@johnstaunton - I see you’ve reached out to us in Support, thank you for that - we’ll see what we can do to help you.
We’ve not seen issues with power supplies on CQ
We would always recommend using the correct A&H part to supply your product - a faulty or incorrect power supply could cause induced noise on the audio side of the system, so it’s possible that this is related.
@Legend - it’s not physically possible for the mixer to cause the power supplies to become faulty, but it is possible for issues on the incoming power to damage the power supply and/or the mixer.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for getting in touch. Both power supply’s were the ones you ship with the CQ. The second one I got from Gear4Music as that is where I bought the unit.
The one I have now is a spurious one I bought from Amazon.
Where you recording at the time? You said you planned to record the show. If you were recording at the time you may be able to see which, if any, channels produced the sound.
I was recording. I had hope to record the show to review and make changes if needed.
After I switched everything off there was just one other noise lake a gunshot. I removed the SD card and Powered up again.
There were no more noises after taht.
I have had the CQ18T on for the las few hours and no issues.
Sadly I haven’t been that lucky. The first unit I got in Feb 2024 had a faulty fan and it kept overheating. The second one, which I have now, the power supply died after a few months.
Gear4Music supplied me with a new one after waiting for some time. I used a spurious one until that one arrived. The new one has also died and I’m to using the one I got on Amazon.
In case of power surges I have a ordered a board with surge protection.
In case it helps, I bought a cheap CyberPower UPS to use with the CQ18T. I bought it after at one gig the thing just power cycled on its own in the middle of a song. I thought it might have been a power fluctuation from the venue’s power so I got the UPS to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Basically it’s a cheap insurance policy for questionable power at a lot of venues. Plus it gives me a couple more power outlets on the non-battery protected side of the UPS.
I used to go through something similar with NetGear routers. They all had similar types of power bricks that you could purchase on Amazon. At one point I bought 5, and 3 of them failed… One is still going, ten years later, and two others are in storage. Hopefully the device it’s running on is retired in the next two years and they can completely move on.
I checked about getting a replacement and It will cost close on €100.00.
Gone are the days when we could get things repaired.
For not I’ll stick with the Amazon power supply. Its working fine for now at least.
Hi all, sorry for my English, writing from France !
I’m working with my CQ-12T since end of 2024. I’have also experienced some intermittent problems of the types described here. I don’t know if this can help but … No more problems during this 2 last months in the same conditions of use after having analysed and modified the supply part of the mixer (I know my warranty is lost now but no problem as this is part of my work of every day). I found that from 12vcc input of the little PCB supporting the 5.5 2.5 connector and what would normally be equipotential on the main PBC the resistance wasn’t 0 ohms ! To simplify I have redone (solder) all the connections of this PCB and magicaly 12CC became constant. No more problems (for the moment) … this operation took me 1 hour of work: lot of screws for back disasembly, a connector for the fan, 2 screws for this little (faulty) PCB.
We had “gunshots" caused by the radio mics placed in low distance to the receiver. Turning up the squelch of the receiver solved the problem. (Sennheiser instructs a minimum distance between sender and receiver of several meters)
Concerning replacement power supply, it is a good idea to always buy a model that has a ground conneector on the AC side.
Switching power supplies may generated interference voltages and unless there is a ground connector, there’s nowhere for it to go, so it finds its way via the shielding of audio and data connectors. This regularly kills USB chips in laptops, and HDMI chips in cameras or video switchers. You can easily detect it with a voltage meter… even from devices such as the Mac Mini you might get 10V against ground on the USB shielding… (that is what I measure in my setup with an RME DigiFace Dante, which also comes with a power supply without ground connector). These voltages can reach up to 70V.
So, not only check the power supply of your CQ mixer, but also the one of your laptop, in case you have connected the laptop via USB or 3.5mm audio!
Concerning wireless audio: Laptops may interfere with wireless receivers when too close. I had this both with an Apple USB-C/Ethernet adapter connected to a MacBook that would kill E-band Sennheiser EW completely when close. My elderly Thinkpad disturbs Sennheiser EW in the B-band noticeably when too close.
I’m without my unit now since Aug 7th.It was picked up by Courier on August 30th two days later that they were supposed to.
It arrived in the A&H distributers on Thursday Aug 28th.
They did let me know that the unit had arrived with them.
I have no idea what is going on or when it will be returned. I feel a replacement would fair this stage.
Désolé, mais je n’ai pas eu le réflexe de faire des photos pendant mon dépannage.
Cette intervention est cependant très simple et sans risque pour qui est organisé et à déjà utilisé un fer à souder (avec une panne fine)
Mettre l’appareil à l’envers sur une surface appropriée (couverture, …)
Dévisser toutes les vis cruciformes qui maintiennent la face arrière
Soulever délicatement la face arrière et débrancher le connecteur du ventilateur (il y a un detrompeur)
Dévisser les deux vis cruciformes qui maintiennent la petite platine qui supporte la prise 5,5 2,5 pour l’examiner avec une loupe et repérer les soudures éventuellement pas fiables pour les refaire …
Voilà, désolé mais mon CQ-12 fonctionne parfaitement depuis et je n’ai pas très envie de le démonter à nouveau …