Dav Bg1

  • Thread starter Thread starter Supercreep
  • Start date Start date
Maybe this will help. I came across a a thread on gearslutz.com where a guy was considering buying a BG1 and changed his mind cause he was told he'd have to reconfigure the something in the power source to comply with US current versus UK, so he bought another model instead. But I did contact DAV in the UK and asked if this modification could be done before it left the factory and I was told none was needed. (I wish I could find that thread but I haven't been able too..)

One guy there did just recive a BG1 and one of the channel wasn't working though the indicators were. He was going to send it back but opened the box instead and found two wires were not sodered, he did it himself and all is fine now..
 
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I know, it's never been mentioned anywhere before and I've been reading alot on this preamp and that's what made me shy away from it. UK is 220v while the US is 120, it only makes sense their US models would allready be set up correctly before they ship to the US. And no one else seems to have any trouble with theirs except the user on this thread.. It could be possible theres a defect in the unit, I know another user got one not assembled correctly that he fixed himself later.

I'll see if I can find that thread too..
 
Here it is..

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Whelp. Imagine my dismay when I hooked up a second mic for some stereo recording and channel 2 has no output. There is definate signs of juice going to the mic cause the green and red level light come on briefly when the mic is plugged into the XLR input.

Pure silence from channel 2 output. I've doublecheck my cables and my XLR input on the recorder using channel 1 of the BG1.

It is definately a problem with channel 2 output on the BG1.

This is quite dissapointing to say the least. I would assume someone would have at least double checked the workings of the unit before shipping international to the United States.

Now I've got customs fees I'll have to pay when they come in the mail 2-3 months from now.... Unbelievable.

I emailed Mick, we'll see how he handles this...






EDIT: Few minutes later...

I contemplated deleting everything I wrote above, but that wouldn't be fair to potential BG1 buyers. I want people at least to realize it is an outstanding unit, but the quality control is lacking.

I decided to open the little booger up and inpsect the wiring and solder joints. I found two connections from the channel 2 output that were not soldered onto the circuit board. They had been inserted into the board but not soldered. The 3rd wire was soldered. So, I soldered it and now it works fine.

Anyway, just a heads up.

------------

From this thread...

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?t=51214&highlight=dav+Bg1
 
Let's be cautious before we make any assumptions about DAV quality control. I've got some things to try with cabling and whatnot, and it remains to be seen if the MOTU's input stage is the culprit here.

We'll know more tomorrow night - Incanus is bringing some new cables. Tuesday I've got an ATTY coming. All will become clear. (famous last words) ;)
 
There you go putting out inaccurate info again.If you are an american, mick makes the voltage suitable for american mains power(110) if you are european, he makes a 220 version. he even does a dual voltage version.. "conversion" is not required. Absurd... :rolleyes:


Sterling30 said:
Maybe this will help. I came across a a thread on gearslutz.com where a guy was considering buying a BG1 and changed his mind cause he was told he'd have to reconfigure the something in the power source to comply with US current versus UK, so he bought another model instead. But I did contact DAV in the UK and asked if this modification could be done before it left the factory and I was told none was needed. (I wish I could find that thread but I haven't been able too..)

One guy there did just recive a BG1 and one of the channel wasn't working though the indicators were. He was going to send it back but opened the box instead and found two wires were not sodered, he did it himself and all is fine now..
Click to expand...
 
Sterling30 said:
Here it is..
Click to expand...
Mick is stellar with customer service. He is a one man operation, and if he did forget a detail, he will make up for it. This one out of what...thousands sold?

QC at DAV is outstanding. Mom and Pop kind of attention to detail. have NO fears buying from him.

Read that thread...see how others like it.
 
I'm not posting anything absurd at all.. I've read extensively on the BG1 besides many other preamps and came close to buying it but put it off because 1, it probably wouldn't arrive before my next studio session and 2, I did have a few concerns about a few issues some users reported.

Now someone is having a problem that hasn't been figured out yet and I'm just posting this so it might help to resolve that problem, that's all. No harm being done at all.. If he doesn't figure out what going wrong it just might be worth having a look inside like the other user did.
 
Sterling30 said:
I did have a few concerns about a few issues some users reported.
Click to expand...

I thought it was because you couldnt get it on credit?(was that you?)
What issues are you worried about? I will say that if you are using "pro sumer" gear as a frontend to the DAV, theres a possibility that your frontend might not be able to handle the signal without a pad. The pad will raise the noise floor a bit.
 
Prosumer or not, levels are levels. The DAV's 1.23 volt output should be the same as all 1.23 volt outputs. I am not saying the problem here is in the DAV equipment, but lets not put poor Mick on too high a pedastal either or else if he has a slip, he may never recover. This is starting to almost turn into a Neve Portico type thing to me.

Supercreep, do you have any other outboard preamps? do they also use xlr outs? do they exhibit the same type of overloading that you are experienceing with the daV? If not, make sure you are using the same mic and cables and see if it changes any:) I still think you should get ahold of a fxlr to mtrs cable if you get the chance as well and see how that works.
 
If its fed into a motu make sure you go into TRS inputs[line input] as XLR inputs are mic inputs[neutrik combo TRS and XLR]then switch to line.
 
Supercreep said:
Let's be cautious before we make any assumptions about DAV quality control. I've got some things to try with cabling and whatnot, and it remains to be seen if the MOTU's input stage is the culprit here.

We'll know more tomorrow night - Incanus is bringing some new cables. Tuesday I've got an ATTY coming. All will become clear. (famous last words) ;)
Click to expand...
My sympathies re your gear headache. I don't have either of the pieces of gear you're wrestling with, but with the various +4, -10, balanced, unbalanced, etc. gear I do have it always seems to be just a matter of using just the right gozintas and gozoutas and plugs that fit them to get them talking to each other.

