Problem w/ Atomic CLR NEO powered wedge: overheated, user error gain staging, or bad power?

[6stringscott]

Hi all, looking for other folks' experiences. I have been happy with my Atomic CLR Neo for a couple of years of moderate use: taking back and forth to weekly rehearsal, and an occasional bar or corporate gig.

Yesterday, I had a pair on at my house for maybe 4-6 hours, with the "1" and "2" levels cranked at 100% and the main level set pretty low. No problems.

At rehearsal last night after that- when I plugged in, initially zero sound. I double-checked cables a few times, double-checked that output2 in Ax8 was copying output1 as I intended, all ok. But no sound. After about a minute it started working with no obvious fix on my part other than the most basic troubleshooting stuff (wiggling cables, power off wait a few secs, power on, etc.) Then about an hour into our rehearsal, it went silent again! The heat sink was very hot (as it typically is), and I assumed it was overheating. I powered off and checked a few times through the rest of the night, even when the heat sink felt cooler, and still no sound! I have a show tomorrow night, pretty worried.

So I fired up this morning at home, works just fine! What do you all think?

- overheated?
- is it a problem to set it with first gain stage at 100% (the 1 and 2 knobs) and then low on the master level?
- could it be caused by a power issue at my rehearsal space? low voltage, etc.?
- how many of you bring a voltage checker and worry about a power conditioner in front of your stuff?

Anyone else experienced intermittent issues like this? I had the problem with the tweeter dropping out intermittently about 6 months ago, which was correlated with how long the unit was on and how hot it became. In that case, treble failed at startup but after 15 minutes it was fine. The problem was repeatable. That appears to have been resolved after talking to Tom King and resetting the connectors. I had been ready to do an RMA at that time and didn't need to. No problems since then, this new total silence was the first day I experienced it.

 

[Desmo808]

Whoa 100% input gain? I don't know if that would contribute to overheating, but it certainly would't hurt to correctly gain stage your CLR. 100% input really looks like it's not set up correctly.

To set the CLR input levels (one at a time):
1. Set CLR inputs to zero. The manual says to also set the master to zero, but IMHO you can just set master to a comfortable level so you can hear what you're doing at step 3 below.
2. Set your Ax8 output to about 12:00 (or whatever loudest setting you expect to use your Ax8 at). 3:00 will give you an even broader range of control. Higher is better than lower. Don't set it too low, or you'll end up having to compensate by using a higher input level on the CLR.
3. Chug away on the guitar. While doing so, slowly increase the CLR input until the clip LED just begins to illuminate. Then just back off on the input level so the clip light doesn't illuminate. That is now the proper CLR input level for that input.

This gives the flexibility of using the either CLR master or the Ax8 Output knob as the overall master volume for your stage volume, all with the correct gain staging for the CLR.

Again, I don't know if this will fix the overheating problem. Nevertheless, I hope you get the overheating problem sorted.

 

[Sixstring]

Personally I would contact TK through normal channels and see what he has to say!

Desmo808's quote of the manuals procedure to setup input gain is a good practice but overall shouldn't affect the amount of heat that is created from the amp.

They do run on the warm side, not sure what the temp is supposed to be but not so warm that you can't hold your hand on the cooling fins without being branded.

If you have access to a temperature gun I would plug them in and record temps so you have some additional data to give to whomever you might speak with at Atomic.