Beolab 5 Digital In Issue

I have a pair of 175XXX Serial Beolab 5. One of them is stuttering and eventually not playing at all when using the Digital In. When i bought them (used about 4 months ago) everything worked fine. With Powerlink they work as well. Any idea what might cause this?

Hi

Did you try swapping the cable ?

Try playing only one at a time, with the same cable...

Are you using a sync cable also ?

what is the source of your spdif signal?

sometimes when this signal is not powerful enough it will not be recognized by the beolab 5 input, but will get buffered and sent through to the next beolab 5. Resulting in silence or intermittent sound in the receiving speaker, and normal operation of the linked speaker.

if your spdif source is a toslink to spdif converter, i have good experience with the converter made by 'oehlbach'.

CB:

Hi

 

Did you try swapping the cable ?

 

Try playing only one at a time, with the same cable...

 

Are you using a sync cable also ?

These early production models do not utilize the sync socket. If you connect a cable and the signal only get´s sent to one of the speakers, the other one will turn itself off. They started using the Sync socket from serial number 17772145.

I tried different cables, tried inverting the daisy chain, as well as connecting the speakers solo. When i did that, it was the same speaker, that had the problems every time. 

UPDATE: Today, everything is back to normal!!! Maybe it has something to do with the temperature? Yesterday it worked for a couple of minutes and then the problem started to occour again. Very strange! 

 

Premiumverum:

what is the source of your spdif signal?

sometimes when this signal is not powerful enough it will not be recognized by the beolab 5 input, but will get buffered and sent through to the next beolab 5. Resulting in silence or intermittent sound in the receiving speaker, and normal operation of the linked speaker.

if your spdif source is a toslink to spdif converter, i have good experience with the converter made by 'oehlbach'.

I use a raspberry pi with the HiFi Berry Digi Pro extension Board, but also tried it out with a DVD player, as well as my PC´s Digital out. The source is not the problem. When i inverted the daisy chain, so that the "defective" Speaker was the first one, it was silent, yet the 2nd speaker in the chain was working.

Bottom line: The problem, at least from my point of view, is the Digital Input interface on one of the speakers. Especially since under all circumstances the problem only occoured on the single speaker, only when using the Digital In. What makes me wonder, is why it is inconsistent. I don´t want to reproduce it right now, since it works but i think it won´t for long...

I am happy to try out any ideas or suggestions!

Lennart25:

UPDATE: Today, everything is back to normal!!! Maybe it has something to do with the temperature? Yesterday it worked for a couple of minutes and then the problem started to occour again. Very strange!

I’ve had this behaviour also (3-4 times), and then it stopped after playing with the cables also... I believe a not good enough cable/connector was the cause, so I change one of the cable and the problem disappeared.

Lennart25:

I tried different cables, tried inverting the daisy chain, as well as connecting the speakers solo. When i did that, it was the same speaker, that had the problems every time. 

+1 to CB's suggestion of using quality cables.

What you describe still suggests the SPDIF signal is not strong enough to find its way into both BL5's. One of them recognizes it and plays, the other one does not. I have seen this in two different pairs of BL5 now.

SPDIF through RCA cable is a quality technique. But it needs quality cables and a quality source. In many instances it just works with mediocre material, but the BL5 SPDIF digital input interface seems very fussy about the impedance of the signal. Hifi berry or PC outputs for SPDIF are often just the 5V TTL signal attenuated to +/-0,5V with a resistor and capacitor. Not powerful enough.

Use a quality source, again I know the oehlbach TOSLINK to SPDIF converter works well, your PC and Pi probably have toslink. It delivers a powerful buffered SPDIF signal. And use quality, not too long, 75 ohm impedance cables.

thank you both for your helpful answers! I will try it out with different sources. The cables are "decent" quality and definitly 75 Ohm; i would think of this as a funny experiment, if it wasnt for the cost of a potential repair on the 5s...

I´ll try out different sources and post my results here. 

The problem sort of resolved itself. Doesnt occour anymore?!

Well anyway, i am happy :)