Audible popping when powering up.

[Patrick]

There is a very load pop when I power up my Brennan. I have the wired line output connected directly to a power amp at the office and the optical output connected to a DAC then a preamp at home, and they both do it. The pop is pretty severe on power up, followed by a milder one when the B2 boots up.

Anything that can be done about this besides being sure the amp is off before powering up the B2?

[Daniel Taylor]

Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding, but how can you have "the wired line output connected directly to a power amp" and "the optical output connected to a DAC" both at the same time.  Since they both plug into the same place on the back of the B2, you must have some unknown-to-me splitter connected to allow this.  So I'm guessing that might be the problem.

As I re-read trying to see how I might have misunderstood, it occurs to me that you might have the speaker outputs connected to the external power amp.  If that's right, I think it's a bad idea.  The B2 has its own power amp which is intended to drive speakers directly.  Those outputs should not be connected to an external power amp.  But maybe that's not what you have either.

[Patrick]

No, I wouldn’t wire the speaker outputs of the Brennan to the line in of a power amp, though we did joke about doing that. (I remember some car audio amps would take a speaker level input, but I digress)

What you missed was “at work” and “at home”. I’m describing two different B2 applications with the same popping going on, I was really surprised that the optical output would pop.

[Daniel Taylor]

Oh, yes, I guess you did say that.  Sorry I missed it.

I'm with you, I don't know why the optically isolated B2 could cause a pop in the amp at power up.  I take it that when the B2 is off, the power amp fed by the DAC does not pop.  (?)  The only thing I can think of is that the B2 is sending some non-zero signal through the optical output.

Is it two different B2s?  Or just one that is sometimes in different places?

If it's the same B2, that same non-zero signal would be sent out no matter whether optical or analog.  That could be a hardware problem with the unit.

[Daniel Taylor]

If it's more than one B2, and another person sent me a private message saying the same thing, then my guess is it's most likely inherent to the design and not a fixable problem with just one unit.

[PMB]

Hi Patrick,

This came up before and the suggested solution was to power up the B2 first and then the power amplifier.

If you unplug the optical cable from the DAC and power up the DAC, does it still produce a pop?

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Patrick]

Ah, yes. The DAC itself pops on power up. If I leave the DAC powered up and cycle power to the B2, no pop. That just leaves the pop on the wired output. Thanks!

[Martin Hunt]

I have a serious problem with audio popping on my B2 (weird noises while playing some songs, like garbled skipping almost...). I made a backup of all my music from my old JB7 onto a USB memory stick (128GB) which had plenty of room. I then used the "restore" command and put it all on my new B2 and now I have this problem of garbled noises while playing - but not on all tracks...

Can anyone advise please?

[Mark Fishman]

> I have this problem of garbled noises while playing - but not on all tracks...

Have you tried playing those tracks on your computer (by plugging the USB memory stick into the computer)? Do they play without garble-noises?

[PMB]

Hi Martin,

It does sound like some tracks on the backup you restored may be corrupted or didn't copy across very well.. Doing 'Scan Disk' on the B2 usually fixes the skipping. If not try running 'Clean Up' (from the Maintenance menu) followed by 'Scan Disk'.

Failing that you may need to delete the troublesome albums/tracks - run Scan Disk after - check all is well again > run a new backup on the JB7 (delete the old one first) and restore this to the B2.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Martin Hunt]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for that. But before I try what you propose, I thought I'd mention that to check that the unit itself was not faulty, I copied a new CD over the weekend and then played it back (after I presume it had compressed into a MP3 file) and strangely, on the last few tracks of playback, I got the same garbled sounds...

What do you now suggest?

Thanks, Martin.

[PMB]

Hi Martin,

If running Scan Disk doesn't fix the problem I think we need to get your unit back for checking and/or repair. Please email us on -  the  brennan  b2  @  gmail  .  com  - (minus the hyphens and spaces) with a brief description of the problem. Also, let us know where and when you bought the B2 from.

Paul

Brennan Support.