Couple weeks back I got an email from Subwoof that he'd bid on some speakers near me and wondered if I'd be willing to go pick them up and hold 'em for him 'til his next trip down this way a few weeks later. The pickup was pretty screwy - meet a guy who was hard to reach by cellphone at a UStore in Temple Hills, MD (a somewhat rough neighborhood over near Andrews Air Force Base). Seemed like Sean was a no show but as Emma posed under the sign for a proof of arrival shot, Sean popped up out of nowhere and everyone was smiles. We got the boxes loaded, brought them home, wrapped them in plastic to keep the critters out, and stuck them in the shed 'til Mike could get here for them.
We also talked about a hum problem that had turned up in my system - bad enough that a few weeks back I'd switched the speakers back to conventional mode, pulled the JBL electronics and put my Citation 22 in place to run them (non-Biamp).
Anyway, Mike is quite the guru with the JBL/UREI amps - in the past he's given me some tips when troubleshooting them and he offered to do some quick updates when he passed through on Saturday - if I had them ready and opened up for him. Opimax (Mark) hadn't yet made his trip down my way to do this half of the system compare (see local Listening party thread), but he made plans to pop through Saturday to check out my system and meet Mike.
Mark rolled in tastefully around 2:30 - Mike and his daughter Dika arrived near twilight (!) - expected much earlier but they'd been waylaid by heavy DC traffic patterns. He brought spare Amps (!), a toolkit, and a cooler of awesome tasty beers.
The guy is brilliant - kept up a deep tech dialog about amp design, crossovers and speaker designs while swapping out aged caps in my amps and downing some superb frosty beverage! No pix of Mike and Dika 'cause he was a blur of energy and motion all the time he was here!
While he was swapping caps in my 6230, I pulled the Citation, and got the in and out cables ready for post repair sound checks.
First amp done, we popped the covers in place and put updated 6230 amp in place of the Citation, running the 4341s full-range. Its still got darned humm..!
Mike walked me quite quickly through a number of steps and I got the system humfree while he dialed in the second amp (was a ground loop - my fault!). Then he showed us how to set bias on these amps so they run cooler ... but when we swapped my 6260 into the system and it thumped on power-up, he determined it was due to a bad relay (and he was running WAY late and short of time) so he left me a 6260 loaner and took it back home for repair when he's not so pressed (what a great guy!) - it was 9PM by then and he had another stop near Balmer scheduled.
I popped the speakers back into biAmp mode and reassembled my rack, and - it all sounds great again!
We gave Mike and Dika best wishes for a safe drive and saw them off, then Emma, Mark and I headed in for some more listening fun ...
Next day - Darned, we had so much fun I forgot to take PICTURES ...
but, y'all have seen my system plenty of times already!
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Originally Posted by hjames
