• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

TVA-1 valve amp - help

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Hi Guys

Trawling theinternet and came accross you guys who I will add to my Hi Fi favourites along with the Gale 401's

I own a TVA 1 valve amp matched with meridian 101 pre amp, Thorens turntable and have bought some Gale 401's to go with them.

Unfortunately stuff was in storage for a few years whilst overseas and my wife has mixed all the plugs up.

I have one electrical plug where the earth is taped to the lead (ie not earthed) and my memory is telling me it belongs to the TVA but I dont want to risk turning everything on and blowing it all. I should remember this as I've had ithe amp for 30 odd years now......duh

Thanks

Gordon
 
I would want to be sure that the valve amp had an earth for safety reasons.

Perhaps you disconnected the earth from the pre amp because of an earth loop problem? This is not really the best way, you can disconnect the shield from the interconnects. You really dont want to be using a piece of kit that is not double insulated without an earth in the mains lead. Using the screen of an interconnect as an earth return path is not clever either.

It looks like the Meridian has a screen in the mains tranny so this needs an earth and was designed to have one.

I would just connect everything up with earths connected for all of it, no chance of blowing anything up.

Cheers Matt.
 
Hi Gordon,
I would say it was almost definately because of a earth/ground loop problem picking up hum/noise.

I know you dont need telling how dangerous it can be to disconnect the earth to something that is designed to have one.

Have a look here:

Earthing (Grounding) Your Hi-Fi - Tricks and Techniques

This should give you enough info on how to get rid of any earth loop problems safely if there are any with all the earths connected as designed.

Cheers Matt.
 
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