I’ve encountered an issue with my M33 and would love to find out if thats a ‘normal behaviour’ or if I need so send my unit in for repair :
The M33 is plugged into a switchable power extension cord, so its really powered off when not in use.
Now, when I turn on the switch socket and power on the M33 right away, it will play fine for about 2 - 3 minutes, then it stops playing and reboots! After that its fine for the rest of the day.
When I put the M33 in Standby (switch socket on, M33 LED orange) for at least 45 minutes before turning the M33 on, it seems to be fine and plays without this reboot thing.
Also it has to be off the grid (switch socked off or power cord pulled out) for a few hours to show the reboot.
It seems to be irrelevant wich source is playing, I tried Roon, Bluesound and HDMI, all the same.
I have contacted NAD service, they think it might be just ‘normal behaviour’ or it could be a defect, since I think this reboot issue occurred only recently.
Now I would be happy If some other M33 owners could please make the following short test and report their findings:
please unplug the power over night or for a few hours
plug in the power again and turn on the M33, play some music
my M33 would reboot after about 2-3 minutes…and yours??
All I’m trying to do is figure out if the M33 just dont want to be offline completely or if I should send it in for repair while warranty is still valid (Got my unit used and unfortunately not with the extended 5 yrs warranty…)
thank you very much!!!
cheers
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
2
That seems clearly to be broken behavior. Whether or not NAD will fix it is a different question.
Yes, I’d suspect that is the design parameter they were looking at. They expect it to be on standby mode when you’re not using it.
thats what I want to figure out: is this a design ‘feature’ , thus totally normal or is something broken and needs attention.
Actually, even if NAD has intended the M33 to be in standby all the time I don’t think it should show this rebooting behaviour. On the oter hand I’m not too keen about sending in the unit and wait for weeks till it comes back…
So please : all you M33 users out there ( @GL_SG_TG , @Psyclops ): could you check how your unit reacts when starting up after a couple hours without power?
thanks!!
I will try this out over night and tell you the result.
I had to smile about the answer of the NAD Service “…they think it might be just ‘normal behaviour’ or it could be a defect”… Shoulden´t they know the answer?
I took the M33 from power about 4 hours. After plugin in and starting up it rebooted by itself after a few seconds (not minutes).
Since the restart it is now playing without problems.
I remember that i also got a reboot after the first time i powered the M33 on. In this situation it played a few minutes before rebooting.
If it is ‘normal’ behaviour by-design, it should be mentioned in the owner’s manual, but it isn’t. Why would anyone design something that behaved this way?
Thanks a lot Lutz for testing !!
Seems like this could just be a ‘normal’ quirk, though I must agree with Tony: why would anybody make such a design decision??
But hey, the high End Hifi industry is full of ‘interresting’ design choices, NAD is no exception.
Just take this monstrosity of a Remote Control for the M33. Big, heavy, with scary sharp Edges, tons of Buttons, but for the M33 borderline useless. I basically only use it to power on / off the unit…
Or the funky crackling sounds that could appear when the local bluesound music library is messed up, even when playing via roon…
I’d be glad to see some more testers on the described reboot issue to finally decide wether or not this is a service case.
I also don´t know what it could be good for.
I don´t use the M33 remote. To big. With my NAD M10V2 i got the small blusound remote. I only need volume, standby or back/forward. For this it is great. A bit OT but maybe a tipp.
short update on the issue: i got my M33 to service… the tecnician suspects something might be wrong with the MediaBoard and is going to replace it…lets see, hopefully soon
cheers
I did ask NAD support, but they could not give a clear answer. Anyways,y M 33 is on its way back home to me, the Mediaboard has been replaced, although they couldn’t replicate my rebooting issue.
Let’s see if it is fixed, I will report when my unit has arrived…
So, the M33 is back home, hurray!
I connected it back up, setup everything and copied the Dirac filter…all good so far…
after a night off the grid I checked for the reboot issue. And it was immediate evident: after a few minutes it rebooted again.
damn!
But since the the service technician could not reproduce this I suspect something with my specific setup must cause this.
So I run a few more tests to get to the bottom of this…
So far I did:
All connections unplugged, only Power and Speaker cable connected_____OK (no reboot)
Network/Ethernet back in_______________________________________________OK
so far only the combination with two subs caused the rebooting.
