For CXN owners here, I just wanted to make folks aware of an issue I had with mine.

A few weeks back, I noticed a significant loss of SQ in my overall sound. The mids and highs had gotten very sharp, and also a loss of bass.

I started with my CXN(with mods), and swapped the tubes out - no change.

So, I figured I had a tube/tubes going bad in one of my two UFO's(Monoblocs)  I spent an aggravating couple of days experimenting with tube rolling - still no change.

A few days later, after much head scratching, I was back to the CXN. Perhaps there was a firmware update that I needed - Nope - I was up to date. Then, I got to thinking that maybe I just needed to do a factory reset, but I didn't want to have to (probably) start over with setting up my wifi again.

So, I decided to just unplug the unit from my ZLC, wait a minute or so, and plug it back in. This did the trick. I guess that it did a reset, because the sound is back to normal.

Hi Chris.

I guess as much as we have to reboot our PC/Laptop/Tablets, as well as our phones, to fix issues, this type of reset shouldn't really be a surprise.

I guess that many of us though, especially us old schoolers, think of audio equipment as, well, audio, and not computer related - but much of it is. I ditched the laptop/usb setup to take the computer out of the equation as much as possible, but...

Best,

Geno

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Love it! Ima have to use that one.

Yeah, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that line.

Another thing he used to say (and this was in the mid80's) when us whipper snappers would complain about computer stuff he would say when he was our age he would spend the night watching his job run with a box of vacuum tubes. In  those days each bit of memory was a tube, and if a tube failed and you could replace it before that address was accessed your job would keep running, if not it died with an access violation.

He did not specify what kind of tubes he was using, although I expect they would be considered pretty nice these days.

Chipster,

I believe Dan built in a delay start relay switch for powering up/down the tubes. I've noticed that with a light/quick power button touch the tubes sometimes don't power down properly.

I've simply been holding the power button down for 3-4 seconds, it solves the problem for me with everything, including the tubes,powering down properly. You might want to give this a try.

HK

HK and Geno,

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot.

By the way, HK....  when I was researching a one box solution for a streamer and DAC and found the CXN and then realized there was a mod from MWI it was your review that sealed the deal for me.
I was hoping to use the preamp volume control but with the mods I find it loses a little bit of magic in my setup, so I just leave preamp mode off and use manual control from the Decware components. Don't mind one bit though. Couldn't be happier.

JBzen,

Great way to implement those options for your needs. Very cool. Thanks for your insight.

I was also disappointed when I heard that Cambridge Audio and Dan (MWI) couldn't come to an agreement on parts. I think he would have sold many more units as time went on.
I wonder how many are out there before he had to pull the plug on the mods.

I think you would have really liked one if you had decided it was for you. But, with your setup and ZDAC I don't think there's anything lacking there for sure. (In fact, going with separates may be better and something I may consider down the road too)

I do like how the audio circuits were decoupled electrically from the streamer section with their own high/low voltage sources. The tube output stage really finishes it off and puts it in line with the Decware gear downstream. Funny how the CXN may be the 'weak' link in my current system. One heck of a weak link. lol

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Me too! I tried to talk Dan into sending just the parts but he would not budge. The only loss I see is the comparison of the modded CXNv2 with the vinyl loop which beats the plain-jane unit. My Stokes DAC trumps it all if memory serves correctly.

duaneh,

This is interesting since I also ended up sending my unit back to Dan for adjustment. The issue for me was that with my pre and amp at the time (an Adcom pair) it would get very loud very fast. I couldn't set it past '1' on my pre unless I wanted to listen at loud SPL's. I didn't like the fact that I was only using the volume control just barely up from 'off' and not in its sweet spot. Dan asked me to return it and he would adjust the gain. He mentioned he reduced it by about 6db if I remember correctly. I asked what the output voltages for both the XLR's and RCA now were, and he said about 4V for both since they are transformer coupled and in parallel. I had assumed that the XLR's were higher output and wondered why I didn't hear a difference when using the RCA's directly or XLR's through the ZBIT as far as loudness goes. Anyway, the change made a big difference, and I was now able to use the pre-amp volume control to slowly and smoothly increase the volume.

When I received my Decware UFO25 and CSP3 and plugged in the CXN it continued to perform beautifully with no sound quality issues. (Whether the gain reduction was necessary for the Decware, I'll never know I guess)

In pre-amp mode I did like being able to use the remote for volume control but for serious listening I preferred turning it off. I did not experience the huge difference in sound quality you did, but it did seem to diminish what the mods brought to the table. I didn't experience any fuzziness or weird artifacts but noticed that the overall sound quality was a full step up in clarity, midrange, and soundstage. In your case, the gain may have been set even higher and produced more than the Decware gear may have preferred, causing distortion of some kind. I'm glad things are back to normal for you though.