Tube hiss - any idea what's causing it?


I own an Eastern Electric M520 integrated amp that I am very fond of. However, recently I have noticed that there is a great deal of rather disturbing hiss eminating from my Omega XRS speakers once I power the unit up. The hiss does not increase when the volume is turned up. It's always there and very noticable during quiet passages. It's definitely a hiss and not a hum.

I checked the tubes and noticed that when I touch or slightly jiggle the front EF86 tubes, the hiss gets louder/softer when they are moved. Could it be that these tubes are going already? I do not have many hours on them. Maybe 100 at best. Should I consider replacing them or perhaps checking the other tubes too - perhaps the 5 AR4 rectifier tubes? I doubt it's the power tubes.

Do you have any thoughts/recommendations for me at this point. I am not sure how to proceed. As always, thanks for your time.
jpstereo

Showing 2 responses by ghosthouse

Try moving them around. I had some hissing and rotated all - Power and Pre-amp tubes, Left to Right. Checked bias and adjusted as needed. The hissing went away. Thought in my case it might have been an oxidized connection that changing out "fixed". In any case swapping all L to R seems to have fixed things - now for several months.
Herman -
I definitely had "hiss"...constant very low level background noise in L channel as I recall. Could really only hear it when the volume was cranked all the way up with nothing playing. It was noticeable however as previously the JoLida had been dead silent. I think in my case, Bless (Erwin) above has hit on it...bad pin connection. Rotating and consequently re-seating all the tubes seems to have made a better connection and fixed things for me.

Jp - Hope you get to the bottom of it and it doesn't prove to be anything major. I'd also check all cables and interconnects. Funny how those things can manage to work loose...but you've probably already done this.