Update: the converter repair failed, not sure if it's my soldering job, lifted pads, or something deeper. Unfortunately, this baby is pretty much dead (except for the digital section, maybe I can pair it with an ADA8000 over ADAT...hmmm)

Hi I'm using a FCA1616 connected to an ADA8200 with Cubase 7.5 on Windows 8 via USB & am getting lots of pops and clicks with monentary audio dropout as the FCA1616 resets itself. Does have been using this configuration for 2 + years and just got this problem. Any ideas on how I can solve this?

MIDI issue ONLY with Yamaha P-35
 

Hi folks, I tried everything that anyone suggested on this thread and various other websites. I replaced MIDI cables, replaced USB cables, tried a non-usb-hub connection, checked the AUDIOMIDI setup on the Mac, etc etc etc.

1) If I plug the FCA1616 into my PC, and connect my Yamaha P-35 to it, all works well.
2) If I plug the FCA1616 into my Macbook Air, and connect the Yamaha P-35, random notes play when I start playing. All over the spectrum, some with sustain, some without.

Out of the blue, I came up with the idea of connecting my Korg X5 (I hardly ever use this...it's there to do organs & pads now-and-then on songs for clients). Upon connecting it to the FCA which is in turn connected to the Macbook Air...ALL WAS WELL. It worked perfectly!

So, the question: what is the Yamaha P-35 doing, that causes the random notes when plugged into the Macbook Air? PLEASE BEAR IN MIND: I've been using this P-35 as controller for about two years....connected to the PC, either via the FCA1616 MIDI port, or an RME HDSP 9652 MIDI port. In both instances, all works 100% - ONLY when I connect the FCA to the Macbook Air, does the MIDI go haywire from the Yamaha P-35. Again, also, presently, if I disconnect from the Mac, and connect to the PC - the P-35 is 100%

I'm out of ideas...LOL...anyone have ANY advice?

2 years lifetime
 

I relate to this experience though! I have an FCA1616, only lasted a couple of years and the power supply died too. The LTSX E3 chip seem to be the problem here, in my case, it has stopped driving the MOSFET and so, the little transformer is no longer driven, hence, no power to the secondary rails.

EDIT: I think this PSU system is fundamentally incorrect, because I actually now noticed there are quite a lot of people that faced a similar problem. My C30 also is blown, and so is other people's.

And it's not just me, I live in Madagascar, and I had a friend who had this exact problem. He bought an M-Audio interface after.

It's safe to say that the PSU of the FCA1616 will last about 2 years, especially if you use it a lot. And again, I bought it to use it.

The logic board works fine, but the sound doesn't come-out, because there is no power to the analog audio amplifier. I might be going to replace the dead PSU with something more solid, like bobkopter2.

Rails voltages?
 

I also have the FCA1616, got exactly the same problem as yours. Dead power-supply unit, in the area of the little yellow transformer.

And yes, just 2 years being used.

I'm looking to power this device manually like yours. Did you manage to figure-out the correct voltages for the 3 outputs? I would have had preferred to repair the primary circuit, but it's too tiny that fiddling around with it is going to be a mess.

Not sure if you had yours fixed, but IC7 = LTSX e3.

For my case, that's the one that got dead too.

repair progress
 

Ive replaced this IC and T2 as well, but still have strange behaviour - unit starts to work only after applying few drops of isopropanol on whole DCDC area. Ive tried to put a bit of it separately on every element - but still no idea wats else is broken.
For my case, that's the one that got dead too
I will be happy to get Any suggestions:)

Hi Eliezedeck,

Thanks for commenting here and bringing your observations to our attention. We're sorry to hear that you are experiencing this problem with your FCA1616 audio interface.

While yourself and some others here may have experienced difficulties with the FCA1616, the majority of these products being purchased don't exhibit this behavior and usually last much longer than 2 years. In fact we're often taking measures to improve our current product designs using direct feedback from customers so that everyone gets the best possible product experience.

We certainly never claim to be perfect and sometimes things can happen that are outside of our control. This is why we have our CARE team standing by to assist customers and offer support where needed. My recommendation would be for you to contact CARE so we can assist you with troubleshooting, or if necessary setup a repair through one of our authorized service centers. You can reach us by phone at 702-800-8290 (US) or +44 1562 732290 (UK) or send us an email to [email protected] and one of our technical CARE specialists will be glad to assist you in resolving your issue.

Thank you for your understanding. Please feel free to send me a private message if there's anything else I can do to assist you with your Behringer products.

Michael Lapke
Specialist, Community
MUSIC Group
BEHRINGER


Re: 8 Outputs
 

Just about to purchase the FCA610, can anyone confirm if all individual 8 outputs are fully available/assignable for each channel in Ableton/Protools/Asio4all,
(4 stereo/8 mono at min 24bit 44.1Khz) as I will be working mainly "in the box" to an outboard mixer.
Also is the +4dbu hot enough? also would it be wise to buy a better power adapter for this unit? and can it operate solely from the power of the usb?

