As a matter of interest, does the Clayton have a toroidal transformer. I had a similar hum problem with my Karan amp. An engineer tamed it with extra grounding on the transformer. Much to my suprise, it completely went with a quality power chord, in my case, the Audience chord. It might be worth looking at similar solutions
Clayton Audio M200's.
I'm considering trying a pair of Clayton Audio M200 monoblocks. I owned a pair of M100's a few years ago, and thought they were very musical, good bang for the buck. They had a problem with low level transformer humming though that I never could resolve, and was one of the reasons for me moving on. I've been through about 10-12 amps in the last 6-7 years (thanks AudiogoN! :) ) and have never had this hum with any other amp in my system. Talking with several other M-100 owners, it seemed like this was not an unusual problem with these amps.
Now I see that Clayton is out with a new M200 amp, different design. The M200 is fully differential, the M100 was a single-ended design. I'm curious to hear from any M200 owners as to if any of them have experienced this transformer humming. Perhaps Wilson Shen has resolved the issue. If so, if it still as powerful and musical as the M100's this could be an amp to reckon with.
Happy New Year!
John
Now I see that Clayton is out with a new M200 amp, different design. The M200 is fully differential, the M100 was a single-ended design. I'm curious to hear from any M200 owners as to if any of them have experienced this transformer humming. Perhaps Wilson Shen has resolved the issue. If so, if it still as powerful and musical as the M100's this could be an amp to reckon with.
Happy New Year!
John