Do I Have A Phono Preamp / Power Amp Mismatch?

[Andrew Heck]

The set-up is this:
A series of unfortunate events this afternoon left me without a phono stage which is an unacceptable condition. As far as I can tell, there is no recourse in this town when one finds themselves in my position that does not involve waiting on shipping except Guitar Center and the BBE FJB-200X. I had neither expectations nor choice in the matter, so I laid my money down and headed home.
My problem is this:
When I turn my amp (Parasound HCA-600) up past 50%, it cuts to standby which means one of a number of things as stated by the manual, "It (the standby light) will also light up red whenever there is a short circuit or fault which triggers the protection circuits. Whenever the red LED illuminates, no sound can be heard. If the red Standby LED lights up during operation, it could indicate that more DC than its servos can block is present at the input, an overload, a short circuited speaker line or possible internal fault."
When I use my tablet as a source directly into the amp's input, I can take it to 100% without incident.
* The Parasound is a 60WPC amp with a speaker load of 8Ohms
*The BBE has an Output Impedance of 1K Ohms the Parasound an Input Impedance of 33K Ohms
*The BBE has a Max Output >10db @ 1kHz and 0dBu=0.775Vrms the Parasound lnput Sensitivity 0.8 V
I don't know what that means or if it helps,but I'm willing to learn if someone could get technical.

Please help, I don't want to find out that my amp is shot.

 

[rothwellaudio]

This is guesswork, but it looks like your phonostage has DC on its outputs. Check it with a meter if you have one.

 

[vinyl1]

I am surprised nobody else answered, questions like this usually get plenty of help.

I don't know enough about your equipment to be very useful, but let me ask one thing: is the Parasound just a power amplifier? Does the BBE have a volume control? If not, you are feeding a full-power line level signal into a power amp without the buffering that a preamp provides. You could get all kinds of mismatches, not to mention very loud output.

 

[Audiofreak71]

The set-up is this:
A series of unfortunate events this afternoon left me without a phono stage which is an unacceptable condition. As far as I can tell, there is no recourse in this town when one finds themselves in my position that does not involve waiting on shipping except Guitar Center and the BBE FJB-200X. I had neither expectations nor choice in the matter, so I laid my money down and headed home.
My problem is this:
When I turn my amp (Parasound HCA-600) up past 50%, it cuts to standby which means one of a number of things as stated by the manual, "It (the standby light) will also light up red whenever there is a short circuit or fault which triggers the protection circuits. Whenever the red LED illuminates, no sound can be heard. If the red Standby LED lights up during operation, it could indicate that more DC than its servos can block is present at the input, an overload, a short circuited speaker line or possible internal fault."
When I use my tablet as a source directly into the amp's input, I can take it to 100% without incident.
* The Parasound is a 60WPC amp with a speaker load of 8Ohms
*The BBE has an Output Impedance of 1K Ohms the Parasound an Input Impedance of 33K Ohms
*The BBE has a Max Output >10db @ 1kHz and 0dBu=0.775Vrms the Parasound lnput Sensitivity 0.8 V
I don't know what that means or if it helps,but I'm willing to learn if someone could get technical.

Please help, I don't want to find out that my amp is shot.

Are you using a preamp in conjunction with your parasound amp? If not and your plugging the phono preamp straight into your amp then that’s your problem, if you are using a preamp with your amp then what input are you using on the preamp to hook your phono preamp into ?

Audiofreak71

 

[Andrew Heck]

Are you using a preamp in conjunction with your parasound amp? If not and your plugging the phono preamp straight into your amp then that’s your problem, if you are using a preamp with your amp then what input are you using on the preamp to hook your phono preamp into ?

Audiofreak71

The preamp is the phono stage listed. I don't run a "preamp" component yet as I don't need multiple inputs. Never had a problem with any other component upstream from the Parasound. It did the same thing to an HCA-800ii. The BBE FJB-200x just has no output to speak of. .773V is nothing and the amps have to work to hard to make those Watts, I guess. My Realistic 42-2109 puts out something like 6V output. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[Audiofreak71]

The preamp is the phono stage listed. I don't run a "preamp" component yet as I don't need multiple inputs. Never had a problem with any other component upstream from the Parasound. It did the same thing to an HCA-800ii. The BBE FJB-200x just has no output to speak of. .773V is nothing and the amps have to work to hard to make those Watts, I guess. My Realistic 42-2109 puts out something like 6V output. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Yeah that’s very low and most likely just not enough to run that amp . An actual preamp in this case would solve your problem or a phono preamp that has the voltage to run An amp and the ones that can are usually pricey , my graham slew accession can run my Aragon 4004 but like I said there usually pricey. You can get a stand alone preamp for much cheaper .

Audiofreak71

 

[Andrew Heck]

Yeah that’s very low and most likely just not enough to run that amp . An actual preamp in this case would solve your problem or a phono preamp that has the voltage to run An amp and the ones that can are usually pricey , my graham slew accession can run my Aragon 4004 but like I said there usually pricey. You can get a stand alone preamp for much cheaper .

Audiofreak71

I actually love my old Realistic. A buddy of mine and I are re-capping her tomorrow and she should sing. I know it's a "licorice" component, i.e. people either love it or hate it, but High output, simple Class A circuit for $10 really can not be beat.

 

[Audiofreak71]

I actually love my old Realistic. A buddy of mine and I are re-capping her tomorrow and she should sing. I know it's a "licorice" component, i.e. people either love it or hate it, but High output, simple Class A circuit for $10 really can not be beat.

Oh that’s perfect, you’ll be gtg when it’s all done , definitely can’t beat it for that price .

Audiofreak71