Omni Fans?

[TimNielsen]

OK, here's a quick poll for any Omni owners. When I first got my Omni about a month ago, the thing was nearly silent. I never heard the fans.

Now the fan is coming on a LOT, and much worse, it's constantly ramping up and down in a fashion that is literally making me sea-sick. That slow rolling ramping up and down sound.

A large part of why I got the Omni was when I saw the demo unit, it was dead silent. And for the first month, it really was, and the ambient temperature in my room was even hotter than it is now! So I don't understand.

But now it's WAY louder than my 96I/O was, and the character of the fan noise is much much more annoying, it's high pitched and constantly ramping.

Reason I'm asking, my one other colleague who bought one, his has been super noisy right out of the box. Mine took about a month to start doing it, but is now doing the same thing. Really I don't think I can stand it.

I want my 96 I/O back...

So my question, since the only two Omni's I have personal knowledge of are doing it, how are other people finding theirs? Is your fan coming on? Is it constantly ramping up and down?

Mine isn't ramping nearly to full level, like if I turn it form Auto to On, then it goes nuts. But on Auto, it's driving me crazy!

Curious if anyone else is seeing this.

[Tom Hartman]

I have never heard the fan in mine...

T

[TimNielsen]

Well Tom, glad to hear it, and I hope you never do. It's not a very nice sound...

The 96 I/O was always present, but sounded WAY less annoying than my Omni now sounds...

[Tom Hartman]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

Well Tom, glad to hear it, and I hope you never do. It's not a very nice sound...

The 96 I/O was always present, but sounded WAY less annoying than my Omni now sounds...

That sucks Tim, but obviously still under warranty right? Unless you think your room has gotten warmer and it's actually functioning correctly..?

Tom

[TimNielsen]

Well honestly my room hasn't gotten warmer, when I first got my Omni I had some days that were like 85 degrees in the room. Today the ambience temperature in here was more like 75 I suppose.

And my friends is doing this out of the box. I'll contact someone, was only curious if anyone else was having these issues.

Really the sound itself is one thing, it's literally the constantly adjusting up and down, the ramping, that is like some kinda torture!

[Eric Lambert]

That it didn't do that initially is bizarre. That it's also happening with your friend's is concerning.

[Jon_Atkinson]

Well, indeed.
I had every intention of getting an Omni with HD Native for a new writing rig....
Noisy fans would make it a non-starter for me.....
I'm sure there are lots of users in the same situation as myself....

I hope a solution is in the pipeline, otherwise I'll have to be looking at alternatives.

[SDDP]

Originally Posted by Jon_Atkinson

Well, indeed.
I had every intention of getting an Omni with HD Native for a new writing rig....
Noisy fans would make it a non-starter for me.....
I'm sure there are lots of users in the same situation as myself....

I hope a solution is in the pipeline, otherwise I'll have to be looking at alternatives.

I found one solution, not the best, but it works everytime I try it: Turning off the unit definitely stops the fans.

[TimNielsen]

Since I'm the one who started this thread, I wanted to post an update, and some clarification. I feel I'm potentially turning people off to the Omni, so it's important to me to clarify.

My fans aren't 'loud' per se. They have never kicked in full blast, it's more that for me the character of the fan noise when they 'do' ramp up was annoying to me. Because what was happening is that as the fan does come on, when the room gets hotter, it 'wavers' up and down slightly, and to me that was much more annoying then a steady fan noise, because always it drew attention to itself.

Now my good friend, HIS is really noisy, the fans very loud, and my guess is that it's a thermostat issue of some kind, that his fans are just kicking in too soon.

Now I have heard, and believe, that a fix is in the works, and if I can I'll report back when I've tried it and we'll see. But I do now know that Avid is aware of this, and intends to fix it, and so honestly I wouldn't let it scare anyone off of the Omni. In EVERY other way, it's to me a dream I/O. And now that it seems clear they intend a fix for the fan noise, I wouldn't hold off buying one at all.

It sounds fantastic! It has oodles of features, downmixing, great preamps, DI, digital, headphone and monitoring functions. All in 1RU space, which is pretty astonishing. And even with the noise from the fans, I still vastly favor it over the old 96 I/O that it replaced.

I'll post more about the fans if I'm able to try the fix that seems in the works. I know it's in the early phases, and not sure when it will be ready. But as soon as I've had a chance to test it, I'll post back.

[nst7]

Thank you, Tim!