finding faults

[sriegel]

hi all,
first, i searched this to no avail.
i'm working on debugging an aleph amp and here's my last problem;

on start up there is static out of one channel, it's been getting worse, slowly, now it is sort of a static howl sound. it goes away once the amp warms up and then plays beautifully and quietly. i've had it on for over 9 hours at a time with no prob's after warm up ~20-30 minutes so i suspect that all of my critical components are okay or it would not get better.
i searched on the forum for help and the closest thing i found was possible p.s. cap's misbehaving. the ones i hava are el-cheapo, no-name, so i'm wondering if there is an easy way to check my caps before i lay down $100 or so to get new ones.

thanks for any advice,
scott

 

[Nelson Pass]

Check your Zener diodes.

 

[sriegel]

nelson,
thanks for the reply. i'll check the zeners. can you tell me what exactly the zeners do in this circuit and how they might result in static? just curious.

this project has been very interesting, trying at times, but boy, when i hear that amp......... it's all worth it!!!
thanks so much for the opportunity to enjoy music to this degree!

cheers,
scott