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Tube Phonostage Causing Rumble and Noises

Hello, I am desperate in need for advices and help.

I have a Aesthetix I/O Eclipse (one power supply) that I acquired new in 2009. It started to make the SVS SB16 Ultra subwoofer rumble a few months ago. I sent it back to Aesthetix, they performed a bunch of upgrades and replaced 4 tubes in gain stage one claiming these would help with the noises. 

When I got it back three months later, the rumble got a bit better but it was still there. Then Aesthetix sent me a new set of tubes claiming there were specially selected and tested for low noise. However, they didn’t eliminate the rumble.

Then I played a record to during the test, the unthinkable happened. When the phonostage is idle, there was just rumble. As soon as a signal was passed from the phono, the sub went crazy, it produced some subsonic noise that made the room shake. I then connected the phono to a tube integrated amp and I heard a loud distorted noise through my LS 3/5A.

The strange thing is that I have no issues using the I/O with my Apogee Fullrange without the sub.

I would appreciate any shape or form of advice/help.

Thanks in advance and Happy New Year!

agharion

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
6,465 posts
 

Ok, I apologize for this.
 

How loud is your subwoofer set? Typically  the correct settings to have them correctly integrated is the crossover very low, speaker dependent, but 40hz and volume 10 - 20%… I mean basically turned way down to correctly fill in the trail off of your main speakers.

I have sat down to listen to someone’s high end audio system and immediately jump up and crank their sub woofer down that is cracked up to 80% with a crossover at 120 hz because it is squeezing the sound stage nearly out of existence.

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