Dammit! I need help re: preamp and/or amp damage...

[KDAC]

Yesterday I had an electrician at the house attempting to resolve an issue in our bathroom. Between 100 m.p.h. talking and inattentiveness (on his part), it didn't dawn on him (or me and my wife) that the electricity was still on via the junction box in the basement . He touched a connection of some sort at the back of a switch and caused the power to go out, thus warranting a trip down to the basement to set the jumper switch back to its correct position and restore power to that section of the house.

When the power was restored I was able to turn both my server, preamp, and power amp back on. Everything was normal minus the volume of playback. From that moment forward, I have had to turn the volume on my preamp waaaayyyy up compared to its historical norm just for music to sound the same as it used to at a prior lower volume setting. I know quite few fellow AKers not only listen to tunes but actually work on/build/service their playback equipment. Having said that, does anyone have a remote idea as to what may have happened to my preamp and/or amp? I spoke to a local repair shop a few minutes ago and the owner/technician said he'd take a look at both but promised no guarantee as to servicing it as both the preamp and amp are 2004 B&K Components, Ltd. models (PT5 preamp and ST125.2 power amp) and the original company was "bought out" (by ATI in 2011). Any suggestions/help would be more than appreciated.

 

[petehall347]

maybe your pt5 needs setting up . go through the manual .you will see a few certain things that can be adjusted .. max level is one of them .
also you may have always had loudness on and its now off .

 

[petehall347]

just in case the manual is here .https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/bk-components/pt5.shtml

 

[KDAC]

maybe your pt5 needs setting up . go through the manual .you will see a few certain things that can be adjusted .. max level is one of them .
also you may have always had loudness on and its now off .

Thanks for the reply, petehall347. If my presumption is correct, you're implying that the outage may have erased the settings I had in the PT5 preamp? I'll check out the "max level" you mentioned.

 

[petehall347]

yes it may have changed its settings .

 

[KDAC]

yes it may have changed its settings .

I never used the "Loudness" feature located on the front of the preamp unit and it wasn't on when I went to check a few minutes ago. I'll keep tinkering... The settings are still like I left them.

 

[4-2-7]

I never used the "Loudness" feature located on the front of the preamp unit and it wasn't on when I went to check a few minutes ago. I'll keep tinkering... The settings are still like I left them.

Yes your memory might have been wiped.

Do you have Line Leves you can sett for each input to balance them all?

 

[KDAC]

Yes your memory might have been wiped.

Do you have Line Leves you can sett for each input to balance them all?

I don't think one can do what you mentioned with this particular preamp. The closest feature to what you mentioned lies in the fact that it allows one to set a "preset" volume for each input. I don't ever remember setting one for the "CD" input my server uses. Since you mentioned it, I'll press the "Preset" button on the face of the unit and see if anything comes up/is out of the ordinary. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[4-2-7]

"preset" volume for each input.

That's your line level for each input,

 

[KDAC]

That's your line level for each input,

Thanks, 4-2-7. I toggled through the eight levels in question. Six of them display "-40 DB" on the preamp display. Then there are another two presets: CD1 displays "-18 DB" and CD2 displays "-40 DB." From there, I'm lost... I've had my server plugged into "CD" on the back of the preamp since acquiring it last summer.

 

[petehall347]

turn them to 0db ... you can only turn things down .not up .so 0db is normal level . if any inputs are louder you can match them all by turning louder ones down .

 

[KDAC]

turn them to 0db ... you can only turn things down .not up .so 0db is normal level . if any inputs are louder you can match them all by turning louder ones down .

O.K. I'll give that a shot and see what happens.

 

[KDAC]

Pffft... How f*cking embarrasing! As they say in tech - Read the F*cking Manual. I dug into it and found the "Source Level Setup" page(s). I'll see if I can do the necessary adjustments by hand since I don't have the remote that originally accompanied this unit.

 

[KDAC]

Thank your help and suggestions, Petehall347 and 4-2-7. Manual entry on the front panel of the unit wasn't working and I refuse to drive myself mad over a used preamp. I did a factory reset which, according to the manual, presumably set the unit back to factory condition. What little tunes I've demoed sound the same as before the reset. I'll run through several albums to see if it's the music (I know it's not) and if the volume doesn't return to the previous "normal," I'll simply take a chance on the neighborhood shop.

 

[6taafondo]

This may help:

https://www.remotes.com/bk-p/bk rtpt5.htm

 

[KDAC]

Thank

This may help:

https://www.remotes.com/bk-p/bk rtpt5.htm

Thanks for the link, 6taafondo.

 

[KDAC]

Thanks to the kindness of the local audio shop owner/technician, I was able to run both the preamplifier and amplifier in this afternoon before he closed shop for the day. He ran a series of tests on both the preamp and amp with what appeared to be a multimeter of some sort while checking both for DC offset. Both checked out fine and he stated there's nothing wrong with either component. Whew! I guess I used good foresight when I purchased a multi-thousand joule power strip for just about every grouping electronic components in the house. He also recommended that I check all speaker drivers for scraping and to plug in a regular CD player into the same "CD" input I've used with my server since obtaining the preamp and amp so as to see if there is a volume differential between the server and stand-alone player. I'll implement his suggestions tonight and see what happens.

Once again, I send thank you to petehall347, 4-2-7, and 6taafondo.

 

[4-2-7]

Once again, I send thank you to petehall347, 4-2-7, and 6taafondo.

If you can't set your line levels for each channel without the remote, I think it would be worth getting one. Most of your inputs are set to minus (- db) and not (+db) this means your not getting all the power out of the amp.

 

[KDAC]

This may help:

https://www.remotes.com/bk-p/bk rtpt5.htm

Good looking out:



$29.90 unit cost +$7.95 tax = $37.85 in total and most likely worth every cent.

 

[KDAC]

If you can't set your line levels for each channel without the remote, I think it would be worth getting one. Most of your inputs are set to minus (- db) and not (+db) this means your not getting all the power out of the amp.

I just did about three minutes ago. Having it at hand will most likely permit more thorough operation of the preamp and easier access to the feature and setting menus.