Hamptone tube kit question and comments

[Brian Brock]

Hi there, I just finished the tube pre kit and it ROCKS! I could listen to a bass going into a Little Labs Redeye into the Hamptone for days and still find something else to love. I liked this better than the Hamptone's own DI, but that's good too, just not quite as detailed sounding to me. For mics, I only tried a 4033 and sm57 before I started puzzling about the following, but especially the 4033 sounded great. Still a 4033, but fuller and less plasticky. OK.

At least, on channel 1 it rocks. On channel two I'm getting a kind of nasty staticky sound. I've only noticed it when using a DI, either the hamptone's, or the redeye going into the mic input, but it's super loud under those circumstances. It's not constant, but only happens when signal is present. I'm not going to test it out on a mic again until I get some word from Scott or from y'all - don't want to fry anything - but I did not notice it with a mic. Maybe an impedance thing? Or else the noise is harder to hear under a more complex signal.

Everything tested out just fine with the voltmeter - perhaps I should test ac voltage at the various points noted on the schematic? Could it be a bad component? I feel pretty sure I put everything where it goes, but who knows.

Brian

[Milkmansound]

check all the solder joints. Make sure the tube socket is 100% making contact with the tube at all times. make sure nothing is loose - see if the problem goes away if you wiggle something. If it does - trace the intermittancy and fix it. Make sure nothing is hitting the enclosure - look for the simple things first.

[danielson]

One simple piece of advice that I received that is really handy is when you're probing for loose connections in tube gear (or other higher voltage gear) use a chopstick. Grab a few extras the next time you get take-out teriyaki and keep them on your work bench.

[Brian Brock]

OK, thanks for the suggestions, I wiggled a shielded wire that Scott brought to my attention with a chopstick and the noise changed, so I pulled it out and replaced it.

The old wire was two pieces of shielded single conductor cable going to and from the gain pot. The problem was that the outside of the inner jacket was conductive, possibly to increase the shield's conduction or something. So anyway I replaced it with shielded two conductor mogami and it works fine.

Thanks

b