James, I just tested my system on my old paradigms again. The LCD showed 0 and Mute at startup but music was still bleeding through. I pushed Mute and it made no difference, no relay click. I then ran the volume up to 10 and pushed mute the relay clicked and everything went dead quiet, no music at all. I unmuted and volume returned. I then turned the volume to 0 without the mute button, I heard the relay click at 0 and all was muted again, no music at all. Now I can’t duplicate the prior problem. Weird but everything appears to work fine now. I will run the Paradigms all day and test everything again later. If all works well I will reconnect my Illuminations. Fingers are crossed. Sorry if a made mountain out of mole hill. Blowing a paradigm woofer from the previous popping problem has made me nervous. I will comment again later. Thanks All!
Man, I believe that! Hopefully all is good and keep us posted!
Good news my Illumination speakers are not damaged. I did a fair amount of listening today and everything sounds great. However, yep however, when I push the mute button or turn the volume to 0 there is a definite electronic beep/boop noise, not quite a pop, on the left channel. This is the same channel that was repaired. When I swap xlr cables on the GCD from left to right and right to left the sound also moves. Something is still not right. My speakers are 92.6db efficient so it’s easy to hear any noises. I’m nervous. Thoughts?
I’m still nervous about my GCD as well so I know how you feel. It concerns me that your speaker actually blew because of this known flaw.
Just to let everyone know (on this thread) my GCD issues are resolved. I sent my GCD back to PS Audio in January. They paid the shipping this time. A very nice and thorough technician named Larry communicated with me several times while testing and repairing my unit. I sent him a video recording of the noises my GCD was making, when muting and unmuting. To summarize, Larry fixed my GCD and returned it to me in short order. It works and sounds like new again!
Special thanks to James for coordinating the 2nd return and repair. PS Audio is a stand up US. company with awesome US. made stuff!
Thanks for the follow up.
After following this thread for years after my Stellar Gain purchase in 2019, it’s just given up the ghost and damaged one of my Q Acoustics Concept 500 speakers. Extremely disappointed to say the least, especially when the pop issue was basically ignored years ago when a number of people raised it.
That sucks that the pop damaged your speakers. That was always my fear and when my GCD failed for a second time I traded it towards the BHK pre. The BHK pre has been great but it’s a shame the GCD was such a flawed product as it was great value.
Has anyone figured out what the popping sound might be? I’ve had my DAC for about 6 months and just yesterday it started popping out of the right channel. Seems to only happen when muting sound or turning the unit off.
Mine still pops an ticks when i rase and lower the volume, mute and power off. Sadly I don’t use it much because i don’t trust it. I sent it back once and was told there was no problem found.