Also i noticed quite a bit of a voltage on the RCA shielding (it actually hurts a bit if i touch them)
measured between the Powergrid Ground and the outer RCA from the Subwoofer with a multimeter I got up to 160 Volt (shure with a very low current)
So my working theory is somwhat along this line: maybe the 2 Subwoofers are not both connected ‘in Phase’ to the mains power (The db4s Subs dont have a grounded Plug, only 2 pins) and the potential difference is maybe somhow messing up something, causing a reboot.
I will est the subs again with one powerplug turned 180 deg and see if this makes a difference…
A final update on the reboot issue…It seems to be fixed, hurray!!
But it’s a bit unsatisfying, cause I don’t really know how and why. I kept playing with the polarity (phase) of all the gear and I still think this might be the cause of these reboots.
I tested out the ‘correct’ mains phase of the subs with a multimeter, measuring the voltage between the mass (RCA shield) and the mains ground. it was around 70V or 80V, depending on the Plugs orientation. Assuming the lower Voltage is the corret phase, I now plugged the Subs ‘correctly’ into the mains sockets. And since then no more reboots!!
But then I tried to provoke the rebooting again by turning one of the subs power plug 180° and still no reboot. hmmmm
I don’t know whats goin on here but it seems to be good for now. I’m tired of testing and go back to enjoying the music…
Sounds like my old home (1950’s) when I first moved in. Had to straighten out a few outlets and added grounding rods. You can get a tool that’s inexpensive at the local hardware store that will analyze the sockets quickly and safely if you’re not comfortable with a DVOM.
Klein Tools RT250 GFCI Outlet Tester with LCD Display, Electric Voltage Tester for Standard 3-Wire 120V Electrical Receptacles, Green,Red Amazon.com
Edit: I have a M33 as well, so far so good, knock on wood
He’s grounding himself to one leg of the AC voltage approx 60v in the states, it’s a fair tingle but no real amperage delivered. I will get your attention though. I’m not sure where his abode is?
No it isn’t right and should be addressed properly and brought up to modern code standards immediately.
thanks for the replies.
I’m located in germany and the house is not too old (build in the 80s?) and with a fairly recent electric installation, so I dont think there is an issue on that side.
But maybe the polarity of the components somehow added up to the measured 160 volts ( each sub measured solo was around 80 volt )
And touching the outer RCA gives a little bite but nothing dangerous as there is only a very small current at work.
While I dont think phasing out the system will do anything audible, it may have been the root of the reboots. maybe.
Current setup consists of:
-the M33 (grounded plug)
-Samsung TV (not grounded) wired via HDMI to the M33 and coaxial to the antenna/cableTV outlet
two B&W db4s subwoofer (not grounded) over RCA cables to the M33
-netgear switch connecting the NUC, M33,TV ans some more with Cat6/7 cables
nothing too fancy
Anyways the problem seems fixed, for now at least. some boring day I’ll find myself unplugging everything again and measure each and every device for phase polarity and see if I can force the reboot somehow…maybe not
till then …happy listening!!
Hi Hans, I’m getting the picture now. German wall socket is type F and you have gear that has plugs type C that are non polarized and can engage either way flipped? If so I can relate to the fun, we have now that the two prong plugs have different sized blades so to ensure that hot and neutral are kept in phase. Back in the 1950 era they were both the same size blades. Myself personally I would get a wall socket tester just to make sure and then mark my type C cables with polarity so that you can ensure that everything is in phase. DVOM the outer shell of the rca to the type C plug ( unplugged of course) using the ohms testing range should tell you quickly which is neutral and your wall socket tester will tell you which one is neutral.
The M33 is using the third ground pin in your home right? Your other equipment that you are plugging in via the rca (subwoofer)is grounding through your M33 it seems. Not ideal, be careful with that 230v it bites harder than our 110/120v
exactly, our german wall sockets allow the plugs to fit in either direction, thus phase and neutral may get flipped. Usually no problem, but here it may have caused the reboot issues. But thats still just a guess, as I have failed to reproduce the issue for now.
But I suspect the B&W Subwoower design to be part of the problem with the grounding effectively going through the RCA shield throug the M33. Have to perform further testing to be sure…some day