Mbox mini 3 constant beep noise during playback

[MR290378]

Dear All,

I hope someone from AVID reads this thread. I have seen that this problem has been mentioned in several threads but so far nobody seems to know a way to fix it.

My Mbox 3 Mini makes a constant beep whenever I playback audio via the Output channel. When I pause or stop the audio the beep disappears. The beep does not occur on the headphone channel, so there are no issues listening to headphones.

I have changed the cables, tried different USB ports, as well as a different pair of monitor speakers. I had the Mbox micro before and never experienced these problems.

@AVID - I understand this is a known issue. So, please advise whether this is a hardware problem or whether it can/will be fixed with a driver update.

Many thanks
M.

Mac Mini latest Generation, 2.4 DC, 8 GB RAM
Mbox 3 Mini
ESI Near 08 Monitor Speakers
Sennheiser HD 650 Headphones
Screens: BenQ G 2222HDL & LG Flatron W1941S

[MR290378]

Having spoken to the technical support of the store where I bought the mbox, there seem to be two possible workarounds when it comes to this very well known issue.

BTW - Apparently, it is not necessarily the mbox creating this problem. According to their theory, the bad guy is the power supply unit of the mac mini (latest generation).

1. Change the cable that came with the Mbox Mini to a USB cable with a ferrite bead (For those of you not familiar with that term - same like myself -, see the following picture and you will instantly know what it means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead)

2. "Isolation-Box": The guy told me something about a box ensuring the galvanic seperation of the circuits between the mbox and the monitors...These boxes cost around 50 bucks.

Well, I have bought a ferrite bead cable today (10 bucks) and will try this first. I will let you know the outcome.

I am happy to hear your comments, in particular, with regard to point 2 where I am clearly lacking the necessary expertise.

Cheers,
M.

[MR290378]

Option 1 did not work.

[JazzyJ]

Would be interesting to know whether the 'beep noise' happens with MBox2 mini / Mbox2 and Mbox3 mini / Mbox3?

If you can borrow one, or try it in the shop you bought it from you could isolate the problem.

I had a Dell PC laptop with a similar problem and changing the brightness on the monitor to full made the noise go away. I also bought a 'Shark' ground loop isolator which helped but it then seemed intermittent.

Here's an examples of a 'Ground loop Isolator':

http://www.maplin.co.uk/ground-loop-isolator-226569

But if you type 'Ground Loop Isolator' into ebay then you'll see what they are.

I use a Macbook with an Mbox2 Mini and have no problems so I can't give you any Mac tips but perhaps some off the other advice might help.

Good luck.

[MR290378]

Well, I was using the mbox micro on the same system before and had no issues.

It seems to a problem with the masses as all outputs seem fine when you listen to them on headphones (e.g. I connected the monitor outputs of the mbox3 to another monitor controller. When listening to the headphone output of the monitor controller there was no beep but I heard the beep again on the monitors when I connected them to the monitor controller.)

I was recommended the following product called ART DTI. According to the shop it elimiates the problem, it may however have an effect on the sound.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/art_dti.htm

Does anyone have experience with this product in connection with the mbox?

[MR290378]

Finally my pair of high quality stereo jack cables arrived... And everything works smoothly The simple things...

[khushalbhadra]

Apart from that I have noticed still people have these issues of clips and distortion. This problem is with the ASIO drivers. In pro tools we do not have the option to use Asio4all. They need to release new drivers for Mbox Mini 3.