Describe your issue with the most detail you can:
Will not power on. The 16 volt wall-wart is fine.
How long ago was it purchased?:
I got in line for the promo - 2015?
Does anybody spot a reset or fuse on the circuit board above? Or does it look like I should bite the bullet and get something else? Which raises the question…(Eddy Current ZDT Jr on Drop??)
I hate to consider this headphone amp a throwaway.
In other words, how, specifically, are you testing it?
Pictures (legible) of the regulatory/spec label on the PSU would be useful.
It’s too shitty and unrevealing a picture to tell anything useful from.
Post a picture of your actual board, at high enough resolution and with proper focus, such that it’s possible to read parts designations (etc.) and it might be possible to tell.
Well the Loki and the Headroom amp both take 16 volt DC with the same plug. Both power supplies work fine on the Loki. Neither will power up the Headroom. The PSU on the Loki is 500mw the Headroom is 1000mw.
If I get time in the next couple of days I will try to open it up and take a photo. Everything was working yesterday. Now I go for a listen half an hour before my wife comes back (she was away for a week), so I might find myself re-prioritized.
Which means, perhaps, a look for a $500 or under headphone amp capable of powering the HiFiman HE-560s and the Sennheiser HD-650.
You’ll likely get away with plugging a 16v AC 1000ma supply into a 16v DC 500ma sink. Plugging a 16v 500ma DC source into a 16v AC 1000ma sink probably won’t work at all.
So I would not call that a valid test.
If you can put a meter on the PSU for the Loki I would not make any assumptions about whether it works or not.
My typo. 16V AC. A Jameco. I can put a meter on both ot them. Yes polarities are the same. I checked before I tested. But I’m being called to take someone out to dinner…
There’s nothing re-settable in the internal power-supply or regulation that I can see. Nothing looks to have fried, either - though it’s perfectly possible to kill semiconductors without there being any outward sign of it.
I would still want to a) stick a proper meter on the external PSU and make sure it was delivering what it was supposed to and b) make sure that was actually making it into the unit itself.
It could be as simple as a joint that’s failed, but that’d require tracing and testing the circuit from the power-input on it to know for sure.
That was my impression too. I will put my meter on the PSU, but I don’t think I have the vision or patience to try tracing the circuit - maybe the socket, but I don’t think that’s the issue.
