Hiss and Hum in a system newly put together


A friend of mine recently acquired his system with the help of a friend who advised him to get following components:

Audio Analogue CD Maestro
Unison Research Integrated Amp S-6
Sonus Faber Grand Piano Speakers
Silver Audio Hush Wire Interconnects
Straightwire Rhapsody Speaker Cables

The poor guy is having sleepless nights since his system is plagued with hiss and hum. Since he is almost down under in Jakarta Indonesia, I could communicate only with email rather than physically inspect the system. From the explanation that he gave me, I could suggest to him to check his cabling and see if the system is properly grounded, secondly I also suggested to check the valves if they are properly seated and locked.

Is there anything else he should be checking?

I will send the link to this post to him so that he could try and trouble shoot his system with any help from Audiogoners.

Thanks for any help you can provide to someone who has just spent a lot of money and is having trouble from the word go.
128x128quadophile
Perhaps a power conditioner would help. I have a panamax unit that is fairly inexpensive, and works great.
Very good idea, I completely forgot toask him if he had any conditioner installed, if not he should buy one and install it anyway for the sake of protection from surges and spikes in addition to RFI and EMI sheilding.

Thanks
I have had several systems that I had to trouble shoot humming out of. The first had to do with a Ground loop at the Wall Plug, that was easily fixed by a 3 prong, 2 prong adaptor. The second problem I had, dealt with a hum from Cable TV coming into the house, not being grounded. You can get a Adaptor at the Rat Shack for that. The 3rd and most difficult problem I had with my new system, was a halogin light and a Flouracent(sp) light being on the same Circuit as my amp and speakers(I have built in Subs plugged in). A line conditioner didn't work. I had to rewire a special dedicated curcuit. Hope this helps.
Briweve,

That is good information, very much appreciated. Sometimes we are so oblivious of our surroundings that a simple trick like checking things you mentioned is overlooked.

The checklist is getting bigger and bigger but that is what is required here.
Also, don't forget to chech the tubes on the Unison, sometimes tubes can sort of spit and squeak at the end of their lives or if they've become microphonic. As far as hum, the grounding ideas above sound good, cheater plugs are an inexpensive way to start. Good luck!