2. amps-preamps
  3. 131736-78740

Pre amp ruining analog

I recently obtained an Audio Research Ref 6 which works wonderfully well for digital but creates such a whine and hum when I try using it for vinyl I can no longer listen to it. I've spent a lot of money on my analog set up and enjoy vinyl enormously so you can imagine how frustrating this can be.

I've tried all the known remedies; cheater plugs. grounding from the tone arm to all components, unplugging my cable box and wireless router(which of course cannot be a long term solution), using different inputs, switched rca and balanced interconnects... I don't have a lot of room in my apartment so I can't go moving components far away from each other. I could go back to ss but I'd prefer to keep the arc because digitally it creates such beautiful music compared to the ss pre I had before. And it would be a hassle to sell needless to say.

My amp is a vtl s200(shortly switching to a Pass 350.8) which created a slight hum for vinyl which was masked by the music but the tube pre makes lps intolerable. My phono pre and head amps are allnics(when replaced with a Shiite the hum was still there. When I had a ss pre amp and amp the allnics created no hum at all.)  Turntable is a vpi superscout with 3D tonearm and koetsu blue lace.

Any ideas before I am forced to go back fully to ss? Tubes are so musical and warm but they seems to come at too high a price.
vindanpar

Showing 1 response by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,086 posts
 
A whine is often caused by a microphonic tube.

But this problem only shows up on the phono input, and as I recall all the Ref series preamps are line stages. So the problem sounds like a microphonic tube in the Allnic.

Try swapping the interconnect cables left for right at the input of the ARC for the phono. If the problem moves, the ARC is off the hook and the Allnic is suspect. I'd be tapping the tubes to see if the whine shuts up even for a little bit.
More to discover