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Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share you ideas and experiences.
24.182.134.146
A friend of mine and myself both have one of the older model Ella's - the ones with three round transformer covers and the large printed circuit board. I own three of them and a friend has one.
We each have one Ella that has a slight "buzz" audible when you put your ear next to the tweeter. Always constant volume no matter what the setting on the pre-amp or the level control on the Ella. Even unplugging the inputs - still there. Have tried swapping tubes, etc.... no change - same constant buzz.
I've contacted Brian and he mentioned putting a gridstopper resistor on each power tube???? This has little meaning. What type of resistor? What value of resistor? Where does it connect?
I've asked Brian these simple questions but his last response is that the Ella's were too old to support and I would have to find it on my own. so... here I am. Not the greatest support in the world.
Thanking anyone in advance who can offer some advice or help me with this problem. Please copy me directly with any ideas at my email: thx1326@swbell.net.
Thanks again!
I don't understand your point or purpose of this post. The fact remains that I asked three simple questions from a person that I sent over $2000 to for three amplifiers... not a lot to ask? As far as age, I have several Dynaco amps - built over 20 years ago that are still going fine. So again, I guess I was maybe expecting a little more tha 4 years out of these - wouldn't you?
hey,
i think brian offers great support for a diy product. he personally responds to questions with regularity. there are very few places in this industry with this kind of personal and community support. plus, its a great product to begin with.
i can attempt to help you trouble shoot the buzz problem as i am very familiar with the older model ella. i haven't noticed this myself, but this is always a possibility when you have a diy built amp. you will need to first figure out where the noise is being introduced. i don't think a grid stopper resistor will fix this problem; and the power tubes already have them, iirc.
btw, tube amps are not always going to be dead silent. if you can only hear this with putting your ear up to the speaker, i don't see that as a big problem. but i don't know the specifics with your setup.
Zarni...
Brian says the Ella should be dead quiet. The other one is dead quiet. All three are wired exactly - I mean exactly the same. You say it already has gridstoppers... Some have mentioned moving the resistors from the circuit board to the tube socket - are these the gridstoppers and is this a solution.
Anything that you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Sherf
By the way... I'm not at all sure that the chokes are mounted in the right position and wired correctly. At the time Brian recommended them and sold them to me, there were no instructions in the manual which also needed some revisions. I was sent two or three scans of drawings - all were different before I finall wired it according to the last sketch. So, if anyone can give me the actual correct connection of the chokes, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
hi
sure..
grid stopper resistor : you are correct. these are mounted on the pcb originally with leads going to the power tube pins(1K?, exact value not super important). ideally, the resistors should be mounted as close as possible to the tube pin. so you could move the resistor to the pin and put a jumper on the pcb if you want. these would supress some tendency for oscillation at hf in the circuit. would not hurt, but i am doubtful that this is the problem.
the choke: i am not sure how to describe how this should be mounted as i don't have one in my ella.. but i can tell you how it should be connected from a circuit perspective. after the bridge rectifier there should be a capacitor (450V,220uf?) from HV to ground, then the choke should go in series from the + side of this cap. to another 450V,220uf cap. (+ side, - side to gnd). This point is then the B+ connection point (goes to circuit board and center tap of the output transformers).
let me know if you need clarification.
OK the amps are in service now for what? 4+ yrs and I have supported you every step of the way but you ask for pictures and detailed instructions to troubleshoot your problem. If you do a search you can find what you need to know.
Brian
Take control! DIY.
Brian...
Let's cover all the facts... I asked you three simple questions:
What type of resistor? What value of resistor? Where does it connect to?
The only other time I asked you for support was right after I purchased the amps when you made suggestions of adding the choke and I asked where to connect it. By the way there were several answers to this - each different as the original manual and the choke instructions had some errors and were going through revisions.
I guess I should have known better than to think the service life of these $600+ amplifiers should be longer than 4 years???
Once again, three simple questions that should have been answered a lot of emails back.
Respectfully,
Sherf
But usually when I buy a kit amp, unless I have learnt electrical theory/tube circuit design well, I consider it a bit of a risk when I build the kit. Most kit builders offer support, and I think Brian does a good job in that regard.
You said $600 ...... but a kit really is vulnerable to the builders skills, and many many factors could cause one amp to have a noise.
I have two Basie preamps. One has a very faint hum/noise when my ear is up against teh speaker, the other doesnt. I really think in my case the first one is not even a problem, because tube gear is more likely to have some noise, but more so, in this case, there are some small variations in how the wiring is done (twists, and where power supply wires cross signal carrier) that may make the difference.
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