Too hot for comfort

I'm playing with a MK1 Chord DAC64 at the moment (not mine).

It gets very hot very quickly. Hotter than a hot thing. ISTM unusually hot. When that happens, it skips on playback, as if it's having problems locking onto a signal. Turning it off and letting it cool down is the only fix. Then it works happily for an hour or two before getting uppity again. Did I mention it gets very hot?

Anyone else experienced this sort of problem? When it works it sounds quite good, nothing jaw-dropping, a small but real improvement on the norm rather than just a difference.

How do I tell how early it is, I understand there was more than one iteration of the MK1. I think this one is quite old.

-- Ian

 

well you could try and sit on it? If it burns you then there is a problem. But they usually get fairly hot so its ok. Good luck!

 

Ian,

all my hopes, aspirations, the lofty pedistal on which (dac 64) has been thrust upon the world of average sounds, has been dashed to pieces.
My dream of one day hoping to achieve its mind blogging preformance, smashed to smitherines in a single sentence, Ian you are cad and bounder sir, but in the vien a genetleman too, for saving me any further torment in pursuing the Audio dragon, and for that sir I thank thee

 

ian,
a REAL improvement? please justify this with a 12 page scientificly verified essay describing your test procedures and conditions in detail. if you don;t i will have to disbelieve you - sh&t wrong forum, sorry.

seriously though the dac sounds broken to me, take it back and get another one.
cheers


julian

 

just to be boring (but sensible!) I'd call chord with the serial number and they'll tell ya!

(well its more sensible than telling you to sit on it (wtf?!?!?)

Chris

 

Ian, I was in London yesterday and it was as hot as a DAC64 with signal lock problems .

 

Certainly sounds like there is a problem. I'd talk to chord if you are bothered, if not give it back to the owner before it packs up for good!

 

Steve,

I take it the view was rather pleasing

Robbo wrote
"if not give it back to the owner before it packs up for good!"
Excellent advice sir (as always)

 

OH YES !

 

I'm not planning to buy it or anything, just had a chance to play with it.

I wasn't trying to damn it with faint praise, the extremely subtle difference it makes is as large as any difference I've heard with digital. Still, like everything to do with CD players, there's a lot of hype about the scale of the differences. Jimmy Hughes's review is right about one thing though (amazingly enough): it does seem to add a bit of scale and body at lower volumes, so you don't have to crank the volume up so much to get any music out of the CD player. This makes it not just different, but an improvement, something I'm not often convinced is the case with expensive digital.

How hot does a DAC64 normally get? This one gets hotter than a class A power amp.

-- Ian

 

Hi Ian,

The Chord Dac64 that I have owned for nearly 2 & a half years gets warm. You can pick it up & hold it without burning your hands. You can hold it for long periods of time. Something sound a miss & it does need checking out. It shouldn't be as hot as a class A amp.

SCIDB

 

Cheers Dean, useful info. I think this one might be buggered in some way, it was getting a lot hotter than warm before I switched it off and abandoned testing.

Will try and get hold of a more recent version for comparison.

-- Ian

 

Hmm, not running as hot today, had it on for a couple of hours and it's very warm, but not as hot as yesterday, and no repeat of the skipping problem.

Has given me a chance to do a bit of A/B testing, to try to quantify the differences. I'd still say it's subtle, but it is an improvement. It's mostly a textural thing, the music seems to have more weight and body with the DAC64 than without, it projects better, sounds more believable. There's not a huge amount in it, but it is a worthwhile difference. £2K at new prices is a lot to pay for that difference IMO, although it looks very nice with the fisheye lens and all, I can understand the attraction.

Don't want to reignite any old fires, but I don't hear any hardness, brightness, or harshness with it. Having said that, before I got it home I heard it through Spendor S6s, driven by an MF integrated, using a Meridian CDP as a transport, and it sounded absolutely ghastly, very hard and insistent. I swapped it out and just listened to the Meridian, and that had a similar presentation, so it seems pretty obvious to me that the fault in that case was the speakers. Listening to it at home, through Harbeths that have much more natural voicing to my ears, and are just plain better, it sounds very good.

I like it more than I thought I would. Will only have it until tomorrow, but I will definitely get hold of a MK 2 for a comparison.

-- Ian

 

Ian, tho' we may have had differences in a contentious point of style, you are a very sound guy, and I concur wholeheartedly with a lot of your hifi opinions.
ATB

 

Using my NADs has been a bit of a problem in this heat - the S300 really does put out a remarkable amount of heat, and the S500's hardly cool either. It's gonna be great in the winter though

 

Why, thanks Data. We do seem to have similar hifi tastes, indeed.

-- Ian

 

Yes, I read your posts with great interest

I am toying with a dac64 mk1, it does get quite warm.

Tell you what I found, you are absolute spot on in your findings, it is objectively slightly, but significantly( very tough to put into words) better

The high output IS a bit tricky, but level matched, it does deeper more powerful bass than my long term ki63.

I did notice, listening to some chamber classical, that you know how I harp on about insturments not sounding 'real', somehow the character of the instrument, strings particularly, sound somehow thinner, less resonant and rich than the real instrument?, well the Chord DID get a bit closer to the true sound, like you say, a bit, not hugley marked but still almost measurably so.
Again not wanting to dig holes, but I do detect a glassy edge to the mid.

 

My Marantz PM6010OSE has been on standby all day, I just touched the top of it and its quite hot. In the winter it would be cold even after an hours use. It just goes to show how much external heat can effect HIFI.

 

Yup, the S300 doesn't like hot weather, or particularly still air. In my old room, it sat in a dead spot, and really got quite warm. It has more airflow in its current location, and runs cooler (but still nice and warm really).

 

My Nad preamp gets worryingly hot in this warm weather. My flat is like a SAUNA though, gets the sun all day and it's a top-floor jobbie so I have everybody elses' heat too. Should I not use it when it's such hot weather or maybe buy a fan to point at it? I'm worried I might do it some damage.