Weird volume issue with Esoteric SA-50 xlr output

Hi 

Hope all of you are safe and sound.

 Have a very weird issue i could use help with. Couple of weeks ago i purchased a used SA50 and as soon as it arrived i tested it as follows. SA > schitt freya > rotel 1582. All xlr connections. It worked fine and as expected, at that time, so i put it aside after disconnecting it to reconnect it properly into my system at a later date. 
Today i decided to finally put it into my rack permanently and i connected it before putting it in. I switched it on to check and i noticed that i needed to turn the volume upto 90% on my freya to barely hear the music playing. The last time i tested the volume on the freya couldnt have been more thn 50% and it was more than audible. All this was via XLR. 
I did try to connect via the RCA and as it turns out the right channel does not work. The left channel RCA sound  although works normally like when i had tested it. But id prefer to use the XLR and hence the issue
Ive tried the below variations to figure out the issue but no changes

- mute button checked 
- volume att On(0db) & Off both checked 
- output enabled for both RCA & XLR and only XLR on the sa50
- connected sa50 directly via XLR to Rotel and use the Vol ATT function on the sa50
- checked 3 diff xlr cables between components 
- used regular cd as well as Sacd
- factory reset
- i used another cd player with xlr output to test the chain and it works normally. 
Not tht it should matter but the sa50 was disconnected between testing and today which is a couple of weeks apart and its the monsoon season so the air would have some moisture. 

it would be greatly appreciated if someone could figure this out with me. 
Thanking you in advance

vish