Did I damage my new amp


So, as posted elsewhere, I bought new Monitor Audio Gold 300 speakers which I am still waiting to receive. I was impressed by the Arcam SA30 during the audition so I brought one home to pair with the speakers whenever I get them. In the meantime I am using my 20 year old MA Silver S8’s

Being new to streaming it took some playing around before I figured everything out. But one big mistake was not understanding that the volume on my iPhone also effects the amp volume.

Long story short, I managed to crank the volume on the amp to 100% for a few seconds before I understood what was happening, and got it turned down. ( I found the max. volume setting after the fact)

Since then I find my speakers a bit distorted. Now, I don’t know if they sounded like that with the old amp. Am I just over analysing things, paying TOO much attention to details as it’s a new amp and I’m listening too hard for an improvement, or I damaged the speakers or the amp. It sounds fine with jazz but something more in the progressive rock style and it sounds distorted.

I would like to think that if the amp was in danger it would shut itself down before anything would get damaged. And it was really only a few seconds. I probably will not see my new speakers until next week so I can’t compare with anything and this is got me totally depressed thinking it’s the amp.

What do you all think?

 

neversatisfied

See if you can see if it is one tweeter or both by ear. And reach out to Monitor Audio. It may be cost prohibitive to replace a tweeter(s) if it is still even possible, but at least you will have all the info. Maybe you can still get a few dollars out of it if a tweeter can be replaced.

You'll need to isolate what's damaged.  If the tweeters are damaged, check to see if the voice coil butterfly assembly is replaceable. Could be a simple, and not overly expensive fix if they are. If the woofers are damaged too, it’s gonna cost more for sure, but may still be replaceable.

 

Hopefully it is just a crossover component.  Pull the woofer and behind it you should find your crossovers.  A resistor or cap that failed catastrophicly like that will generally show heat damage and is easy to identify and easier to repalce than a driver.  

I’ve got a pair of Focal Chorus 714’s in my surround sound setup for my tv. I might just plug those into the 2 channel setup and have a listen. I’ll try that tomorrow sometime. That should get me a quick answer as I don’t think they have ever been punished in any way. Then I know to have a deep dive into the MA components.

Not that I am refusing the dumb ass award but Arcam could ship streaming amps with the “max volume” feature for the Net source at 50 or so, and then direct people to that setting in the manual. It never dawned on me that my iPhone would do that. It really upsets me that I missed that.