Five Common Faults of Professional Audio Systems

At present, there are many kinds of professional audio equipment, and the upgrading is also changing with each passing day. So many equipments will inevitably have some various faults in use, some of which are the faults of the equipment itself, and some are caused by the improper use of our audio engineers. Generally speaking, the types of audio system failures can be summarized into five categories: power failures, line failures, human operation failures, equipment failures, and interference failures.

Audio system power failure

●The overall power configuration of the audio system is very important. The following points should be paid attention to:

Three-phase power supply: Generally, places where professional audio equipment is used will apply for the installation of three-phase power supply. More important places will also use two independent three-phase power supplies. If one of them fails, the entire system will not be paralyzed. ; Even very important places will use a backup power supply such as a "UPS" similar to a computer, which shows how important the power supply is.

Separate audio and lighting power supplies: It is best for the audio system and lighting to have their own power supplies, otherwise one is prone to interference, and the other is unsafe to work.

Total power distribution: It is not enough to have a strong power supply, but also pay attention to the distribution of the power supply; in principle, the mixer and various audio source equipment should have an independent power supply; There must be at least 2 independent power supplies. Each independent power supply is controlled by the corresponding air switch, so it is very convenient for us to switch the equipment.

Audio system wiring fault

●Power line failure: There are many places where power is used in an audio system, and various power lines are required to connect, such as: mixers and audio players and other power supplies, peripheral equipment power supplies, power amplifier power supplies, stage power supplies , active speaker power supply, video system power supply, etc., there are many parts in a place that need power supply, so the power supply cable should be safe and reliable, and try to avoid failures.

Signal line failure: If a sound system is compared to a person, then the signal connection line of the sound system is like a human blood vessel, and the "blood circulation" directly affects the stability of the sound system.

The connection line between the power amplifier and the speaker is faulty: Everyone pays more attention to the connection between the power amplifier and the speaker, and a good quality and thicker speaker cable is used. If the speaker cable fails, it is usually a short circuit. Now the speakers all use 6.35 plugs, so the risk of short-circuiting with such a plug will greatly increase; the speaker cable is rarely open-circuited, so if the thick cable is open-circuited, it is usually artificial. It's not likely to be a problem with the wire itself.

 Human operation failure of the audio system

●"Technology is people-oriented", it is not bad at all. No matter how good or advanced the equipment is, people must operate it. Of course, people will make mistakes. Therefore, some operating mistakes in the audio system are inevitable. We can only study hard, strengthen ourselves, hone ourselves, accumulate more experience, and try our best to avoid the failure caused by this kind of human error.

Signal connection problem:

1. The connection between the audio source playback device and the mixer: All kinds of CDs, DVDs, MDs, decks, etc. should be connected to the mixer with the matching wires, generally inserted into the high-resistance port.

2. Dynamic microphones, condenser microphones, etc. are generally plugged into the XLR low-impedance port. However, the wireless microphone signal is amplified by the receiver, and it is necessary to experiment to know which end is suitable for insertion.

3. In principle, the signal output by the band and other equipment should be inserted into the high-impedance port, but if the line is long and the interference is large, it can also be inserted into the low-impedance signal port.

Equipment control problems:

There are many kinds of audio equipment, and our audio engineer needs to adjust each audio equipment. The human operation faults we are talking about mainly occur during the performance, such as silence, staccato, feedback, noise and so on.

1. The channel level attenuation switch of the mixer: Some mixers add a level attenuation switch of about 20dB before the gain knob. When the CD and other audio sources are input from the high-impedance port, due to the high level, it may be It is appropriate to press this switch to attenuate the audio signal by 20dB.

2. Mixer gain adjustment: Some sound engineers don't know the importance of channel gain, so they adjust the knob randomly, sometimes turn off the gain knob, and even press the 20dB level attenuation switch at the same time, thinking about this time How small will the sound be?

3. Adjustment of the mixer equalization group: As the name suggests, the mixer is mainly used to adjust the tone, and the adjustment of the tone mainly depends on the equalization group. It is very simple to say, it is nothing more than high school bass plus a few corresponding frequency selection knobs. Although the sound may not be very good under normal operation, there will be no performance accidents. However, some sound engineers sometimes turn the balance knob boldly. If the bass is increased too much, the burden on the entire power amplifier and speakers will be greatly increased, which may damage the equipment, and the sound will be easily distorted.

4. AUX adjustment of the mixer: Everyone AUX is mainly used to send signals to the effector. In a mixer, if we send the signal effector from AUX6, after the effector processing, if we output 2 signals to the mixer Channels 23-24 of the audio console, then do not turn on the AUX6 knob in the two channels 23-24 at this time, otherwise the signal will flow back to the effector after being processed by the effector just now.

5. Audio image of the mixer: The audio image knob is often regarded as an optional thing, but when we use the left or right output volume of the total output, we must pay attention to the audio image. If you use the total output right output signal but the audio and image of the mixer channel are all hit to the left, it will cause a silent failure, which needs attention.

6. Mixer monitor and mute switch: Generally, the mixer monitor and mute switch are close together. Be sure to see clearly when operating. If you press the mute switch by mistake when pressing the monitor switch, it will also cause a silent failure.

The device itself is faulty

● If it is a real fault of the device itself, it is considered a "hard fault". For example, if the power amplifier is broken or the speaker is broken, those are the maintenance engineers. The job scope of our sound engineer is to match the sound system and adjust the various sounds. There is no need to do all kinds of martial arts. proficient!

 

Interference fault

● Find the source of mixer interference: Most mixers will have a 48-volt phantom power supply, which can be used to drive a variety of condenser microphones, but since it is the current transmitted from the microphone line, it should be checked frequently Make sure that the line of the microphone is unblocked, otherwise a large current impact sound will be emitted when the line is not in good contact.