2. amps-preamps
  3. 1221700245

Tube preamp noise

I acquired an all tube preamp, and one thing I immediately noticed was that the preamp is super sensitive to any external impact, however small may it be. With a gentle tap on the cover of the preamp is echoed and heard on the speaker even when the volume is set to minimum. Same thing when I tap on the audio rack, other equipments (power amp, cdp, turntable), and even on the floor.
It is just like the sound you would hear from the PA speaker when you tap on a microphone.
Is it common on certain preamps?
Anybody experienced this?
128x128ihcho
darkmoebius
900 posts
 
It would help to know which particular preamp you got and what types of tubes it uses?

Some types of tubes are more "microphonic" than others. Other times it's just a bad tube and a replacement is all that's needed. Beyond that, it's the implementation or construction of the component.
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ihcho's avatar
ihcho OP
612 posts
 
Many thanks.
I will try to find a bad tube. Well, one of my friends is a strong bias on tubes and almost forced me to buy a tube preamp when I was about to upgrade, but I am not new to tubes. I may be forever like that. ;-(

Anyway, thanks for your help. My preamp uses 6SN7.
I will try to find a bad tube and replace with another, and see if the problem goes away.
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ihcho's avatar
ihcho OP
612 posts
 
Thanks,
I may contact VTS later. The preamp is 4~5 years old and uses 4 6SN7s. It came with 4 sets of 6SN7 GT, and 2 GTAs and 2 GTBs. All tubes generated microphone tapping sound on tapping with the eraser end of a pencil. Small bumping sound appear to be OK but I found two GTAs are much worse than others. The GTA and GTB sets generate much worse cracking (or whatever) noise than 4 GTs. Among 4 GTs, one seems to generate more noise.

Furthermore, among 4 sockets, one socket always generates more tapping noise regardless whatever combination of tubes used.

I mixed (those seemingly good) 3 GTs and 1 GTB, and the tapping noise got reduced a little bit, but now there is more hum noise. Is it OK to mix GT and GTA/GTB?

I guess for many tube amp owners such problems are not uncommon, and hope my preamp is not defective other than tube problems.
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