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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 3 responses by yoyoyaya

yoyoyaya's avatar
yoyoyaya
623 posts
 

@OP You indicate that there is no rumble when the Aexthetix phono stage is played via your Apogee. It's not impossible that the sub is reproducing frequencies that are below the bandwidth of the Apogees.

In terms of fault finding, you should borrow an alternative phono stage from your dealer - preferably solid state.

If that eliminates the problem then you know that the issue is interaction between the turntable/sub/phono stage.

Tubes are microphonic and the IO is relatively unusual in using tubes for all of its gain so the issue is, pardon the pun, amplified.

 

yoyoyaya's avatar
yoyoyaya
623 posts
 

@davetheoilguy - the Frog is relatively high compliance for a moving coil and favours arm's on the lower end of effective mass range, so if there is a problem, it's more likely to be in matching of the arm and cartridge than the cartridge per se.

yoyoyaya's avatar
yoyoyaya
623 posts
 

Thanks Davetheoilguy. I thought from your post that the Frog was gone before the Esoteric arrived but of course the Esoteric arm is a different kettle of fish altogether. The Frog is a great cartridge - I owned one for ten years - replaced by a Crimson XGW Stradavarius.

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