preamp tube hiss from my SF Line 1


I'm trying to diagnose a very audible hissing sound that recently showed up. The symptoms are, hissing sound coming from the right speaker. Its very noticable from my chair. It does not get louder as I turn up the volume. The sound is there regardless of which input I select. It does go away when I switch on the HT Passthrough. I thought I had a bad tube and have tried swapping out each of the three tubes ont the right channel and it makes no difference. All the tubes are NOS Amperex and I've been using them for a while now without any issue. This all started when I swapped out the bottom pair of tubes with some better ones that I had. All my tubes were recently tested so I know they still have plenty of life in them. Any ideas? I find it unlikely that I have multiple noisy tubes, but of course I could try putting the stock ones in all three right positions. Any insight would be appriciated.
snipes

Showing 1 response by brf

I can't determine from your post if you tried swapping the left channel tubes with those of the right channel. If the hissing changes from the right speaker to the left speaker, you now know that you have a bad tube. Once you have established that you have a bad tube in one channel, switch out one tube at a time from right to left channel until you notice that the hissing has also changed from the associated channel. It is merely a process of elimination. Good luck.