Monsoon Planar Media 9 Audio System .Speaker Replacement

Status
Not open for further replies.
Thanks Planet and the rest of the Forum I shall keep my eyes open at the markets from now on ...So all my Family can have a set.

By the way, are the 14 monsoons better than the 9s ..I would love to hear them with the original panels that come with it


Thanks Reno you made my Day :cheers:
 
Looks like a lot of you guys in this Forum have got these Monsoons.

Planet was right when he said; they were the best computer speaker systems built for the money.
All we talk about up hear in Australia is Logitech which my son has the Z4
Now that he has seen all this, and heard the Monsoons with the Wharfedale,s He wants to make a Deal with me .

Just one last Question is there some sort of safety device in the
Monsoon Amp that will cut out, instead of blowing something when it is
Under load or something it dose not like.
Before I lend them to my son .
 
Monsoon was originally a Vancouver (Burnaby) company, so got a fair amount of penetration here.

Don't know. I do know that i have more than a few dead amps. (the Apple dealer i work at part time, got all of the inventory (dead or alive) of the NA service depot. Repair amounted to sending out new sets.

dave
 
Control Center

Would anyone have an idea as to where I could acquire the "Control Center" or if there is a reasonable way to wire a workaround?

I picked up a pair of Planar 9's and the matching subwoofer at my local Goodwill, but it wasn't till later that I realized it utilized a wired remote to control volume. At first I'd just seen the subwoofer lying on a shelf. Thought it might go good with my Swans speakers, then noticed that it said 1 of 3 on the sticker. I looked around and on a shelf behind me I found the planar speakers.

Not sure about trying to use the planars, but would like to give the sub a go with my Swans.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
One thing i note in his commentary is that the subwoofer (ie amplifiers) contribute nothing to the satelittes. Whilr the 2-way MH500 sats are fed a flat signal, the big panels are EQed below 1k to compensate for the dipole roll-off, so not just any woofer can be substituted.

dave

Ah - I have MH-500 sats as my office speaker (hanging off an airhead and stax srd-4) which are fine with the flat signal

New set is MH-700 which will need the EQ (which explains all the capacitors in the subwoofer).

I'll check the rectifier once I confirm that the power transformer and switch are working - the switch appears to have "smoked".
 
Thanks Dave, that gives me a voltage to start with...

Confirmed my PlanarMedia(tm) 9 Audio System uses 12V. It's even silk screened on to the PCB.

The best bit is that IT IS ALIVE! Satellites alone are happily running on about 250mA at low volume

Something is fried upstream of the filter cap - the 4A DC fuse was blown, there's white powdery stuff near the power switch (solid smoke?). And the mains transformer has a thermal fuse. What are the odds of all three (and maybe even the rectifier ) being dead?
 
Planar 9 hum hunt update

Found a fuse, spent a while playing with it. Adding 22,000uf to the existing 6,800uf makes not one iota of difference to the hum at the output, neither in tone nor size. The hum on the power rail is smaller if less triangular.

Interestingly the mute button kills the hum but I suspect it is muting the power amp chip.

Running from a bench power supply and it still hums, just not as loudly. And that's with the input jack shorted. I suspect some pickup on the controls.

I need to check the state of the various capacitors and start measuring some values carefully but I'm a little flummoxed.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.