Musical Fidelity A5 amp mysteriously blown by new kit. Aaagh!

[wormhead]

Hi all, hope you're well

I just wanted to share something that happened the other day, because it was very bizarre, and just in case someone has any suggestions please:

I've been running recoded Tannoy Cheviots from a Musical Fidelity A5 for a year or so now, and been really happy with it. Very musical, good whether quiet or loud etc. I've played records and also mostly streaming music through a Sonos connect. No problems, all great

I just bought an A5 CD player from ebay, and when i connected it to the CD input, the sound was distorted and weird, almost ringing, almost seeming like part of it was coming out of one of the units, not the speakers. I went back to connecting the sonos to the CD input and it was smooth as before.

Then I tried a different set of leads, played the CD player again, it was still terrible and then it just blew the amp. As in snap, crackle, pop! The amp actually had smoke coming out of it.

It seems very mysterious (as well as disastrous, and very quiet here). If it was a like level going into the phono I could understand an obvious overload, but I can't imagine how a model-matched component putting out line level could do anything like this. An electronics friend muttered something about hypersonic vibrations maybe..?

Has anyone seen anything similar ever please? Or any thoughts?

Thanks very much in advance and have great evenings

[Lawrence001]

Have to confess I've never heard anything like that before. But am I right in thinking the A5 CD has a valve output? I suspect the valves could be faulty causing an overload, they might be able to put out a high voltage, especially if someone's tinkered around inside.

You can get your money back off eBay for the CD but unless the seller is particularly generous then you'll probably have to foot the bill for the amp repair yourself - if it's economically viable, it doesn't sound great I have to say.

John Sampson of JS Audio repairs is the man you want. Give him a ring and describe what happened if it's happened before he'll probably know about it. I think he used to head up MF's servicing dept.

[Pigmy Pony]

Have to confess I've never heard anything like that before. But am I right in thinking the A5 CD has a valve output? I suspect the valves could be faulty causing an overload, they might be able to put out a high voltage, especially if someone's tinkered around inside.

You can get your money back off eBay for the CD but unless the seller is particularly generous then you'll probably have to foot the bill for the amp repair yourself - if it's economically viable, it doesn't sound great I have to say.

John Sampson of JS Audio repairs is the man you want. Give him a ring and describe what happened if it's happened before he'll probably know about it. I think he used to head up MF's servicing dept.

What Lawrence said. For MF repairs John Sampson will be your man. Heard nothing but good things about his work. And imo the A5 integrated is well worth saving, I'm loving mine and it's going nowhere I'm even thinking about the JS Audio upgrade for it, which is highly regarded. Good luck mate.

[Lawrence001]

Give him a ring tomorrow, might not be as bad as it sounds.

https://jsaudiorepairs.co.uk/

[wormhead]

Hi both

Thanks very much for your input and ideas. I will definitely try John. I agree re the amp, I love the music it produces and it works brilliantly with the tannoys, so I want to keep it.

Thanks again

[Pigmy Pony]

Be sure to tell us how you went on Mike.

[Lawrence001]

Any news?

[wormhead]

Hi both

I hope you're well

I'm sorry about the radio silence. It took a while to get it sorted in the end

Anyway I did contact John Sampson, who was a bit mystified. He got me to turn it on again quickly while we chatted on the phone, there was more flame and smoke and we agreed turn it off for good..! Mad

I wanted to get it fixed whatever, but he was going to be on holiday for a bit. I obviously needed to check whether anything wrong with the CD, so I took the amp over to him and he suggested bringing the CD player - he kindly tested that on his bench and it was all clean. So that was one battle I didn't have to fight

He made some suggestions about what might have caused it, and i did some tests with other gear when i got back to check, but it wasn't any of those. To be honest I think it was probably a combination of maybe 17 year old unit and cable shenanigans. It's a big amp, and the custom cabinet has just about enough depth with RCA plugs in, but it's tight. So I changed all speaker plugs and upgraded RCA leads to right angled, as well as the IEC cable. So everything has plenty of space now

And we chatted through servicing vs JS upgrade; you may not be surprised to learn I went for that. It's pretty much rebuilt, looks and sounds great, and so many components are now higher quality. Still burning it in, as I haven't had much listening time since then, so I think it will continue getting better. But one key characteristic both my wife and noticed immediately and ever since is the incredible transparency and detail. Quite often a track will start and we think we haven't heard it before, only to discover it's a favourite 🙄 Or we hear brand new stuff in the middle of tracks

Well worth it and I feel confident that my beloved amp is now set up for many years' reliable & enjoyable listening, and in fact to perform much closer to its full potential.

One more thing is that he doesn't just copy & paste his solutions/upgrades. He likes to talk to each customer before taking on a job like that to get a sense of them and their priorities, and fine-tunes things accordingly

Thanks so much for your help with this one, and sorry again for the delay in responding. Best wishes to you both

[Lawrence001]

Hi both

I hope you're well

I'm sorry about the radio silence. It took a while to get it sorted in the end

Anyway I did contact John Sampson, who was a bit mystified. He got me to turn it on again quickly while we chatted on the phone, there was more flame and smoke and we agreed turn it off for good..! Mad

I wanted to get it fixed whatever, but he was going to be on holiday for a bit. I obviously needed to check whether anything wrong with the CD, so I took the amp over to him and he suggested bringing the CD player - he kindly tested that on his bench and it was all clean. So that was one battle I didn't have to fight

He made some suggestions about what might have caused it, and i did some tests with other gear when i got back to check, but it wasn't any of those. To be honest I think it was probably a combination of maybe 17 year old unit and cable shenanigans. It's a big amp, and the custom cabinet has just about enough depth with RCA plugs in, but it's tight. So I changed all speaker plugs and upgraded RCA leads to right angled, as well as the IEC cable. So everything has plenty of space now

And we chatted through servicing vs JS upgrade; you may not be surprised to learn I went for that. It's pretty much rebuilt, looks and sounds great, and so many components are now higher quality. Still burning it in, as I haven't had much listening time since then, so I think it will continue getting better. But one key characteristic both my wife and noticed immediately and ever since is the incredible transparency and detail. Quite often a track will start and we think we haven't heard it before, only to discover it's a favourite Or we hear brand new stuff in the middle of tracks

Well worth it and I feel confident that my beloved amp is now set up for many years' reliable & enjoyable listening, and in fact to perform much closer to its full potential.

One more thing is that he doesn't just copy & paste his solutions/upgrades. He likes to talk to each customer before taking on a job like that to get a sense of them and their priorities, and fine-tunes things accordingly

Thanks so much for your help with this one, and sorry again for the delay in responding. Best wishes to you both

Great result there and glad it's sorted and your happy. He repaired a Tri Vista DAC for me that blew a few months after buying it second hand. He knew the unit and its previous owner well, having upgraded it years earlier. Good bloke John.

[Pigmy Pony]

Thanks Mike, a story with a happy ending Upgrade/service is definitely on my wants list, especially after hearing of your experience - i just need to get past this winter's fuel bills...