ps audio gcph pops and shuts down


I am having a recent problem with my system. While playing an album, I heard a "pop" and the system shut down. I shut everything off and then back on and everything worked until the next "pop" when it shut down again. I noticed that it was my gcph that was shutting down, blue light blinking and volume control turning to off. When the light stopped blinking, I turned up the volume and all was well again until the next "pop" and it all repeats itself.

I can't tell if the "pop" is a combination of a "pop" on the album sending a transient to the gcph which overloads it and shuts it down, or whether the "pop" is the sound of the gcph shutting down. This happened twice while listening to one side of an album, so about 5-10 minutes between pops. I have repeated it 2 more times with the same album. Havent tried another album yet.

Anyone having the same problem?
manitunc
The most common cause for that sort of thing with a phonostage is a massive static electricity build up that is being discharged through the phonostage. If the phonostage has some kind of protective circuit, it could be triggered by that kind of event.

Hopefully, you have some means to ground the main bearing of the table and the tonearm to alleviate that kind of static charge build up. However, I've seen systems prone to staic buildup, usually in the winter when the air is dry, even when there were provisions for grounding the arm and the main bearing. In that case, one will have to find a way to keep the air more humid to reduce such build up. Static discharge can send a huge wallop through a system that is, at its mildest, a big annoyance, and at its worse, a threat to speaker drivers.