noisy tube preamp


I'm fairly new to tubes but have recently acquired a tube preamp. I'm really liking the air and the soundstage it provides, something the solid state stuff haven't done as well but the one issue I have is the elevated noise floor. It's really only audible when no signal from the source is being played, like when the system is simply on or when the song stops. Also there is an occasional quiet, short lived buzz from the speakers that pretty much goes away after the preamp warms up and lastly, after the unit has been on for several hours, like 24+ it will start to emit a high frequency pitch that also is only audible with no music playing but it is louder than the inherent noise floor of the pre. My question is, is this something I can remedy by rolling tubes or is it something that has to do with the pre itself like the design or a failing part? Btw, it's a jolida fusion preamp.
lukaszwk

Showing 7 responses by lukaszwk

@atmasphere Huh... That did not occur to me. I kind thought of the preamp/tube as a single entity especially when new but I see how that could be misleading.
The tubes are stock (as far as I know, I'm a second owner) 12au7 and 12ax7 and this being an inexpensive preamp I'm thinking they are not of any significant quality and should be replaced shortly after purchase which is fine by me. Also as far as voltage gain from the pre, I'm pretty sure that is also the issue, I have never dared to play it louder than maybe 11 o'clock position on the volume potentiometer because it's starting to clip a 300 watt amp so the in line attenuator sounds like might be a good idea although I'm pretty wary about putting another thing in the signal path. With having next to zip knowledge in electronics, is there a way to change this value internally? Jolida states that the max output voltage is 30v and voltage gain is 20db (although they have these two values reversed on their website)
@atmasphere so the preamp is about one year old and it supposedly has only few (two or three?) hundred hours on it, as far as I know. Seems like that wouldn’t be enough time for the tubes to degrade significantly but I’ve also heard different. I’ve been meaning to try new tubes and my question is; is there anyone in the Chicagoland area, retail wise that has a knowledge and inventory of tubes that might be of interest to me?
Thanks for all the info, this basically confirms what I initially thought. Silly of me to think that actually might be happy with my current setup for any significant length of time... This "hobby" and I put this in quotations because I don't think that's what it is, more of a pursuit of something ethereal and unattainable, is sure getting more and more complicated but the chase is eternally on.
Also something that I may have misrepresented is that the buzz (not the high frequency pitch) i hear is  intermittent and comes on every few minutes until the pre warms up so it's not a constant thing.
Ok, I appreciate all the advice, informative and relevant as always. I will definitely get some quality tubes as soon as I can.