and maybe that would fix the issue while still allowing me to turn off the RMEs (and put the phantoms into idle). Worst case I can go back to leaving everything as always on but that sure would be a bummer, as I’m sure the phantom operational life would go down if amplifier is always on. Or maybe I can find some way to use the trigger to turn “off” the optical output from the RMEs before it gets sent to the phantoms…
Thanks for any advice!
I am using phantom I and II for a home theater, fed from my marantz AVR. I have RME ADI-2 A/D converters to feed optical line in to the phantoms. Nominally, it works great, but the issue is that even with a low noise floor from the A/D units, the phantoms never actually go into idle mode. Ie: there’s always a small hiss as the amplifier is on (set to 70% fixed). Note, I’m not using the phantoms in optical direct mode, which allows me to just connect 1 of each pair to optical input, and also allows me to mix phantom i and ii in the system, as phantom ii has no direct mode (and I didn’t want to pay extra for custom units which would have no wireless capabilities if I change system in the future)
ANYWAY, to deal with the always on hiss (even when the marantz is off and not feeding signal to the RME, the optical output from rme is still live and phantoms don’t turn off) I got an Audiophonics 12v trigger slave power device. So when the marantz is on, the trigger turns on the power strip which feeds the RME ad converters, problem solved! Hiss is gone, then the marantz comes out of idle the converters turn on and phantoms go out of idle too.
Problem is that with some sort of random schedule, there seems to be a “handshake” issue between ththe phantoms and the a/d converters. Everything turns on but then the sound goes in and out, and it’s the phantoms switching from “seeing” the optical input to not getting an input. If I restart the system once or twice it fixes itself, but it’s very frustrating.
I am guessing there’s some sort of clock synchronization issue, where upon initial startup the ADI-2 sets some clock synch which the phantoms key to, but then once fully turned on the RME switches clock or something and then the signal is out of sync with what the phantom “expects”, after a restart (or a sampling frequency change in the rme” the handshake happens again and everything works normally.
Anyway, all very complicated and convoluted. Any ideas on how to fix? I had a thought that I can use an external “always on” clock for the RMEs, and maybe that would fix the issue while still allowing me to turn off the RMEs (and put the phantoms into idle). Worst case I can go back to leaving everything as always on but that sure would be a bummer, as I’m sure the phantom operational life would go down if amplifier is always on. Or maybe I can find some way to use the trigger to turn “off” the optical output from the RMEs before it gets sent to the phantoms…
Thanks for any advice!
