Microphonic from Vacuum Tubes?

Hi @immatthewj,  I don't own a CD player anymore.  It is so 20th century.  😀 

I'm inclined to think that the culprit could be something with the preamp or the new tubes.  Also @petg60, I'm pretty sure the pops are not happening with the same song.  Otherwise, it would be easy to reproduce the problem.

My experience is that I had a high pitched ringing or a vibration like hum. This was alleviated initially by cooling and reinstalling the tubes. As the tube aged they got worse and we’re replaced. The 2 times I experienced a single pop, it was t preceding a tube failure , but with power tubes. Once the glass envelope failed with a poof and I shut it down. The second was a violent pop that resulted in a blown capacitor and resistor that required Mr Had to repair my amp. That one involved a brand new Gold Lion that he said failed and caused the damage. Good luck with your issue.  

@buellrider97 , as a fellow Cary amp owner, which Cary amp was that?

@xcool

I'm inclined to think that the culprit could be something with the preamp or the new tubes.

I understand gut feelings.  As we have the same preamp, I follow your threads with interest.  You have been up & running with it for quite a while now since that earlier fiasco you experienced, haven't you?  I sort of remember you posting about the tubes you bought from Brent Jesse and it seems like that was a good bit ago (which obviously wouldn't eliminate them), but it sounds as if the Linlais are a fairly new addition.  Maybe you are on to something with your theory, so I'll wish you luck tracking this down, but just out of curiosity, with all else aside, have you been able to form an impression of the Linlais yet?

@xcool 

I’m pretty sure you are not having Microphonic issues.  Do you use a power conditioner? Are you streaming when this happens? what service are you using?  I’m using Amazon and there is often a pop when the tracks change.  It’s kind weird, like they are using tracks from different recordings. 

Just a thought.

@buellrider97, thanks for sharing your experience. I might try reinstalling my new tubes and see what happens. When I first got the Linlai tubes, I was inserting them into a pair of tube socket savers. I did that because I was thinking about doing some A/B testing with the stock EH tubes. After deciding that the Linlai do sound better, I removed the socket savers and inserted the Linlai directly into the sockets of my preamp. I cannot remember when the very first time I heard the pop, whether the socket savers were already removed. The latest pop I heard was this morning, and I know for sure the socket savers were no longer there.

@immatthewj, yes I did buy the NOS RCA tubes from Brent and I do like them better than the stock EH tubes. The EH tubes sounded a little too bright for me at the gain stage. The RCA took the edge off and sounded warmer. As with the Linlai, I do like them quite a bit. I was going to post an update to the long going Linlai thread, but haven’t gotten around to it. The Linlai has tighter bass and better sound stage than the stock EH tubes.

As with the Cary, I actually had another issue a couple of months ago. I was so pissed off that I was going to start another thread venting my anger, but I decided not to. I did mention it in an old thread because someone posted a question. Lucky it was a fairly minor issue and I was able to resolve it without having to ship the unit back to Cary.

@curiousjim, I do have a power conditioner. I was most likely streaming from Tidal when I heard the loud pop. Thanks for sharing your experience with Amazon. It does seem kind of weird.