2. amps-preamps
  3. 194162-10279

Weird crackling from speakers when preamp connected

I've got an MC275 hooked up to a VTL 2.5 preamp, when I reconnected it after some maintenance, whenever I turn the preamp on then the amp, once they both warm up, the crackling starts.

I hooked up the amp to my DAC and had no issues with crackling, swapped tubes, interconnects and power cord, different inputs/outputs, same crackling issue when using preamp but no issue when connected to the DAC as a preamp.

Sonus Faber Olymica !, MC275 Amp, VTL 2.5 preamp, Auralic Vega DAC, nordost interconnects/speaker cables, panamax power conditioner.

My last step is to see if I can either borrow a tube preamp or buy a cheap one to test it.

Any suggestions are welcome as I'm running out of ideas.

 

maddog66blue

Showing 2 responses by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,655 posts
 

That has got to be frustrating. 

Perhaps it needs to go off to VTL.

I remember giving a tape deck to a professional electronics repair a long time ago and having it never sound good again. They can be good for replacing and capacitor or resister... but sometimes not for nuanced stuff. VTL, shoud  have an engineer that knows were something like that can happen and find and fix it. Hopefully 

ghdprentice
7,655 posts
 

Do you have a spare set of tubes for the preamp? Swap those in. 

I assume it is both channels. If only one then swapping tubes between channels would help verify. 

 

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