2. amps-preamps
  3. 149301-106145

LOUD popping Rogue Magnum

ugg! I left my lovely Rogue 99 Super Magnum pramp on for more than 17hours. It woke me up in the middle of the night with VERY LOUD banging noises.  I thought we were having a home invasion!  Fortunately my screaming who’s there? who’s there?  did not wake my wife.
I had recently had the system made into a super at Rogue.   When it was returned from them it sounded good. It now sounds incredible for 8-10 minutes. After the pre warms up there is popping on both channels. It’s very regular, pop.....pop....pop.. and very loud.  This preamplifier has a separate power supply, as well as the internal phono pre. It makes this noise with any input source at all!  It’s not static. It is extremely regular after the pre warms up.  It gets much louder over a few minutes.  My very good repair person in Denver (  Electric City Repair ) suggested tubes as the issue. I have 14 different tubes for 8 slots - I tried all of that.  I think it’s a capacitor in the power supply. Changing those caps is not part of the super-magnum upgrade. Nor is changing caps in the Phono pre. I did not change the tubes in the Phono pre as the same issue occurs with the CD player, regardless.  Can anybody help with this pop, pop, popping? 

Bentunderground
128x128michaellent
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
1,955 posts
 
I would’ve suspected tubes too. But I did have a tube headphone amp that did exactly as you describe, and it turned out to be the recently upgraded output caps that were getting more voltage than their rating, and breaking down. These pops can be VERY damaging to your speakers tweeters, though you may have a tube amp that will at least mitigate some of the DC.

I don’t expect Rogue would make a rookie mistake like this, so it could just be a faulty part.
tastyfreeze's avatar
tastyfreeze
135 posts
 
Record the event for the tech.   As said above, get it fixed.
michaellent's avatar
michaellent OP
204 posts
 
Thanks for all your advice. It’s as I suspected. It’s going back to the shop this morning.
This was not an error by Rogue’s part. I left the amplifier on far too long. Can’t do that with tubes!
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Bad capacitor. It starts charging up then arcs out. Both channels involved so it is in the power supply.  I think it is going back to Rogue.
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,905 posts
 
Leaving a tube amp on "for too long" is not an issue unless it is overheating.
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