intermittant loud pops from my 7 year old eros phono

Jay · 1665

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Offline Jay

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My stock Eros 1 has served me well since early 2016, but in recent weeks has begun to have intermittent pops on the right channel only. The "pops" occur whether a record is playing or not.  It will do fine for several minutes up to an hour, but then there will be a brief spate of three or four loud pops a few seconds apart, then all is well again for a while.  I thought it might be my stereomour II, but now I have a BeePre/Kaiju, and the intermittent pops persist.  (The Stereomour is now in my computer room sounding great through an old pair of Yamaha NS-670s)

My plan is to work my way back from the right speaker terminal chopsticking and reflowing solder joints.

I have tried to pull the tubes to clean the pins, but they seem to be stuck and I'm scared to pull too hard.  Is it OK to put a drop of contact cleaner in the socket to try to free them up?

I know that solder joints are the most likely culprit, but could this be a bad tube?

Thanks for any suggestions on where to focus or any other guidance.

Jay L.


Offline Doc B.

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Reply #1 on: May 25, 2023, 10:25:08 AM
The fact that the tubes are hard to remove could indicate that the sockets and tube pins have oxidized enough to stick together. So yes, put a little contact cleaner in each socket terminal. Then gently rock the tube back and forth a bit to work it up out of the socket. Gently is the key word here. You don't want to use so much force that the tube cracks.

Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
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Offline Jay

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Reply #2 on: June 20, 2023, 04:16:33 PM
Follow up: The tube pins were clean, and switching tubes around had no effect. I pulled the right channel circuit board up and reflowed everything I could reach. In some places the solder had not flowed through holes all the way. I also resoldered the input and output jacks.  So far after 3 or 4 weeks, not a single pop.  It's always the solder joints!

Jay L.