Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Why did Axiom CHEEP OUT on the LFR1100 Active?

I am perplexed why Ian and Andrew decided to cut corners on the design of the LFR1100 Active DSP. There are two of these units now, one for each speaker, but they still could not be bothered to put a 12v trigger inside the box to have them turn on and off.

For that matter, as they do sell a specialized ADA1500 in my case amp that has each of the channels printed on the back of the amp so that you can easily hook the components up, it is not like they could have gone that extra but more for the $10,000+ investment to put proper triggers for everything.

You go onto Amazon and you can easily get a $10 relay board that not only provides the 12v trigger circuit but has a variable timer offset too, so that they could even have each amp power on and off with a different time to eliminate power rush to a single wall socket if you need to plug them all into the same line.

I was told by Ian for the original LFR that the DSP doesn't pull that much power that it doesn't make a difference. I would then ask why would then then go to the trouble of putting a power LED on the front of the cabinet, and a power/standby switch on the front too? clearly if the unit is expected to be on all the time, the power rocker switch on the back should be enough, and they could hide the power led inside the cabinet so it can't be seen all the time. Now when everything else is powered off, you get the glowing to green dots of light in your room mocking you that you can't automatically turn off the DSP.

I looked at this question a when the actives first came out. I also talked with Ian briefly about it in respect to triggering ADA's off the Transformer. Basically resolves down to three questions: the first two apply to the ADAs and DSP and the third to the current and voltage needed to drive the trigger:

• how much power does the DSP and ADA1500 use in stand-by.
  The DSP consumes 9W and a ADA1500-5 20W ... or for the Actives: 58W is consumed in stand-by ... which is unacceptable to me. Here's the thread with: Andrews answer
• Why not shut down the box completely. The current draw should be in the mW range.
  There are two answers to this which I don't buy completely as I think there are solutions (which I'll give a thought or two on at the end of this post)
  • The first answer is in Andrew's post ... Longevity ... the trigger shuts the digital amps off but not the power supply. This saves us 40W (as the amps are always switching even if there is no output. Each transition takes a bit of power. The 1500 Amps wattage is pretty high for a D-Amp ... this is, I believe, mainly do to its high rails (for all that headroom)). I think the Longevity part is about the in-rush current being hard on the transformer and caps.
  • The 2nd reason, I believe, is that they are concerned with the 12V trigger's current draw if a relay solution is used. I know when talking with Ian he mentioned something about that. The more triggers you have on a single line the more current gets drawn and the less likely the pre-pro will trigger anything,
• Transformer triggering ADAs:
  Ian's answer on this was that the Transformers didn't have a 12V supply so they could not trigger a ADA. My thought on this is that a 12V trigger should trigger on anything above 3V. I know of other devices that do.

Ok, So any solution to this will add complexity and cost ... but I think it's worth it. So, there are a couple of issues. If you shut down the power supply then you'll need to get power from else where to boot it up again. The front panel button could flip a line voltage relay but what about the 12V trigger ... do you have a 2nd relay for that? Another solution is to have a stand-by power supply ...perhaps something from this family ucc28881. With a little research you might do better but this will get you below 1/2 watt. The longevity problem, I think (Mojo maybe a better person to talk about this), can be solved with a soft start solution ... here's a resource on that guide to soft start design

I do not think Ian and Andrew are trying cut corners here. They certainly didn't cut corners on the rest of these boxes. I personally think they didn't look far enough for solutions or perhaps they are not as sensitive to parasitic power as we are.

I looked at it from a different angle.

The DSP comes with a power switch at the back of the unit. That will hard turn on and off the unit. On the front of the unit they have a switch that will toggle the DSP into standby mode that I assume is using far less power than with the DSP running full power. How much I have not measured, but I do have a Kill-A-Watt device that will log power usage that is a pretty simple device for tracking the parasitic voltage usage. Everything now seems to go with this 'EnergyStar' approved standby mode that really isn't off.

Now I am not sure where Ian and Andrew are going on about the 12v concern. If you ask me it's not really their side to worry about. My Anthem AV60 comes with a pathetic 40ma 12v trigger. that is just about enough to trigger a single external device like an external amp, or a single Subwoofer. but you are shit out of luck if you were trying to trigger anything more. With my old passive LFR1100 with a pair of ADA1000 and 2 EP500 subs, I couldn't get them all to be controlled by that single trigger. it was hopeless for me. Anthem came up with some lame ass excuse as to why it was so small. I guess they were trying to use a common set of parts between the AV60 and their 3 receivers that have the amps built in. There logic was someone would only have a single sub so who needed more power than to trigger that. Not thinking that anyone buying a PreAmp definitely would. The next two models that replaced the AV60 have two 150ma 12v triggers. Guess it was a big enough problem for them to change. So my solution to the issue was to make my own. I had 2 additional amps beyond the ADA1000 that didn't have any trigger, so I bought a 15amp 12v relay board off Amazon and wired it up with a 3.5mm trigger port in to control the relay. On the other side of the relay I had a standard electrical plug wired inline with a 12v power supply to power 3 additional trigger ports out. That gave me a 12v 1000ma for triggering just about anything and everything over whatever distance as there is more than enough power.

