C2700 ordered. Now what?

[McMan]

Originally Posted by dkorbal

I installed new Gold Lion tubes in the c2700 and it has seemed to work but I’m hesitant to put the issues to bed. I thought for a moment I heard the crackling while listening late last night but it could have been old ghosts in my ears. I will say the system has never sounded better. Fingers crossed.

Congratulations!

[miner]

Originally Posted by dkorbal

I installed new Gold Lion tubes in the c2700 and it has seemed to work but I’m hesitant to put the issues to bed. I thought for a moment I heard the crackling while listening late last night but it could have been old ghosts in my ears. I will say the system has never sounded better. Fingers crossed.

The cable you switched around when chasing the upstream components?

[dkorbal]

Originally Posted by miner

The cable you switched around when chasing the upstream components?

It was the xlr cable coming out of the "main output" on the C2700. The other ends goes to the mono amps. When I swapped right and left around the crackling moved between speakers. That indicated to me the crackling was being generated upstream of the connection. The crackling existed when playing multiple sources which told me it was independent of the sources so it was being generated downstream of the sources. That only left the pre-amp and the Denali. In the end I replaced the tubes in the C2700 and it has seemed to fix the problem. At some point if I find someone who has a tube tester I'll test the tubes I took out. Until than I'll keep my fingers crossed.

The only thing is this. The tubes that I replaced were the "Input" & "Output" tubes. From that I must assume (dangerous word for an engineer) a single tube has a right and left channel to it. If not true, than I'm baffled how replacing the tubes fixed the problem.

[miner]

I’m thinking it could be the cable causing your issue. If the noise moved with the cable no matter the source that could be the culprit if you are still hearing a crackling after replacing tubes.

[dkorbal]

You bring up valid point and I must keep that in mind but so far so good. No noise. In fact, with nothing playing and volume at 80% I barely can hear any hiss with my ear up against the speakers. I couldn't say that before.

[miner]

Seems that tube was the culprit. Not all that impressed with Mc tubes they use. Brand new C1100 had a weak right channel MC phono tube. I gave up trying to get it replaced - put in Gold Lions but had to do the left channel, too, so all would be equivalent.

[McMan]

The tubes in my c22 were noisy, but I immediately had the gold lions to put in.

[dkorbal]

Originally Posted by miner

Seems that tube was the culprit. Not all that impressed with Mc tubes they use. Brand new C1100 had a weak right channel MC phono tube. I gave up trying to get it replaced - put in Gold Lions but had to do the left channel, too, so all would be equivalent.

Same here. Within the first few weeks my C2700 bias between left and right wasn't balanced. My dealer had to switch tubes out. Tubes were still noisy until recently with the GL. Seems like they could source better tubes at this level. That said I love my McIntosh system.

[Banter]

Originally Posted by miner

Seems that tube was the culprit. Not all that impressed with Mc tubes they use. Brand new C1100 had a weak right channel MC phono tube. I gave up trying to get it replaced - put in Gold Lions but had to do the left channel, too, so all would be equivalent.

Had the similar problem on C1100. One channel intermittently noisy. Replaced with Gold Lion. I went one step further and paid the Tube Store extra to match all of them.

The phono on C1100 never sounded better - gave AR Ref. 3 Phono run for the money!

[PeterMusic]

Originally Posted by miner

Seems that tube was the culprit. Not all that impressed with Mc tubes they use. Brand new C1100 had a weak right channel MC phono tube. I gave up trying to get it replaced - put in Gold Lions but had to do the left channel, too, so all would be equivalent.

Not sure of the date of your tube issue, but I would imagine the war has put a gigantic strain on all tube manufacturers. My guess is that no one is able to produce at the same level of quality