High Pitched Frequency From Speakers, tried everything - - - Driving me crazy, help!


Hi All,

I've been having issues with a high pitch frequency coming from one channel of my speakers intermittently throughout listening sessions. It's a very high whine, think like the sound of a fluorescent light but higher in volume. It comes and goes on its own, does not change in volume when I change volume. It seems to only come on when a source is playing through it. If I mute my preamp it goes away. 

Sometimes I'll have a great hour long listening session and it won't come on but sometimes on the first record it does, same if I'm playing through my dac.

It started in the left channel but now seems to have moved to the right channel only. I thought it might have been tube noise/old tubes in my preamp so I swapped left for right. It went away for a day and then started in the other channel, great just need new tubes. Bought new tubes,  but nope, still present in right channel, swapped left right channel tubes, stayed the same. The new gold lions sound so much sweeter than the JJ's, so I'm very pleased about that, but still extremely frustrated! 

Here's my setup -
VPI Prime Scout
Musical Surroundings Phonomena 
Rogue Rp1 Tube Preamp
Rogue St90 Power
Vandersteen Model 3a sigs
Cheapo Schiit Dac for movies
Panamax Power Conditioner

Here's what I've done (to no avail) to troubleshoot the issue - 
-powered preamp and amp on different circuits (note I usually have them in a power conditioner)
-plugged amp preamp directly into wall
-bypassed phono stage and used one in preamp
-swapped speaker cables
-swapped interconnects
-did channel testing swaps (did not move the noise from one channel to the other)
-replaced and swapped preamp tubes
-replaced and swapped power amp tubes
-swapped out tube power amp for solid state (also was a a nice surprise how much better it sounded)
-separated all power lines from interconnects and speaker cable
-cleaned all connections
-appears with either source playing

I recently downsized my audio gear so I do not have an extra preamp or set of speakers to swap out.

Any insight, advice, help would be greatly appreciated! I am truly going mad over this.

Thanks in advance,
Sammy


128x128sammyshaps
If you moved tubes to other channel and the ringing moved too, then it has to be tubes.
... and it sounded better with ss pre amp. 

Tubes or tube preamp

Stay with the ss preamp :-)
@recluse 

Thanks, I thought so too but then replaced tubes, performed the same swap and nothing happened. Put back in the old tubes, swapped, did not repeat the same channel swap as before so I think it was coincidental.

Swapped out tube power amp, not tube preamp. Really like the tube preamp SS power amp combo I'm getting now, appreciate your recommendation nonetheless. 
Sammy, If your DAC has a volume control remove the preamp from the system and use just the DAC. My guess is you have a problem in the line stage of the preamp. We know it is not the sources (all sources do it) and we know it is not the amp (noise went away when you muted the preamp.)
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@mijostyn

Thanks, unfortunately my DAC does not have a volume control. I could possibly connect a laptop to it and monitor the output volume of that, but not sure how safe that is for the amp/speakers?
Unplug everything throughout the house .   My ex would put those Glade Plug In air fresheners all over the place.  I was getting a strange noise like you described and it was a plug in freshener.  Every time it cycled or what ever it was doing caused the problem
@oddiofyl 

Good tip! I have nightlights in some outlets, I will unplug those and see if there's a difference.

It’s unlikely you would only hear the sound in one speaker if it were an external power issue. Have you tried different interconnects? They can go bad and do weird things. If you eliminate those things, most likely you have a wonky output stage on your preamp. Might be worth a call to Rogue. If it is an issue, they will fix it straight away.
Sammy,  You can use the computer from the headphone jack. You will need a 1/8" plug to RCA cord to do it and it won't sound so hot but it would work. Something in the preamp line circuit is oscillating. A bad cap can do this! Good luck!
Figured I'd give an update.

So emailed with Rogue and they suggested tube buffers which I gave a try. Seemed to help a bit but didn't solve the issue.

I'm picking up a Mcintosh integrated tomorrow just for kicks and will try that out with all same equipment (minus amp). If the hum disappears then it's definitely an issue with the preamp which I'll have to send to Rogue for repair.
Here are some things to try.
Take the power conditioner out of the system and plug everything into the wall. If that does not fix it re-install the conditioner.

If that didn't sort it, Next, unplug all the digital audio products from the wall. Digital audio can have certain failures that will produce a high frequency hum.

If that has no effect, try the amp with no inputs connected at all. Is it still there? If yes **and** you changed out tubes to no avail that amp probably needs service.
@atmasphere thanks for the recommendations. I did try directly in wall with same result. Will try disconnecting all digital signals.