So for me the 12v trigger voltage isn't an issue and shouldn't be a concern for Ian or Andrew as its not their equipment that is giving it, so they should just assume that the person who is connecting it knows what they are doing.

The second part for me is more interesting. They have put a standby switch onto the front of the unit. Now I don't know how that is powered. But I can assume that it must be a similar setup for the DSP as they have on the Amps. It definitely turns something on and off as you can hear clicking, so perhaps it is powering some relay inside the unit. I haven't pulled it apart and didn't particularly want to. But as they have all ready got a similar setup on the amp, i can only assume that they can do the same thing linking that switch back to a 12v trigger. The part about longevity then has me asking the question. Are they saying that force turning the DSP on and off and cutting the power supply off completely will reduce the life of the equipment then that would be far more of a reason to put in a 12v trigger. Right now they have a standby and as such must feel that going in and out of standby is far better for the unit that hard on/off at the power supply.

If I was to put the two units onto a controlled switch at the power side, be is a smart switch of some sort or a relay controlled power outlet with a trigger, i am still stuck as just turning on and off the power will not automatically turn on the unit. From a power off to on, the unit goes directly into standby mode until the front toggle switch is pushed. The way the amps get around this is by the 12v trigger at the back. So we are again back to why did Axiom cheep out on the Active DSP? They put a nutsack jingler option onto a Sub for Mojo, how hard would it be to put a 12v trigger for the rest of us?

Tape is your best friend ... a dot of electrical to eliminate it completely or layers of scotch to dim to your liking. Since the LED sits proud of the case you might have to build up the sides with tape or cardboard. There are lots of other options besides tape to dim/hide it ... like a cut out from a plastic milk bottle or any container.

You can skip this next part ... It's just my DIY mind running in overdirve ,,,
Milk jugs are HDPE which can be molded at a reasonable temperature around 350°F. I've never tried this myself but my first go would be to preheat a small ball bearing the size of the LED to 350. Then place an inch square cut out from the milk bottle over it and give it a few minutes till it looked soft enough to mold. At that point I'd remove it from the oven and use a washer (gloves/tools highly recommended over bear fingers) to hold the sides flat. Cut flange to your liking.

The switch in back turns off the power to the supply (complete off). The button in front I believe turns off or puts into the sleep state everything but the supply. For some reason the 9W stand-by power for the DSP was deemed reasonable at the time they designed it. I'm not sure if they will change it in version II. If they do I might try and get mine retro-fitted. My current plan, if I ever get around to it will be to automate the room. Part of that will shut down the units after a while. Not sure what I'll do about the soft-start ...

Your answer sort of reminded me of an old joke.. one that kids these days wouldn't understand.

what is the difference between a middle aged man and an old aged man. The middle aged man knows how to stop the flashing 12:00 underneath the TV. Duct Tape.


I thought that I had written a post on here a long time ago with what I had done to make my own 12v repeater box with switched power plug, but I can't seem to find the post so perhaps I am mistaken. I had all the parts and a nice set of photo's showing each of the steps in putting it all together and what was wired to what.

Now its just as simple just to buy a smart plug and control it by your iphone. But I think I might shoot another email out to Ian to see what it would take to get the DSP to have a 12v trigger put inside of it. It's not like he hasn't had a good 20k+ of sales from me over the years that he should be able to motivate Andrew to make it happen.

Have a feeling that they are a bit preoccupied with something … integrating common stuff between companies and/or perhaps all the new potential product ideas to explore. Think at this time it might be a hard sell

Was re-reading my 1st post here ... thought I'd correct an error ... triggering off saves 70W per ADA1500-5 (90W idle to 20W stand-by).

Presumably you need a power bar to serve your audio components?

A nifty way we control items in a “smart” way without a smart remote is a master controlled power strip. Cabinet fans, amps, lighting etc…. The main component triggers others on. Simple. You can use a preamp as the master device for example.

Very affordable and easy to implement in a half hour or less. Great in racks.

Eg. APC 8-Outlet Surge Protector (P8GT)

I have the same thoughts and concerns about electronics that dribble power consumption in standby modes. Given the number of electrical devices in people's homes these days, i'm sure the amount of excess electrical consumption is staggering.
I had considered using the power bar switch as the master toggle, but the power bars are usually hidden away behind the media consoles and not easy to access on a regular basis.

I have yet to search, but has anyone come across a good quality power bar that uses a remote switch of some sort?
I'd be open to implementing that in the two rooms in which our amps sit idle sucking juice.

And yes, i'm also of the mindset that the Axiom DSP should have had a trigger on it as well. Power savings starts with cutting any idle dribbles no matter how small. How much is standby power really needed? Is it adding that much of a convenience to the end user?