What do defective phono tubes sound like?

Bad news, "pops" came back... I am also leaning towards tonearm connection failure, when i move the pivoting bottom of the Phantom awful pops appear.
I thought problem was resolved, but it was a short relief, maybe because I unplugged everything. Monday I take the tonearm back for checking. Fortunately we have a very good aftersale system here in Belgium and they lend me a new tonearm during repair.

Hmm?I experienced that too!Yet,now I have new headaches.
This is becomming as much fun as the last five miles of a marathon -:)....

I would check for continuity between the ground of the table and the chassis ground of the preamp.

Atmosphere,I had noticed my pre giving me some noise,"now" when playing CD's Friday night.The vol control started sounding "whoosh/static like" sounding,as I moved the nob(even a little).
Then,as I stopped CD play,and just moved the vol control to hear what the story was,it (the pre)gave a pop,and I could not get anymore output!!
I simply decided to wait a few days,so as to not get upset,as I've been experiencing too many hassles.
Could the table/arm "ground problem"(if it actually was the arm ground,and not the pre all along) have caused the pre to die on me?...."Oye vey",is this getting annoying!!

Thanks

Sirspeedy, I would be suspicious that the CD player is making either RF, DC or both. I'd pull it out of the system altogether, as if it is RF, well, that stuff can get in everywhere!

Given what you have told me its *not* the tone arm that did that.

Alternatively, your preamp could have been giving you fits all along, with the symptom masquerading as something else. First thing I would do would be to run the system with no digital at all and see if it works. If yes, let it play and see if it still pops. If not, then you need to see if the amps/speakers are OK. If they are, then you need to talk to the manufacturer about the preamp.