Airmotiv 6 buzzing and other problems.

[sirsnow]

So I've had these bad boys for a few years now, and they have been great. Honestly best desktop speakers out there for the money, but lately I've been noticing some weird noises coming out of them :/

One of the speakers has a buzzing noise that I can control through gain. So whenever I lower the gain on the speaker (the little blue knob in the front) the buzzing goes away completely if its on the lowest gain. Not sure why this is going on. Something wrong with the internals? Or is it power?

The other problem is this intermittent humming that is random in duration and timing. Both speakers have this and there's no way to control it. Any suggestions?

I'm thinking about getting a proper power strip to see if it's my electrical outlet that's letting in dirty power.

[wizardofoz]

Power supply caps maybe gone or on the way out

I had a pair in for service and replaced all the power supply caps...totally popped. Should still be under warranty if you got them new.







Old on the right and new on the left

Worthy upgrade and customer very happy. Cheaper than sending back from Singapore and faster than waiting for warranty parts to be sent out here.

Updated better spec's components too so should last longer and better sounding.

[stads77]

Check the screws on the baffle, they tend to get real loose.

[sirsnow]

Okay, so I solved one problem. Apparently the buzzing from one speaker WAS interference from another electrical device. I have a himalayan salt lamp near the speaker and on a whim, I decided to turn it off to see if it effected it. Didn't think that it was the culprit since I'm running balanced power and all that, but lo and behold, the buzz went away as soon as I turned it off. That's one problem taken care of! Now the hum... It's intermittent, random, and sounds like a mini fridge radiator coming on to cool the fridge for a little and then turns off.

[wizardofoz]

I've seen similar hum, turned out to be the inter board cable I think one pin wasn't mailing connection well, so I just soldered the connections direct bypassing the white joiner setup.

This was the offending item...note the RCA was also replaced with a decent solid metal part. Picture is prior to bypass being made.

[ZeosPantera]

I just got a set of the new A5's and A6's and it has only been 2 weeks and one of the 6's is making the interference sound. No matter the input presence or where it is plugged in. Currently have it in an APC power conditioner and it makes no difference. It starts faint and ramps up to annoying quite quickly. I had someone else report this issue with a set of A5's I convinced them to buy and went through the steps with them to no avail.

I will pull the amp off the back tomorrow and after that contact Emotiva to get their appraisal. I got these for review and was hoping to have one it done before the new year with no issues. We will see how customer support handles it.

[richardrc]

Was the insulation crimped instead of the wire? I have seen that before, makes for nasty fault finding. Not good having so many buldging caps inside of warranty. The plate amps run hot, it is 30 on the office today, no way I am turning on the 4s's.

Dec 16, 2015 11:03:28 GMT -5 wizardofoz said:

I've seen similar hum, turned out to be the inter board cable I think one pin wasn't mailing connection well, so I just soldered the connections direct bypassing the white joiner setup.

This was the offending item...note the RCA was also replaced with a decent solid metal part. Picture is prior to bypass being made.

[tomei240]

Just in case anyone else comes across thread, I also had a buzzing issue in the Airmotiv 4S I received. Just one of the two speakers had the buzz when an RCA was connected. Didn't get to check any of the other inputs. I sent back the one speaker for repair so we'll see if its fixed when they send it back. I've been waiting for Zeos' 5S review on Youtube...nooow I see why he hasn't put up a video for them yet.

[Percussionista]

Dec 15, 2015 1:22:00 GMT -5 sirsnow said:

So I've had these bad boys for a few years now, and they have been great...
The other problem is this intermittent humming that is random in duration and timing. Both speakers have this and there's no way to control it. Any suggestions?

All good suggestions and likely culprits so far. I had an older passive subwoofer in my original HT set-up and had an intermittent hum problem, starting quiet and ramping up quite scarily. Turned out to be a bad RCA cable! Didn't realize it until later I used the same cable as input to an Emo subwoofer in my PC system which suddenly developed the same problem ;-)

[djreef]

Dec 15, 2015 5:04:39 GMT -5 wizardofoz said:

Power supply caps maybe gone or on the way out

I had a pair in for service and replaced all the power supply caps...totally popped. Should still be under warranty if you got them new.







Old on the right and new on the left

Worthy upgrade and customer very happy. Cheaper than sending back from Singapore and faster than waiting for warranty parts to be sent out here.

Updated better spec's components too so should last longer and better sounding.

I don't understand why Emotiva Pro hasn't gotten their arms around this sh**. I'm about to resend my Airmotiv 6s back in for the 3rd time for this very same reason. C'mon Man!!!!

DJ

[wizardofoz]

its a typical consequence of a minimum rated design that is on 24/7 and unfortunate its as it is.

[wizardofoz]

Dec 19, 2015 1:42:09 GMT -5 richardrc said:

Was the insulation crimped instead of the wire? I have seen that before, makes for nasty fault finding. Not good having so many buldging caps inside of warranty. The plate amps run hot, it is 30 on the office today, no way I am turning on the 4s's.

Yes its was a crimp fail / wire break, but I just hardwired the cable in as it was safer in the long run. just added to my troubleshooting as the unit didn't work after the full cap replacements which I didn't expect...lucky it presented itself fairly obviously when it was opened up and running audio.