Thanks in advance

Mike

One word of advice: don't. The FCA series seems like a great deal/repair opportunity, but the construction and drivers are awful. It'll work as wanted...until the internal power regulation circuitry fails and fries something else down the line. Even if you replace the regulators (a pain, but possible) other components can and will fail. Many are also near-unobtanium.

Pay a bit more up front and get a better interface. You can likely find a used Focusrite 18i20 or something for under $300, cheaper if you hunt around. I found a Tascam US-1800 for $50 locally, but that doesn't have as many outputs as you need. (Well, it cost more like $100 if you factor in the cost of my attempt to fix a semi-working FCA1616 first.)

@compucat, thanks for the reply, the 18i20 seems more suited for my needs alright and is usb, I was looking at the Tascam US 16x08 but I heard the drivers are not all that stable, probably wise to pick up a surge protector too while I'm at it. The ESI Gigaport outputs are only about +0.5dBV max and you cant get all 8 outs at 24bit. You pay for what you get I suppose! Edit: the Behringer U-PHORIA UMC1820 might also suit too?

Cheers! kfhkh

Hi B.Beats,

To answer your questions about the FCA610:

- Yes all 8 of the outputs on the FCA610 are full assignable in Ableton and Pro Tools. However, you will not want to use the ASIO4ALL driver. Instead, you will need to use the specific FCA610 driver for the unit found on the following link from the BEHRINGER website:

FCA610 | Audio Interfaces | Computer Audio | Behringer | Categories | MUSIC Tribe

- Yes, +4dB will be hot enough.
- Please use the power supply that came with the unit, we do not recommend using any alternative power supply with the FCA610.
- The FCA610 cannot be powered via USB so you will need to use the included power supply adaptor.

Sounds to me like the FCA610 would actually be a great interface solution for you. Just keep in mind that if you are looking for more inputs/outputs and still want to have ADAT in/out then definitely look into considering the UMC1820.

Let me know if you have any other questions, I'll be happy to assist you. Thanks!

Michael Lapke
Specialist, Community
MUSIC Group
BEHRINGER

In theory, Michael, this would be a great solution. However, in practice, many of us users have found that not only do the Firepower units have buggy custom ASIO drivers, but their internal power regulation circuitry also tends to fail very predictably and take out other key components along with it. I know from personal experience (see my earlier posts in this thread) that FCA1616 and FCA610 repair tends to be a pain in the rear, and your (MUSIC Group's) support has been less than helpful. (They've directed me to repair facilities that either didn't offer FCA1616 repair or quoted a repair cost higher than the MSRP of the unit itself.)

Skip the Firepower, for its name is quite literal: you'll have fire (or at least magic smoke) in your power circuitry.

Hi compucat,

Please understand that my intention wasn't to come here and start a debate, I'm just here trying to provide information for others interested in Behringer products. You seem determined to project your experiences with this product onto everyone else, but it's up to customers to decide what is a good solution for them, right?

Please understand that Behringer has never claimed to be perfect, but we do our best to try and satisfy our customers if stuff like this happens. I'm not really sure what else could have been done in your particular situation. The repair you were quoted was a certain amount and you admitted that you weren't willing to pay for that service, so you decided to take on the repair yourself instead.

However, stating here that the issue you had with the power supply in your product will happen to all other Behringer Firepower products out there is rather disingenuous. In actuality the vast majority of these products actually do not encounter this problem. Surely this subject can be discussed cordially without using broad generalizations.

I'm happy to assist here in any way that I can, please feel free to contact me privately via PM if there is anything I can do to help.

Michael Lapke
Specialist, Community
MUSIC Group
BEHRINGER

That's fair. I will say that many other users in this thread have experienced the same issue; this was how I was able to determine what to repair and where to repair it. I didn't contact Behringer about the broken power supply, for reference; I contacted them after fixing the power supply and finding another broken component I couldn't source myself. I'll agree that Behringer has never claimed to be perfect-in fact, that's what's made them successful IMO. When you can get 90% of the value of competitors for 50% of the price, that's nothing to sneeze at!

Without hard statistics on the table, I don't think it's fair for anybody to start making broad claims about the majority of Firepower products. I never stated that PSU failure will happen to all Firepower units; while other users and I have found that PSU failure tends to occur quite predictably, nobody can say if something will definitely occur in every single unit. I'm not claiming to know everything (far from it): I'm just citing anecdotal evidence that I and other users in this thread have submitted.

Decisions!
 

Thanks Michael & compucat for the swift replies, In the end i decided to go with the U-PHORIA UMC1820 mainly for the sheer amount of I/Os at this price range, will let you know how I get on in the other thread for that device, happy music making everyone! ;):cowbell:

Cheers, let us know how it goes!

