[Owen Meany]

I have an EarMax (regular), and in my left channel I am getting a intermitten crackleing and hiss sound. I know it is the amp b/c I hear it through other HPs and I have elimitanted the other verialbes. Every day it seems to become more and more frequent..

This is my first "tube" anything so I am unfimilar with swtiching tubes...can I upgrade them? Were do I buy them? How do I know what size/type to buy?

Can some one link me to Tubes for the Tubie-newbie...

thanks, jb

 

[Hirsch]

You may have a noisy tube, or it may just be making a bad connection with the socket. Try removing the tubes from the socket and putting them back a couple of times. The friction may help clean the pins. I like to use Caig DeOxit to clean some of the oxidation off the pins. Some people at Audioasylum advise against using a cleaner like this, YMMV. However, noisy tubes are a problem. If it's one of the driver tubes, simply change them. If the noise changes sides with the tubes, you've got a noisy tube, and replacement may be the only option. This is harder to do with the gain tube, IIRC both channels go through a single tube. Best bet is to find a replacement and see if the problem goes away.

There are a number of good places to buy tubes. www.triodeelectronics.com is pretty good (hope I remembered the URL right)