I have a Melos Maestro also, and have noticed the play in the volume and balance control, and a hum through the headphones. I bought the Maestro at the end of December '99 and received it a few weeks later. It had some scraches on the face of the new unit and I sent it back, but not after looking under the hood. The soldering was poor and a resistor was cut and liften but not removed. I received a new unit a few weeks later and this one was much better but I found some jumpers on this one's PC board that the other did not have. I can not tell if it sounds different. Out of all of this I got the Techs phone number in Los Vegas. His name is Peter 1-702-579-4829. You need to contact him at his time 12:00 to 12:30pm. I am going to play with the parts quality and maybe the volume control. If any one has any luck with tweeks on this unit let me know. If the number is no good let me know as well.
Melos Maestro erratic volume control?
I've had my Melos Maestro Pre-amp for a little over a year and it sounds absolutely fantastic! Unfortunately the volume control has always been much too sensitive! The volume is very tricky to adjust to a comfortable listening level: it's either too loud or too soft. There seems to be a lot of "play" or looseness in the linkage from the knob to the mechanism inside. This looseness erratically varies the volume both ways. I have had several people accidentally turn the volume up too loud because it is so touchy. I also believe this problem may have led to a blown tweeter in my right Vanderstein. I can't confirm this but it is feasible. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I believe my Maestro may have been from one of the first production runs. I talked to someone at Melos a day after receiving it and the person acknowledged the problem but didn't seem to have a straight answer for me. Perhaps the problem was too new at the time(?) My unit continues to amaze me with it's incredible clarity, resolution and musicality. I'd just like to get this volume issue resolved. Thanks in advance,