Help
 

Hello, I had a problem with my FCA1616 too.
One day I arrived in the studio and the sound card did not work any more, a capacitor broke out, and two circuits interacted in a damaged way, which is what is apparent.
Via firewire the computer recognizes the placamas the analog part does not work.
Here is the bad photo to know which components are in trouble.
I wanted some action to get it working again.
Do I repair or make a fountain?
Thanks
http://acusticaearte.com/wp-content/...62252589_2.jpg

I also have an FCA1616 that stopped working nearly a year ago. It was purchased used online, so no warranty came with the device. When I opened the case, there was a blown capacitor floating freely inside, but I've been unable to identify where it may have been attached to the board in the first place, as nothing else appears to be missing or damaged.

Are there any complete images or circuit diagrams out there that might make figuring this out any easier? I've only recently decided to try making this repair an active project again, but I'm discouraged by most of the messages I've read in this thread.

The sync issue has been my exact problem, too. That, and pops in playback. It got better when I switched from USB to FireWire, and used External SPDIF and/or FireWire Bus as sync clock. Then FireWire stopped working so well, so External SPDIF it was.

I had crackles and pops in analog headphones out from the FCA1616 and in my receiver over SPDIF. The pops started getting worse, so I eliminated all SPDIF connections (in, I have another SPDIF out on my computer that I had to In on the FCA1616—to record cross-app sound—and I had tried External SPDIF Sync, and SPDIF Out to my receiver). With SPDIF completely out of the picture, the pops and crackles are completely gone, and audio is perfectly clear. Getting it to sync up and jive with playback after switching to analog receiver and headphones was a challenge, but eventually it worked with a few device power cycles and Device Manager disable/enable cycles.

I once used USB with a power supply, but now use FireWire 800 for power. Generally, it's been very stable, but getting it stable is the challenge. However, now that I removed SPDIF, I'm having these random pauses in playback (even just from Google Play Music or Windows Groove Music) where playback pauses, the device goes silent, the USB/FW light blinks for a few seconds, then everything restores again. Reducing all the buffer depth settings decreases the interval between these device resets. Currently at Stream buffer: 1500μs, WDM sound buffer: 15.0ms 660 samples.

I have a SIIG DP 800 FireWire, i7-6700, 32GB 2900MHz DDR4 RAM. This system is more than capable. Sync and pops/clicks has been my issue, and removing SPDIF from the picture seems to have cleaned it up, but now I get device resets at random intervals.

UPDATE: I've gone so far as to install the signed Microsoft Windows 8.1 IEEE 1394 (Legacy) driver (I have Win 10 Pro) and downgrade my FCA1616 to Firmware 8356 RC. Audio dropouts still happen. This setup is as basic as it gets now, and regardless of the Synchronization settings, the device USB/FW light goes out, flashes, audio goes silent, if a video is playing, it pauses for a few seconds, then everything restores and keeps on going again. So: what's going on?

UPDATE II: I thought it might have been an issue relying on Firewire bus power now that I switched from all SPDIF to analog outs, so I hooked up DC power again. I also now have two phantom power condensers rather than the one I just had. The SIIG Firewire 800 PCIe card does have an accessory power feed. Audio dropouts continue.

Debating on whether to get the FCA1616 or the UMC1820.

FCA1616
Pros: Good amount of inserts and 1/4" inputs outputs
Cons: Reputation for being unreliable and breaking down, including random noises and pops

UMC1820
Pro: Good audio reputation for the money. Good amount of 1/4" inputs outputs for mixing with a compressor.
Cons: No inserts for tracking with a compressor.

FCA1616 would have been good for me, but I can't risk it.

Still waiting on Berhinger to release the Auratone C5A in the USA. Klark needs an SSL comp!

Hi OzWizard,

Thank you for commenting here and bringing this to our attention here on Gearslutz.com, we're sorry to hear you are experiencing difficulties. I strongly recommend that you contact our CARE tech support department so they can go over your gear setup and try to find a solution. You can reach us by phone at 702-800-8290 in the US (+44 1562 732290 in the UK) or just send us an email to [email protected] and one of our technical CARE specialists will be glad to assist you.

Hope this helps!

Michael Lapke
Specialist, Community
MUSIC Tribe
BEHRINGER

Update III: (August 9) After a failed attempt to submit a note to CARE (the web form submitted with no confirmation, and no followup email, just a blank form again), I simply returned the FCA1616 to Sweetwater and replaced it with a Steinberg UR242. My first FCA1616 was a demo from Sweetwater which I exchanged after the first week for the exact same issues as the one I just returned—two devices, same issue. Oddly enough, the UR242 had audio dropouts upon immediate install, so I began to worry it was an obscure issue with my system. However, I found a valuable discussion thread where Steinberg eventually did discover and release a special Windows 10 USB driver specifically for audio dropouts in some environments. They found something and fixed it. I've been doing a burn-in test all night with no problems now. I no longer have SPDIF (which is fine), but I have solid audio.