Velodyne MiniVee 8" subwoofer bad hum

[olds1959special]

I just picked up a Velodyne MiniVee 8" subwoofer and it makes a loud hum even with no input, no matter where I plug it in. Is it a grounding issue? Worth fixing?

 

[Doodski]

I just picked up a Velodyne MiniVee 8" subwoofer and it makes a loud hum even with no input, no matter where I plug it in. Is it a grounding issue? Worth fixing?

It could be a power supply issue. Is it new or used?

 

[olds1959special]

It could be a power supply issue. Is it new or used?

I got it used and the seller refunded me when I got home and realized it was broken! I'm thankful for that. It's an older model, and he said he was using it in his car.

 

[Doodski]

I got it used and the seller refunded me when I got home and realized it was broken! I'm thankful for that.

It is probably (A educated guess at this point.) a power supply issue with smoothing caps. Those big fat caps in the power supply are porbably to blame. There is the off chance it is a floating ground on the input but I am going with smoothing cap issues.

 

[olds1959special]

It is probably (A educated guess at this point.) a power supply issue with smoothing caps. Those big fat caps in the power supply are porbably to blame. There is the off chance it is a floating ground on the input but I am going with smoothing cap issues.

Thanks, if I remember correctly the noise may have changed slightly from touching the case, does that indicate it could be the grounding issue?

 

[Doodski]

Thanks, if I remember correctly the noise may have changed slightly from touching the case, does that indicate it could be the grounding issue?

Yes, that may be indicative of a grounding issue.

 

[olds1959special]

Yes, that may be indicative of a grounding issue.

I dropped it off at the tech, he appeared to know what was wrong right off the bat, (did he?) and said it would cost $300 to fix it, and mentioned all the glue that has to be removed to get the parts out, but said it was good quality and worth it. Since I didn't pay anything for it, I decided to go for it, so I can stack it on top of my 10" rear ambience recovery KRK S10 subwoofer! Hopefully it will sound good that way.

 

[Doodski]

I dropped it off at the tech, he appeared to know what was wrong right off the bat, (did he?) and said it would cost $300 to fix it, and mentioned all the glue that has to be removed to get the parts out, but said it was good quality and worth it. Since I didn't pay anything for it, I decided to go for it, so I can stack it on top of my 10" rear ambience recovery KRK S10 subwoofer! Hopefully it will sound good that way.

I am not the tech and so I don't use a crystal ball to envision what he thinks etc. But the fault/complaint is widely applicable to various unrelated issues and subwoofers are notorious for multiple faults and various issues caused by cheap components and lots of vibration too. $300 goes a long way towards a repair and is considered a major repair category cost estimate in all tech repair circles. I never gave a estimate on gear that I was not 100% familiar with and that I had not worked on before and never had a service history with that specific model. Tossing a $300 expense out in the air is a bit assumptive in my opinion.

 

[olds1959special]

I am not the tech and so I don't use a crystal ball to envision what he thinks etc. But the fault/complaint is widely applicable to various unrelated issues and subwoofers are notorious for multiple faults and various issues caused by cheap components and lots of vibration too. $300 goes a long way towards a repair and is considered a major repair category cost estimate in all tech repair circles. I never gave a estimate on gear that I was not 100% familiar with and that I had not worked on before and never had a service history with that specific model. Tossing a $300 expense out in the air is a bit assumptive in my opinion.

I let him fix it and he charged me $330. The receipt said "power supply recap."

Here's the result:

It still hums. It's not as bad, and it seems to be intermittent. I got it to be silent a few times plugging it into various places in my apartment, with or without anything plugged into the inputs (mostly I tested it without anything plugged in.) I called him and explained this and he said it was working fine at his shop.

I don't understand why it's intermittent. I think it's working and then plug everything in and it starts humming again. I thought maybe it's an electric issue, since I live in an old building? My KRK sub also hummed but I got it silent with a "Morley Hum Eliminator", however it has the ground prong, which the Velodyne doesn't.

 

[Doodski]

I don't understand why it's intermittent. I think it's working and then plug everything in and it starts humming again.

Electronic circuitry/PCBs being plagued by intermittent issues/hum and electronic components causing intermittent issues/hum is the way it has been for decade after decade. This is so common of a complaint and diagnosis that for me as a technician to even discuss it as if this is unusual is absurd. It's the way it has been for a longggg time. All technicians know this fully and completely without hesitation. This is not a complete repair and should always be considered as a repeat fault/complaint. I said it before and to be totally honest and fair to all involved I say it again that subwoofers are commonly with intermittent faults and subwoofers commonly have multiple faults in them at the time they arrive at the technician for repair. It is the nature of subwoofers after vibrating all day everyday and being made from the kind of parts manufacturers use these days.(Cheap parts too often.) But this is no excuse for the technician and as I said this is not a completed repair. If you brought it home, plugged it in and it hummed then the tech apparently did not fully test it thoroughly in my opinion.

I thought maybe it's an electric issue, since I live in an old building?

Sometimes a older building can have faulty or mis-wired plugs but I saw new buildings too where a electrician wired the plugs incorrectly too and most of them had to be disassembled and rewired properly by a better electrician that found the issues and fixed them. One house I lived in people had been using the plugs for a long time and a electrician came in to wire new plugs in a newly built wall and he found many plugs that where totally wrong and and he had to then test the entire house and fix the bad plugs. It can happen anywhere, anytime etc. It's rare but it happens. There are incompetent people of all occupations everywhere that I have seen. No occupation is safe from idiots, fools, incompetency and outright charlatans and abusers too. So proceed accordingly. If you want go to the hardware store to buy or Amazon and order in a inexpensive tester that will indicate if the plugs are wired correctly or not that would be good. =Very easy to see the tester result instantly and then do whatever you need to do.

