Microphonic from Vacuum Tubes?

Thanks @ghdprentice, assuming the issue is from one of the tubes, do you think tube dampeners may help minimize the chance of these popping noise?

HI @immatthewj,  my amp is the solid state Parasound JC5.  Thanks.

Thanks @atmasphere for your instructions.  The problem is that I think I've heard the pop from either left and right channel before, but not at the same time.   So the problem doesn't seem to be specific to a single channel.

I sure hope that this is not an issue with my Cary preamp.  I've had enough problems with it since I bought it about 7 months ago.  😀

Thanks @atmasphere ​​​​@dekay.   My hunch right now is the preamp or the tubes are the culprit.   That's because I've never had any issues with my system before the introduction of the Cary.   

This is probably going to take a while to track down because it doesn't happen that often, and I can't really reproduce it.   I think I will start with putting the old tubes back if I hear the pop again, and go from there.  

Thank you all!

Hi @larryi ​​​​@atmasphere,  let me try to answer your questions.

I don't usually play music at loud level anymore.   I want to preserve my old ears from more hearing loss. 😀   It is usually played at below 70 db level.  

The noise does seem random, and it's coming from one side.  I've only heard it maybe 3 or 4 times, and I think it had happened to either the left or the right channel, but not both.

I just did the tapping test that @larryi suggested, and I hear no pops.

I don't think I've heard it at a very low volume, but then again, It has only happened a few times, so I don't recall what the volume level was at the time, but I think it was probably at my usual listening level of somewhere in the 60 to 70 db range.

I don't know if the problem is the preamp, but it is my newest component.  I've never heard this loud pop before I bought the tube preamp.  So that is my suspicion.   The pair of Linlai 6SN7 tubes are my latest purchase, and I wonder if that can be the culprit. 

Thanks!

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.

@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.

Thanks @buellrider97,  I've been thinking about tube dampers.   I have read some good comments about them.

I think the trickiest thing about this issue is that it happens so infrequently, and I can’t reproduce the problem. So diagnosing will take a long while. That’s why my obvious focus is the latest change that I make to my system.

I have never come across anything similar to this issue ever for as long as I’ve been listening to music on any of my equipments that I ever owned. I was hoping someone in this forum had experienced similar issue and offer a quick way to diagnose and track down the culprit, but I guess there is no easy way to tackle this.

Thanks for everyone’s comment so far. I will definitely update you guys if I find and fix the issue!

@invalid, thanks for sharing that.  Does this happen consistently?   That must be so annoying.  I think that would bug me to no end.   😀

Thanks @acman3,  I wonder if it can indeed caused by a hiccup from streaming.  So far I've only experienced this issue while streaming from Tidal or my own MinimServer running on my NAS.   If I  know how to edit a digital file, maybe I can reproduce this issue.

My only other source is my vinyl setup, which I only use 10% of the time, and I haven't heard this popping noise while I was listening my vinyls.

@durte30,  I think I've got about 120 hrs on the Linlai at this point.

@cub,  this only happens from my digital source, i.e. my streamer.

Thanks everyone again for your advices and sharing your experiences.  I will post an update if I’m able to make any progress on tracking this down.   Who knows, it might not happen again 😄

interesting suggestion.  Thanks @sevestan.

Thanks @kellyp and @larryi for the info.   I hope it's not the capacitors.   I've only had this preamp for 7 months.  😀

Hi @immatthewj, actually no I have not.   For whatever reason, it hasn't happened since I started this thread.   So I just decided not to worry about it anymore.

Will update you guys if this comes back, and if I can track down the root cause.

Cheers!