WooAudio6 SE owners - does your power component humm?.... - Page 3

Sclamb, sorry to hear of these issues you are having. FWIW, my WA6 (not SE) is at 220V/50Hz and is dead quiet. I think the WA6SE is quite different though and does exhibit some low level hum from what I have been told. As takezo mentioned, it does seem to occur in some tube amps.
Thanks for the info about the 274B. If you are going to try a different rectifier, any NOS American RCA, JAN, Sylvannia or TungSol 5u4g, 5u4gb, 54rgy or gz34 tubes would be a great tube to try and they are relatively inexpensive. Even cheaper might be to swing past a guitar shop and get a new 5u4g or gz32 or gz34 which some Fender amps use, so they should have plenty in stock.

Nope, no hum.

every tube amp i've owned has or had a low level mechanical hum
from the power transformer... it's a low range "drone"-like hum
and should be inaudible from 2 to 3 feet (or 1 meter) away with
the headphone on... if your amp is humming louder than a very soft
whisper then you may have a serious issue with the power transformer,
or the attachment of it to the amp chassis causing oscillation
or vibration... good luck

and yes, all tubes hum to a certain degree... almost no exceptions as
far as i know... some hum louder than others however... using a
tube damper may help a little... any cheap damper should work...

mine hum too... but barely audible and only when i'm close to the
amp with the music paused... maybe that we're just sensitive
to the frequency...

No, this is not normal. This will ruin the tube. It is too much current being drawn to fill the first cap. A GZ34 most likely would not do this but the 274B and 5U4G etc are rated for a 4uf first cap or a 15 to 20 henry inductor right after the rectifier.

yeah, take advantage of the warranty when you still have it...
for peace of mind... i've never noticed a spark on my valvart 274b
nor on the sylvania 274b in the past...

Damping of the transformer can cut down on the hum or just the way the transformer is made can cut it down. I have worked with tube amps and preamps and made up circuits for tubes and not all tubes produce audible hum and not all transformers hum. I have a preamp I built with two large transformers and the transformers are totally quiet, even with your ear next to them. The preamp, no hum at all. It is in the way everything is worked, implementation.

Sure a tube can be bad and arc but from what I have read here aren't there two amps doing this? Also a new tube can work fine at first but as it is stressed the arcing can start to show up and it will get worse and worse until the tube fails and normally takes out the fuse do to high current enrush.

Transformers can hum due to DC on the line. Factories with large electrical motors can induce this into the line as well as other current using devices. Bad transformers on the power line can also cause problems. You can also try to reverse the power cord but then you would lose the ground by using a cheater. With sparks dropping on the Sophia it is already toast.

It is hard to say for sure. Measuring different voltages etc is what would need to be done.

Did it do this from the beginning? It is always possible that you have a bad tube. I would try an 5U4G or GZ34 and see how the transformer section sounds or doesn't sound.

surprising considering the SE has two large inductors between the
rectifier and the first caps... but if one or both have failed somehow,
shouldn't he be hearing humming during the pause or even behind
the music?

oh right... it could just be a faulty rectifier...