Topic: JB3 dropping signal?

[vwmule]

I recorded Drive By Truckers last night in Tampa and encountered various problems.

I notice that the signal goes completely flat about 42 minutes into the last hour of the show. Then, a few minutes later, there is a series of loud clicks, like when you remove a needle off a record. After that it goes quiet again before a sustained series of pops and clicks. I run a UA5 and the battery was fine. The JB3 was powered via the electrical cord as I had access to an outlet.

Do I need to defrag? If so, how? Perhaps my optical cable was messed up.

One other observation. The overall sound of what I was able to record is kind of distorted, especially the lyrics. The JB3 levels were below peak and the stacks were not that loud. I've never encountered this before.Any ideas? At first I thought maybe the UA5 was acting up but now I suspect the JB3 is to blame.

[Brian Skalinder]

Could be multiple problems together.  The dropout / click issues sound to me like a potentially bad optical connection.  Though I wonder...perhaps low power on the UA5 caused a too-weak signal output to the JB3 and it therefore had trouble locking on?

The JB3 should not cause the distortion and is likely a problem with the UA5, I'm guessing low power.  Are you sure the battery was okay?

[Brian]

FWIW when the ua5 is losing power the first thing to go is the digital output signal, however no distortion is usually present.....at least in my personal experience.  although the pops and clicks make think you have a bad optical connection and or cable.

[vwmule]

Thanks for the response, guys. I'll look into the optical cable. The only thing I can think of is maybe the connector cap that goes into JB3 was not properly secured. Ruined an otherwise great show for me. Well, that and the horrible sound system at Skipper's in Tampa. It's truly low rent.