Hi All,
About 4 or 5 months ago I built an Aleph J with considerable help from our friend 6L6.
Recently, I began noticing the amp will sometimes make a mechanical click sound - like a relay or a thermostat in your house clicking on. It will be just a single click/pop sound.
The sound is NOT coming through the speakers - amp is dead silent through the speakers - and the amp sounds outstanding, BTW. The click sound is coming from the amp itself.
I can not determine any rhyme or reason to the click. Sometimes it will produce the click while the amp is warming up, other times I will hear it while music is playing and has been doing so for a couple of hours. Sometimes I THINK is clicks during bass heavy passages (any chance this would temporarily heat the amp more?).
I am wondering if there is something with the chassis - it is the Deluxe 4U from the DIY Store here. I did have one of the bolts that holds the rear panel come loose - I tightened it back up and everything appears to still be securely tightened up right now. I live in Virginia where it is HOT an HUMID - so I keep my house at 68 degrees F - and leave the amp off during the day. Ergo, it does have some pretty wild temperature swings from 68 all day long to over 100 when the amp is warm and I wonder if that temperature fluctuation could be working some nuts & bolts loose (or making slight expansions and contractions of some of the components) - and that is what I am hearing.??
When I built the amp, I went through the biasing procedure meticulously over a 2 hour period just to ensure the amp was fully warmed up. I biased to the recommended 400mV per the Illustrated build Guide. I don't think the bias drifted, at least not hotter as I can easily hold my hands on the heatsinks for an extended period of time.
Because I am a complete novice and built this amp in a "pain-by-numbers" manner, I am not really sure:
1) what could be creating the click/pop sound
2) What to test/examine
3) If there is any danger to my speakers
Any thoughts from anyone here?
-Thanks!
Matt
About 4 or 5 months ago I built an Aleph J with considerable help from our friend 6L6.
Recently, I began noticing the amp will sometimes make a mechanical click sound - like a relay or a thermostat in your house clicking on. It will be just a single click/pop sound.
The sound is NOT coming through the speakers - amp is dead silent through the speakers - and the amp sounds outstanding, BTW. The click sound is coming from the amp itself.
I can not determine any rhyme or reason to the click. Sometimes it will produce the click while the amp is warming up, other times I will hear it while music is playing and has been doing so for a couple of hours. Sometimes I THINK is clicks during bass heavy passages (any chance this would temporarily heat the amp more?).
I am wondering if there is something with the chassis - it is the Deluxe 4U from the DIY Store here. I did have one of the bolts that holds the rear panel come loose - I tightened it back up and everything appears to still be securely tightened up right now. I live in Virginia where it is HOT an HUMID - so I keep my house at 68 degrees F - and leave the amp off during the day. Ergo, it does have some pretty wild temperature swings from 68 all day long to over 100 when the amp is warm and I wonder if that temperature fluctuation could be working some nuts & bolts loose (or making slight expansions and contractions of some of the components) - and that is what I am hearing.??
When I built the amp, I went through the biasing procedure meticulously over a 2 hour period just to ensure the amp was fully warmed up. I biased to the recommended 400mV per the Illustrated build Guide. I don't think the bias drifted, at least not hotter as I can easily hold my hands on the heatsinks for an extended period of time.
Because I am a complete novice and built this amp in a "pain-by-numbers" manner, I am not really sure:
1) what could be creating the click/pop sound
2) What to test/examine
3) If there is any danger to my speakers
Any thoughts from anyone here?
-Thanks!
Matt
Expansion and contraction of the heatsinks where they connect to the braces is my guess. All 4 of my builds do the same thing. Unless the noise is coming from the speakers I would just ignore it. Zen Mod's suggestion would be worth a shot. I still remember the boiler fired heaters at my Elementary school making noise as the expanded and contracted. Much the same thing.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.