From scanning the thread it sounds like, FWIW, you just need XLR to TRS cables. We should start placing bets.

Tim
 
Sterling30 said:
I'm not posting anything absurd at all.. I've read extensively on the BG1 besides many other preamps and came close to buying it but put it off because 1, it probably wouldn't arrive before my next studio session and 2, I did have a few concerns about a few issues some users reported.
Click to expand...

One person reported that a wire was not soldered correctly. That's legit, but that's just one person. I should point out that that is the *only* QC control issue I've ever read about regarding the BG-1.

Another person reported (erroneously I might add) that the power supply would have to be converted to work in the US. The power supplies are built for the destination country. You order in the US, you get a US power supply. It's that simple.

The harm is done when one person's loose wire gets repeated ad nauseum for years over the internet, giving an impression of a QC problem that does not exist.

As far as this thread, the cause of the problem has not been determined yet, so I don't think it is wise to somehow hold this up as an example of a problem with the BG-1. At least not yet. I'm still convinced that the signal is getting doubled preamped somehow, which is not the fault of the BG-1. If however, the BG-1 is at fault I can assure you that Mick will fix the problem and make the customer happy.

Mick must be busier than heck, and he still goes the extra distance. My BG-4 got stuck in customs on the way here due to customs officials not understanding what the gear was to be used for, and he called me from England to help sort it out. He personally spoke to the customs people as well.

This is a guy that cares, so I really don't think that copying old posts from other boards can be described as "helping" in this case.
 
Timothy Lawler said:
From scanning the thread it sounds like, FWIW, you just need XLR to TRS cables. We should start placing bets.
Click to expand...

my money's on this as well.

avoid the xlr input on the motu and go straight to to a TRS input. i'd also bet you're double-preamping the signal somehow.

as there's no preamps on the TRS input, use that as a test and see if the distortion follows......


cheers,
wade
 
BigRay said:
I thought it was because you couldnt get it on credit?(was that you?)
What issues are you worried about? I will say that if you are using "pro sumer" gear as a frontend to the DAV, theres a possibility that your frontend might not be able to handle the signal without a pad. The pad will raise the noise floor a bit.
Click to expand...

No, I was gonna pay immediatly via paypal.
 
BigRay said:
If its fed into a motu make sure you go into TRS inputs[line input] as XLR inputs are mic inputs[neutrik combo TRS and XLR]then switch to line.
Click to expand...

Once again, XLR does not mean preamp. There is plenty of equipment out there that uses xlr jacks for line inputs. It was even mentioned in this thread that MOTU themselves said that the xlr can be line inoput on this specific unit.

However, having said that, I did recommend earlier to also try the trs inputs since that would at least guarantee to not be followed by a preamp.
 
SonicAlbert said:
One person reported that a wire was not soldered correctly. That's legit, but that's just one person. I should point out that that is the *only* QC control issue I've ever read about regarding the BG-1.

Another person reported (erroneously I might add) that the power supply would have to be converted to work in the US. The power supplies are built for the destination country. You order in the US, you get a US power supply. It's that simple.

The harm is done when one person's loose wire gets repeated ad nauseum for years over the internet, giving an impression of a QC problem that does not exist.

As far as this thread, the cause of the problem has not been determined yet, so I don't think it is wise to somehow hold this up as an example of a problem with the BG-1. At least not yet. I'm still convinced that the signal is getting doubled preamped somehow, which is not the fault of the BG-1. If however, the BG-1 is at fault I can assure you that Mick will fix the problem and make the customer happy.

Mick must be busier than heck, and he still goes the extra distance. My BG-4 got stuck in customs on the way here due to customs officials not understanding what the gear was to be used for, and he called me from England to help sort it out. He personally spoke to the customs people as well.

This is a guy that cares, so I really don't think that copying old posts from other boards can be described as "helping" in this case.
Click to expand...

Sure would be ironic if if it does turn out to be something minor inside the box like the guy with the dead channel fixed himself.

You guys are overreacting here. If I was running DAV Electronics I'd want this type of feedback, I'd want to know when things are right and especially if something turns out wrong. Every good business wants to know if a product they made didn't turn out right. If a quality control inspector isn't doing his job right, this is how that potential problem is nipped in the bud before it gets worse.
 
Sterling30 said:
If I was running DAV Electronics I'd want this type of feedback, I'd want to know when things are right and especially if something turns out wrong. Every good business wants to know if a product they made didn't turn out right. If a quality control inspector isn't doing his job right, this is how that potential problem is nipped in the bud before it gets worse.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is all fine. Except that you aren't a DAV customer making Mick aware of a QC issue.

What you are doing is copying and pasting old posts from people who had an isolated problem or two and which were long ago solved. This is very different from what you are describing in the paragraph quoted above. It gives a falsely negative impression of the product and perpetuates inaccurate information.

Now there are other people in other threads worried about issues with the BG-1 that are *completely non-existent*.
 
you arent a customer and have no experience with the pre...you are spreading rumours...thats what it amounts to.
Sterling30 said:
Sure would be ironic if if it does turn out to be something minor inside the box like the guy with the dead channel fixed himself.

You guys are overreacting here. If I was running DAV Electronics I'd want this type of feedback, I'd want to know when things are right and especially if something turns out wrong. Every good business wants to know if a product they made didn't turn out right. If a quality control inspector isn't doing his job right, this is how that potential problem is nipped in the bud before it gets worse.
Click to expand...
 
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