I recently purchased an Xduoo TA-26s tube amp for use with a pair of HD 600s, and, while the sound overall is wonderful, I've encountered what appears to be a grounding issue with the amp. I posted about this the other week and another Head-Fier helped me to identify the buzzing sound I was hearing in my headphones as likely stemming from a ground loop of some kind. The key bit of information suggesting that this is the problem, as I understand it, is that the buzzing sound goes away when I disconnect the RCA cables connecting my tube amp to the DAC I've paired it with (a JDS Labs Atom+ DAC). Curiously, the buzzing sound reemerges the moment I connect the RCA cables to the amp, even if my DAC is not connected to the cables at the other end. The buzzing sound is also only present when the volume is at or near zero.
I'm not particularly well-versed in the more technical questions about current and grounding that would give me a clear insight into how best to troubleshoot this problem; many of the threads on this topic that I've found seem directed at people with a deeper knowledge base than I have, i.e., people who are either building amps themselves or who feel comfortable opening them up to make modifications.
The main thing I'm looking to determine is whether the grounding issue stems from a problem with the wiring of the amp itself, in which case I would seek to return it, or whether the issue resides elsewhere in my system, in which case I would keep the amp and look to address the issue by other means.
Might anyone be willing to venture some guesses as to where the problem lies and whether fixing it would best be achieved by modifying my set up or by exchanging the amp? If the troubleshooting I have done so far seems insufficient to pinpoint the source of the problem, are there additional steps you would suggest?
I'm not particularly well-versed in the more technical questions about current and grounding that would give me a clear insight into how best to troubleshoot this problem; many of the threads on this topic that I've found seem directed at people with a deeper knowledge base than I have, i.e., people who are either building amps themselves or who feel comfortable opening them up to make modifications.
The main thing I'm looking to determine is whether the grounding issue stems from a problem with the wiring of the amp itself, in which case I would seek to return it, or whether the issue resides elsewhere in my system, in which case I would keep the amp and look to address the issue by other means.
Might anyone be willing to venture some guesses as to where the problem lies and whether fixing it would best be achieved by modifying my set up or by exchanging the amp? If the troubleshooting I have done so far seems insufficient to pinpoint the source of the problem, are there additional steps you would suggest?
