why the distorted sound?


I recently moved my system, and when I plugged it all back in, I seem to have a very distorted hiss and crackle over the music on both channels. The distortion increases with volume. I'm running an old pair of Manley monoblocks driven by a Cary slp-98. I switched my pre-amp tubes around, but it sounds exactly the same no matter what. I wouldn't think it was the amps because for both to fail in exactly the same way sounds dubious. I have moved my wires around as well, but to no avail. I am far from experienced with tubes so any suggestions would be highly appreciated. BTW, I live on a small island without any repair facility even close.
coe1
IMHO...If your tubes are more than a year old, they may be going bad. "Crackling" is the symptom that usuallly tips me to bad tubes in my pre-amp. The Cary has solid state rectification to my recollection, so probably the 6sn7's need replaced. I hope this helps. Happy Listening.
Good point by Mcfarland. While it is unlikely a problem, have you rotated the selector switch to insure that the noise appears regardless of its position? Does the noise disappear when you hit the mute switch? Also, have you ran your amp with the pre-amp off?
A guess would be you have a noisy circuit with a refridgerator or AC unit causing the noise