KVR Audio

plasticmoonrain · Post by **plasticmoonrain** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:10 pm

Liquid Mix arrives Friday. Set it up in my MacG5, easy to do, kick the tires and it looks amazing.

Notice that the hardware unit does not have an on/off switch, so to save it from being on 24/7, unplug it from the adaptor, leave Firewire cable in.

Sunday morning: Plug the adaptor back in, firewire cable already in. Notice that the lights do not go back on. Mac powers up, and notice that the upper righthand corner of my monitor seems a little darker than the rest of the monitor and the on/off switch on the monitor is flashing. I shut it down and reboot the Mac -- starts up perfectly this time, Cubase SX3 boots up, then I fire up the Liquid Mix Stereo plug-in -- does not read the hardware, shuts down.

Then I smell that electrical smell, when something is burned. I disconnect the Liquid Mix hardware and sense it is coming from there. And I notice its adaptor is warm.

The Liquid Mix is now useless and has to be returned.

Its adaptor is plugged into a fully-grounded power surge protector, and none of the alarm lights has appeared.

So now I have to return and exchange what looked like an amazing piece of soft/hardware, and I have no clue what happened. I can't imagine a firewaire bandwidth struggle could have caused this (I do have a UAD-1 card and Powercore Express card as well -- tested them both afterwards -- no problem).

Drew

Lagrange · Post by **Lagrange** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:21 pm

plasticmoonrain wrote:Its adaptor is plugged into a fully-grounded power surge protector, and none of the alarm lights has appeared.
Drew

Sorry to hear about this.. Did you consider if the surge protector was supplying enough power to the device or maybe too much?? You said that the firewire ports are still working with other devices? I've had firewire fry an M-audio card before and the port never worked the same after that.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:21 pm

Bummer. I've read (in sources that I considered reliable) that hot-plugging Firewire devices can harm both the device and the computer. Could be that the same thing can happen from powering up and down in the way you describe. Whatever the cause, I hope you're able to get a replacement unit. Good luck!

OMNIFEX · Post by **OMNIFEX** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:24 pm

plasticmoonrain wrote:Liquid Mix arrives Friday. Set it up in my MacG5, easy to do, kick the tires and it looks amazing.

Notice that the hardware unit does not have an on/off switch, so to save it from being on 24/7, unplug it from the adaptor, leave Firewire cable in.

Drew

This could've caused the problem. I have a few very old rack mountable processors, that either offered the power switch in the rear of the unit (Next to the Powercord), or none whatsoever.

The reason behind this, is to prevent the sudden in rush voltage damaging the components.

Not saying that's what caused the problem. But, usually when a product offers no on and off switch, it means the manufacture recommends the unit remain on at all times.

Sorry to hear what happen btw.

wsaidah · Post by **wsaidah** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:00 pm

f**k that! pack that thing up head back to the store

beej · Post by **beej** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:20 pm

I still don't trust firewire devices. It's too easy to destroy ports, motherboards etc even when not hot plugging.

munchkin · Post by **munchkin** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:30 pm

Isn't there a DSP card available for Liquid mix? Maybe this could power it from the PCI buss so you don't need the power adapter anymore.

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 8:34 pm

You'd be pissed off though, eh? It doesn't instil confidence in a company when that happens. And it may be incredibly tall odds for it happening. Maybe it's happened to nobody else, but it'd be enough to put me off Focusrite even though I know they're a pretty good company.

I'd be ropeable. All those expectations gone ppphhhfffft in a little ball of smoke. Dunno about keeping any h/w on all the time. I've never done that and probably never will. If it can't take being turned off, there's summat wrong with it. Although some things should be turned off in certain ways, for sure.

I feel for you, mate. That's a real bummer. A big wobbly hairy one.

plasticmoonrain · Post by **plasticmoonrain** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:35 pm

I checked my UAD card and Powercore cards and they are working perfectly fine, thank God. But I am sending the Liquid Mix back to the place I got it to get replaced. And I am going to leave that sucker on 24/7 when I get the new one, if that's what it takes. I was totally pumped to take this boy through the mixes, but that'll have to wait. I'm curious what Focusrite will say about the circumstances. I promise to let you all know.. Drew

Jason Brian Merrill · Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:52 pm

it was likely the fact that you plugged the adaptor into the unit itself after it was plugged into the wall. read the manual again and see if it tells you to do so, most people dont see these things.

anyway tho, its totally retarded. hope you get a new one or your money back.

plasticmoonrain · Post by **plasticmoonrain** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:18 am

Just went through the PDF manual -- not one word about keeping the unit on 24/7. It does not even mention the adaptor!

Anyway, I am expecting this is going to be exchanged, because if they don't accept it back, well, that's why God created credit cards, so you can file a dispute and not pay. Hopefully it won't come to that at all, and they'll replace it. I'm being optimistic.

OMNIFEX · Post by **OMNIFEX** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 6:37 am

plasticmoonrain wrote:Just went through the PDF manual -- not one word about keeping the unit on 24/7. It does not even mention the adaptor!

Well, if neither pieces offer a power switch, how would you turn it off??

Surely, no one is going to agree to constantly pull the plug out of the receptacle every time it's not in use.

So the point of not having power switch is to not turn it off. That's why there's nothing mentioned in the manual stating leaving it on.

If you have cable, try pulling the power cord out of the receptacle. The cable box will reset itself. This is due to the box never turns off, it goes into standby when you press the cable button on the remote control.

More than likely, your Liquid hardware follows the same method. It probably goes into standby when idling for a certain amount of minutes, when not in use.

In case you don’t know, constantly turning anything on & off shortens the unit’s life span faster than just leaving it on.

This is self evident with light bulbs. They always die when you turn them on, not when in use.

Lee702 · Post by **Lee702** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 6:57 am

I have a presonus Tubepre with no power switch is this meant to be left on? I have always been unpluging it when not in use.

Lee702 · Post by **Lee702** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:35 am

Jason Brian Merrill · Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:11 am

my best advice for ANY device is NEVER pull the plug from the UNIT itself, and more importantly, NEVER plug the unit back in on the unit itself. Only unplug/plug into and from the wall.

My Liquid Mix just fried after 48 hours