Problem with Ref 5SE


I recently purchased a 5se and took delivery the other day. Did not get a chance to open it up until last night. Upon installing it into system I switched it on and after it warmed up, I was very much interested in hearing how it sounded against my current 27. After listening to several tracks with the 27 I switched pre's and after a couple of minutes playing a CD I got some noise, almost a loud static sound coming from the right channel. It was not effected by changing volume controls or input selector. It went away after 10-15 seconds and then returned. At that point, as it was late, I shut everything down and figured I would take another look in the morning.

This morning I removed the top cover and pulled and reset the output tubes and then the power tubes. I fired it back up and still had the 'static' sound but now it also had a humm, like an impedance type hum and constant. I do not believe that the humm was present last night as it is quite noticeable. 

The static type load noise seemed to have abated after the unit warmed up after maybe 15-30 minutes.

Can I assume that perhaps a tube was damaged during shipping? Do you ARC guys think a new set of tubes will fix this issue or am I looking at something more severe? Any additional suggestions to try and pin this down?

I rerouted the IC going to the amps to get them further away from source IC's and no help...

I am a little bummed, as my initial impression it that it is a leap from the LS27, my current...
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Showing 1 response by arcguy

Some minor things to add that have partially been covered:
–If noise is coming out of both channels the problem is somewhere in the power supply. If the new tubes don't fix it then the problem is in the power supply circuit. 
–ARC feels that their products (and many others) sound better with no cover installed, but they can't recommend that. (Don't blame them.) The acrylic cover sounds like no cover at all, which is why they started shipping the Ref 5 with the acrylic, unless a metal cover is ordered. The Ref 6 has acrylic top and bottom covers.
–ARC switched to a thicker acrylic cover a couple of years ago. The original acrylic covers would often have a little dip over the 6550, which runs hot. It's an output tube that's used in the power supply!
–If a product comes from the manufacturer with the tubes packed separately then you should never ship that piece with the tubes installed. Shipping companies don't treat our stuff gently, and the tubes can come loose!
–I have my tube electronics in a cabinet but leave plenty of space above, and I took the back off.