high pitched noise emitting from the Solaris

[Christopher]

Hi everybody!

I received my Solaris earlier this week and overall I am very pleased with it. The sonic possibilities seem endless and what's most important, the user interface is just fantastic!

One thing bothers me though:
When my Solaris is powered up, it emits a constant high pitched sound which seems to be coming out of the Solaris itself (not the power supply).
It is not exactly loud, but in a quiet room it is clearly audible and given its very high pitch, I have to say it is rather annoying and for recording and critical listening I have to switch the Solaris off.

I was wondering if anyone else is experiencing this?

To give you a better idea of what I am talking about, I tried to record it.
I found that it can be picked up best by placing a microphone directly above the keyboard:



If you are interested in what this sounds like, you can download the recording here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9075306/Solaris ... 0noise.zip

Here is a description of what happens in that WAV-file:
Initially, there is only background noise from the mic and preamp, then, about 3 seconds into the recording the Solaris is switched on. Immediately there is something going on in the higher frequencies. Then, about five seconds later, a consistent high pitched sound appears which persists until the unit is switched off again.

Being curious, I ran the recording through a spectrograph.
First of all, here is what the noise floor of that recording looks like:



There is a spike at about 21 kHz, which seems to be introduced by my recording equipment, so this has nothing to do with the Solaris -- just wanted to make that clear.


Then, right after switching the unit on, For about five seconds there is clearly something going on in the area somewhere around 15.5 kHz. This is clearly coming from inside of the Solaris:




Then, roughly five seconds after the unit has been switched on (about when the "SOLARIS" logo appears on the main display), the pitch changes and now shows a significant spike at 14 kHz:



John, maybe you could bring this to the attention of the engineers. I would of course like to know if there is anything that can be done about this?


Regards,
Christopher

[John Bowen]

Christopher,

I know this was a problem in beta testing, which was traced to the power supply. When I was at Sonic Core, I tested 2 different supplies to confirm, and was able to eliminate the high pitched sound when I used the newer supply. Perhaps the one you got is defective a little bit, or something along those lines? This would be good to know, in any case.

If you can find another 12 V supply, you need a connector that fits a 2.5mm center pin - the power supplies I found at Conrad in Siegburg were only 2.1mm pin, so it didn’t fit.

[Christopher]

John,
thank you for replying so quickly. It is good to hear that solving this issue might be as simple as replacing the power supply.

The only other 12V supply with a matching connector which I have currently available here is only rated at a max. power output of 1200 mA. I guess that will not be sufficient since on the back of the original supply it says 12 V, 3000 mA.
Of course I am cautious to plug anything into the Solaris which isn't up to the required specs, so I didn't try it.
I'll see if I can find a matching power supply next week.

[John Bowen]

Yes, I believe that was one of the problems with the older power supply - the output was too low.

[John Bowen]

"... on the back of the original supply it says 12 V, 3000 mA."
I looked up the specification here at Sonic Core for the power supply, and they show 2500 mA. Interesting!

[scope4live]

Hi Christopher,
Congrats on the new Solaris, but I would much rather hear your Rhodes and Solaris than the noisy PSU..
Nothing beats the Rhodes or Solaris for sound and feel..

[Christopher]

I looked up the specification here at Sonic Core for the power supply, and they show 2500 mA. Interesting!

Curious. Could that mean that my Solaris should have been shipped with another power supply?
Just for your information, here is a photo of all the print on my PSU:




Anyway, meanwhile I was able to test an alternative supply with matching voltage, polarity and connector size.
This other PSU is what Roland ship with their FP5 pianos. (model PSB-3U). It is rated at 12V / 3600mA, so it should be well suited to power the Solaris.

However I am sorry to report that exchanging the power supply didn't change anything. That high pitched sound is still there.
Now I am puzzled. What should be my next step?

[Christopher]

Hi Christopher,
Congrats on the new Solaris, but I would much rather hear your Rhodes and Solaris than the noisy PSU..
Nothing beats the Rhodes or Solaris for sound and feel..

Ahhh yes, they should complement each other nicely.
It's just that the Rhodes currently has a broken tine, so it needs a bit of love.

[John Bowen]

Christopher,
I’m just getting ready to fly back home from Germany....the guy most likely to know wasn’t in the office this week (he was moving), so honestly, we have to find out next Monday his suggestion.

Regards,
John

p.s. they told me that the Solaris actually should be fine even with 2000 mA, and to have more wasn’t a problem.

[Christopher]

the guy most likely to know wasn’t in the office this week (he was moving), so honestly, we have to find out next Monday his suggestion.

That's perfectly fine. It can wait until next week, no problem.
Anyway, I very much appreciate your efforts in this matter so far.

[John Bowen]

I actually got another reply from him, at home:

"when it is due to the power supply it is a high pitched sound on the audio outputs.
it is not due to the amps of the PSU but rather to the power plug.
If the PSU has a plug with a ground pin there will be the high pitched noise.
It won't occur with a power plug with only 2 connectors without ground."

Are you hearing the noise in the audio outputs, or just when you are near the front panel? Because then he mentions this:

"on some units i noted a high pitched noise (but not very loud, only audible when near the solaris with the head) coming from the PCB. but this is a problem I can't say much about. I think it has to do with the coil from the switching power supply on the solaris mainboard."

If that is the situation, then it could explain why most people haven't had this problem, as it would be specific to a bad coil, which we would need to replace.

Let me know about the noise - just external, or coming from the outputs.

Jb

[Christopher]

I actually got another reply from him, at home:
..."on some units i noted a high pitched noise (but not very loud, only audible when near the solaris with the head) coming from the PCB. but this is a problem I can't say much about. I think it has to do with the coil from the switching power supply on the solaris mainboard."

If that is the situation, then it could explain why most people haven't had this problem, as it would be specific to a bad coil, which we would need to replace.

No, it is not about the signal from the audio outputs. It is actual sound, coming from somewhere inside of the Solaris' housing. So maybe your colleague's suggestion (a bad coil on the PCB) could be a step in the right direction.
But contrary to what he describes, I can not only hear it when I move my head close to the Solaris, but even when I stand back from the unit a couple of meters.

[Christopher]

Hello John,

Since it looks like there is nothing else I can do to resolve this problem, I think I need to send my Solaris in for repair so that a technician can have a look at the PCB and fix it.
I know that usually such warranty cases are handled by the dealer. I am just wondering: Since I am in Germany anyway, would it not be easier for everyone if I contact Sonic Core directly? What do you recommend?

[John Bowen]

Sent you a direct email....