 

[olds1959special]

Electronic circuitry/PCBs being plagued by intermittent issues/hum and electronic components causing intermittent issues/hum is the way it has been for decade after decade. This is so common of a complaint and diagnosis that for me as a technician to even discuss it as if this is unusual is absurd. It's the way it has been for a longggg time. All technicians know this fully and completely without hesitation. This is not a complete repair and should always be considered as a repeat fault/complaint. I said it before and to be totally honest and fair to all involved I say it again that subwoofers are commonly with intermittent faults and subwoofers commonly have multiple faults in them at the time they arrive at the technician for repair. It is the nature of subwoofers after vibrating all day everyday and being made from the kind of parts manufacturers use these days.(Cheap parts too often.) But this is no excuse for the technician and as I said this is not a completed repair. If you brought it home, plugged it in and it hummed then the tech apparently did not fully test it thoroughly in my opinion.

Sometimes a older building can have faulty or mis-wired plugs but I saw new buildings too where a electrician wired the plugs incorrectly too and most of them had to be disassembled and rewired properly by a better electrician that found the issues and fixed them. One house I lived in people had been using the plugs for a long time and a electrician came in to wire new plugs in a newly built wall and he found many plugs that where totally wrong and and he had to then test the entire house and fix the bad plugs. It can happen anywhere, anytime etc. It's rare but it happens. There are incompetent people of all occupations everywhere that I have seen. No occupation is safe from idiots, fools, incompetency and outright charlatans and abusers too. So proceed accordingly. If you want go to the hardware store to buy or Amazon and order in an inexpensive tester that will indicate if the plugs are wired correctly or not that would be good. =Very easy to see the tester result instantly and then do whatever you need to do.

I have used a ground tester and most of my outlets are ungrounded but some are so I try to plug my gear into those. In this case it didn’t seem to matter.

 

[Doodski]

I have used a ground tester and most of my outlets are ungrounded but some are so I try to plug my gear into those. In this case it didn’t seem to matter.

Then the subwoofer has intermittent issues causing the hum and it is not related to the wall plug outlet integrity. I attempted warning you about multiple fault issues in subwoofers before but I guess it was not enough. A $330 repair on a subwoofer power supply is very good pay for any technician anywhere. Is he stating that he will continue the repair as a repeat repair or not? If he says it is not a repeat repair then that means he wants more money for repair service not related to the stuff he already did.

 

[DanielT]

It still hum

Audible when playing music?

 

[olds1959special]

Audible when playing music?

Yes. I just plugged it in (grounded outlet) and it seemed to be silent and then started playing music and the hum appeared again. Stopped the music but the hum persists.

Sometimes, when I turn it on, it's silent. As soon as I turn on the music, the buzz starts. This is in "auto" or "on" mode, no difference.

 

[DanielT]

Yes. I just plugged it in (grounded outlet) and it seemed to be silent and then started playing music and the hum appeared again. Stopped the music but the hum persists.

Sometimes, when I turn it on, it's silent. As soon as I turn on the music, the buzz starts. This is in "auto" or "on" mode, no difference.

Okay, but is the hum/buzz level the same when you turn up the volume with music or does it increase as the volume increases? I mean if the hum level is the same, the music can drown out the hum sound. That's the case with one of my old Yamaha subwoofers, which hums a little. That's why it's not something I care about. It's not heard when I play music anyway.

Humming amps, a little hissing sound from tweeters in active speakers (I hear it when I'm X inch/cm close ....as you can often read users say) and so on are not too uncommon. Whether it's annoying or not is individual

 

[olds1959special]

Okay, but is the hum/buzz level the same when you turn up the volume with music or does it increase as the volume increases? I mean if the hum level is the same, the music can drown out the hum sound. That's the case with one of my old Yamaha subwoofers, which hums a little. That's why it's not something I care about. It's not heard when I play music anyway.

Humming amps, a little hissing sound from tweeters in active speakers (I hear it when I'm X inch/cm close ....as you can often read users say) and so on are not too uncommon. Whether it's annoying or not is individual

The hum is constant, and stays the same level. My Elac sub is silent, my Dynaudio sub was silent, my KRK is now silent with hum exterminator, so I'm surprised I can't get it working. All I can think to try is to plug it in a completely different place. As far as I'm concerned, any audible humming sound is not acceptable. I can handle a little white noise from speakers but not this.

 

[olds1959special]

I brought it back to the tech, showed him the problem and he said it was normal and recommended I don’t buy this brand anymore. I’m trying to sell it now.

 

[olds1959special]

I called the other tech and he said they don’t work on Velodyne.

 

[olds1959special]

I started using the subwoofer despite the slight hum/buzz while in use. I keep it under my desk, maybe that helps.

 

[terryforsythe]

I brought it back to the tech, showed him the problem and he said it was normal and recommended I don’t buy this brand anymore. I’m trying to sell it now.

I bought my Velodyne in the late 90s. After about 5 years it developed a hum. I took into a local dealer that was an authorized Velodyne repair center. They replaced the plate amplifier. I haven't had any issues since, and it has been over 20 years.

However, I used to leave the amplifier on continually, and I live in FL where we get a lot of lightening strikes. Now I have it on a WiFi enabled switch and I only turn it on when I am listening to music. Also, I now have much beefier surge protection at my breaker panels.