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Schiit Freya damage by giving it an electric static discharge on the volume knob.

Anyone had his Schiit Freya Tube Preamp "zapped" by carpet electricity build-up while touching the metal volume knob? just to find out the your device lost 70% of its original volume out?
Today, the wife while trying to lower the volume on my music she accidentally gave a carpet electric discharge to the knob and the music stopped, but the unit remained off, so I turned it off, and back on, just to find out that the volume knob, did not make any relay noise until you start getting to the 3 0-clock position, then little by little the music starts playing back but when you get to the maximum, the output it only about 30% of it,
I believe the volume relay board got damaged up to some point, but since I am not familiar with this type of "volume technology", I have no idea the extent of the damage. Wondering if any Freya users there heard of this issue before, how to fix it, and how to prevent this from happening in the future.
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atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,747 posts
 
The equipment should be static discharge protected... not saying that it is, but should be (its just a resistor and a capacitor that is needed to protect it; its not rocket science....). Its not like this sort of thing hasn't been known about for a very long time. I used to work at the Allied Radio Shack service department back in the 1970s and we had to retrofit equipment that was getting damaged in this way.


At any rate, if rebooting it (if it has a computer) doesn't do the trick it will need to go back for service and under warranty if the warranty time has not expired (IOW its not acceptable that the damage due to static discharge isn't covered).
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,339 posts
 
I use a 3 inch square anti static mat that is grounded to my wall receptacle.  I touch the mat on the audio rack before I touch any of my delicate equipment.  I fried an Audible Illusions preamp once due to static and it wasn’t cheap to fix. 
realremo
460 posts
 
I also shock myself on my rack before touching any equipment, but I am in a listening room in the basement, my system is not available to neuro-typical humans. I too live in a dry, cold environment with much static electricity. I'm seriously looking at the Schiit Freya as a future alternate pre so tagging this thread. IME Schiit is pretty good about supporting owners of their gear, have you tried to drop Stoddard an email?
glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,619 posts
 
Wonder what they use for the volume control of the relays. If it’s like an encoder it may have got damaged or the position of the volume could be lost for reference. Not sure grasping at straws. May want to try turning the  volume all the way down then power cycle it. 
ross6860's avatar
ross6860
103 posts
 
FWIW, I have recently sent back two, yes TWO, faulty Schiit Freya+ pre-amps.

This has nothing to do with your issue other than there possibly being some over-arching quality issues.

I know folks love the Freya and Freya+, and the passive and SS buffer sounded nice, but the tube section was faulty in both units I received.  I tried multiple tubes from known good units to eliminate the tubes from being the problem.  One had severe noise issues during playback, the second only hummed before releasing the magic smoke in about 10-20 seconds.

Good luck.  You will probably have to send it in for service.  I wouldn't admit to the "static discharge".  Probably outside of a warranty claim (Act of God , abuse, etc.).
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