This is topic CP-500 lost EQ settings in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by David Whitbeck (Member # 894) on 06-01-2002, 05:51 PM:
We recently re-EQ'd our CP-500 for the opening of Episode II. We just hung a new screen and moved the speakers so it needed to be done. Anyway, we had it sounding better than it ever had. For a couple of weeks. Just yesterday I go in to check on the movie and I notice that there is absolutely no lows and the highs are piercing which leads me to believe we lost our new EQ settings. What's up with this? I thought I'd read about somebody having this problem before but I couldn't find it in the archives. I don't know what software version we have, but I'm pretty sure it's not 1.61. Any thoughts cause now we need to re-EQ it again.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-01-2002, 06:31 PM:
I seriously doubt you lost your EQ settings. I never heard of that happening. I suppose it is possible in the CP-500, since it is a stupid computer. I think you better check your speakers, etc. By the way, what does it sound like in the booth monitor? Are you Bi-amped? Is there a chance someone could have left the low frequency units off?
Posted by David Whitbeck (Member # 894) on 06-01-2002, 06:51 PM:
Everything is on and the subs are responding, I went and checked on that. They just aren't even close to as loud as they should be. Think of the Dolby Egypt trailer at the end where there's a bit of rumble, there's nothing now. And like I said, the cones are moving and they definitely aren't blown, they just aren't moving much. I can't say for sure that the rest of the channels changed, but the sound does seem quite a bit harsher and less comfortable when played at 7 where we EQ'd it at.
Posted by Antonio Marcheselli (Member # 373) on 06-01-2002, 06:53 PM:
David,Try entering the CP500 to see if eq is flat or not.
Also, you can try to upload it again (if you saved it to disk).
Antonio
Posted by David Whitbeck (Member # 894) on 06-01-2002, 07:34 PM:
Unfortunately I'm not going to have a chance to put a mic in the auditorium for a while. The booth monitor sounds like nothing when I select the sub, but what's new? The subs are on a single amp bridged. The amp shows signal going through it during the movie. I jumped into the Alignment menu really fast and it looked like it still has our spl levels that we set. Without a mic I can't see the EQ levels. Maybe it just blew off our sub settings...
Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 06-01-2002, 08:25 PM:
Any clues on the 500's event log?
Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 06-01-2002, 08:46 PM:
CP500/CP650 losing their memory is fairly common in my experience. It seems to be associated with mains supply conditions. ie dirty mains = lost memory. Generally the 500 will revert to 'out of the box' conditions, and if yo uhappen to be looking at it when this happens it will display an error message about returning to factory setting. It's unlikely that the error log will show anything. You'll have to reload the settings (assuming you have them on disk), or re aliign the processor from scratch 
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 06-01-2002, 09:59 PM:
IT is very common for a cp500 to take a dump that said the engineer who aligned the suystem should have saved the setting on disk that from any PC load 500 could re upload to the system
Are you Biamped if so check to see if the bass part of the B chain is doing anything
You don't need a mic to check if the eq has gone flat
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 06-02-2002, 02:21 AM:
On the CP-500...the "Factory Settings" are all of the way down on the levels (pre-amp and output) and flat EQ. If your CP-500 took a dump, the volume should be almost non-existant. Fortunately, the CP-650 went with a factory setting of half-way up. Then again, Panastereo and older Dolby processors used trim pots, they didn't seem to loose their settings! (though in a rare moment some have gone noisey, particularly on the original Cat. 64s).Steve
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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
Posted by Antonio Marcheselli (Member # 373) on 06-02-2002, 05:49 AM:
Shouldn't an amp without a speaker connected (or with a blown one connected) clip or going in protection when strong signal is applied?Antonio
Posted by Christos Mitsakis (Member # 143) on 06-02-2002, 10:35 AM:
David,
Do you by chance get a "battery picture" indication on CP500's screen?
EQ settings are stored in Cat No 684 where a "super capacitor" is responsible for keeping the current.
I had one case where a sudden mains drop disorganised all the settings (even speaker levels, as Steve has indicated)
Just uploaded the saved settings from a computer, and added a ups. The problem never occured since.Regards,
Christos.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 06-02-2002, 11:33 AM:
The capacitor Christos mentions (and the accompanying battery indicator) is only really responsible for remembering the proper boot up state...that is...where the fader and format last were. The EQ and levels are stored on two flash roms on the Cat. 684. Some techs carry spares of those flash roms since if they become corrupted (like a crash during a firmware update) they become unusable and all you will have is bypass!As a side note, the optical pre-amp in the CP-500 (Cat 682?) stores it's level and eq settings locally in addition to the Cat. 684. That is why if you swap optical pre-amps, there is a menu selection to guide you through it to transfer the data.
Steve
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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-02-2002, 12:30 PM:
I am totally surprised. I have been running CP-500's (a total of only 8) over the years, and I never heard of this happening. If it is a common thing for those dump thier brains, I better make sure I have it saved on floppy just in case.....kind of scary....
Posted by David Whitbeck (Member # 894) on 06-02-2002, 03:07 PM:
We don't have the cable to save our settings to disk... We should be getting one soon so the first thing we'll do is save the settings when we do. I haven't noticed the battery on boot up, but if what Steve said is true, then that shouldn't matter anyway. I may not need a mic to see if the EQ went flat, but if the EQ changed I wouldn't know the good version from the bad version being as how the previous settings were nowhere near flat and I would actually be surprised if they ever reverted to that. All I know is that people are complaining about it being too loud at 6.5 when there was previously no problem at 7. I'm going to fix it tonight.
Posted by David Whitbeck (Member # 894) on 06-03-2002, 03:42 AM:
Ok, upon examing the situation we ran into two issues that are of interest. Upon examing the EQ settings, it seems as if ours still exist, along with the SPL settings. But, we could get no input from our mic to check and make sure our settings were still fine(which they probably are.) Secondly, our bass problem seems to be coming from blown subs... It looks as if when I felt the subs during a show what I felt was vibration from the L,C, and R. The subs put out absolutely nothing when test tones are put through them. We connected a cheapy speaker in place of one of the subs and it responded, so that answers that. It seems that the harshness of the sound was probably due to an imbalance between the highs and the lows. This makes sense right? On the side, I'd just like to say that this is my guilty plea to being a dumbass... At least it matches my picture.