Schiit Freya damage by giving it an electric static discharge on the volume knob.


Anyone had his Schiit Freya Tube Preamp "zapped" by carpet electricity build-up while touching the metal volume knob? just to find out the your device lost 70% of its original volume out?
Today, the wife while trying to lower the volume on my music she accidentally gave a carpet electric discharge to the knob and the music stopped, but the unit remained off, so I turned it off, and back on, just to find out that the volume knob, did not make any relay noise until you start getting to the 3 0-clock position, then little by little the music starts playing back but when you get to the maximum, the output it only about 30% of it,
I believe the volume relay board got damaged up to some point, but since I am not familiar with this type of "volume technology", I have no idea the extent of the damage. Wondering if any Freya users there heard of this issue before, how to fix it, and how to prevent this from happening in the future.
128x128centaurojz

Showing 1 response by centaurojz

Well, thanks for all the input, and yes, my rack is metal and I usually touch it before touching any component, since all of them are metal cased, but in this case, wife wanted to watch TV next room...so she just went straight for the metal knob!!!
I tried many things, in fact I am using a very nice Power Sequencer Conditioner Digital Power Supply Controller Regulator w/ Voltage Readout, Surge Protector, which turns on and off all components on a timed sequence, so I still wonder how come this static thing happens, I don't recall if the Freya has a 3 prong plug or two, if its two, probably I need to reverse the connection on it. Another thing, yesterday I tried using the remote and I was able to pump up the volume higher than with the knob, maybe to its real max, but not sure because as I lowered down again, I was not able to repeat the event, it went back to my 30% as with the knob, so this "relay" technology is strange, or it was applied to this model without enough testing or research on it.
I emailed Schiit, and since I am not the original owner, they said rate may start with a simple $50 fix or a $350 board swap, I am still wanting to open the damn thing and see if there's a way to locally get it fixed, I still think this may be a design fault, the grounding of the unit and its components, since this is the first generation model (not the +).