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Help with K-horns please

prisoners

prisoners

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
My buddy has a pair of K-Horns that sound great on his Carver solid state amp, but when I brought over my Onix SP-3 tube integrated the result was immediate crackling noise on power up.There’s no noise from the same amp on my System Audio SA1750 speakers (4ohm, 90db). We ruled out cable issues and ground loop; is it simply the exceptionally high sensitivity of the K-Horns that’s picking up any minor tube noise? We did not allow the amp to reach operating temperature before shutting down. Thoughts? TIA-Rich
 
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prisoners said:
My buddy has a pair of K-Horns that sound great on his Carver solid state amp, but when I brought over my Onix SP-3 tube integrated the result was immediate crackling noise on power up.There’s no noise from the same amp on my System Audio SA1750 speakers (4ohm, 90db). We ruled out cable issues and ground loop; is it simply the exceptionally high sensitivity of the K-Horns that’s picking up any minor tube noise? We did not allow the amp to reach operating temperature before shutting down. Thoughts? TIA-Rich
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I tried my Conrad Johnson tube equipment (which I have since sold off) on my Khorns. On typical 87-90 dB efficient speakers the amp was reasonably quiet. On the highly efficient Khorns the amp was noisy. Crackle on start up and constant hiss when warmed up. Maybe the CJ was not running to its optimum , I don’t know, but I did not like it. I now use a class A single ended solid state amp that is dead quite on the Khorn. Music just flows from them from a nice black background.
 
I have a large selection of mp3's that sounded great on my Sansui system - until I bought a pair of Khorns. The poor quality of my recordings became instantly obvious. Not all of them but quite a few were quite inferior.
 
If one is picky, manufacturer ratings aren't trustworthy (and indeed they all must cheat in their marketplace to compete and it seems to have been ever so). The 1750's are indeed rated 90/1W/1m.

Checking the measurements, this 87.5/2.83/1m into 4ohms is 2W and equates to 84.5dB/1W/1m. If we say the khorns are safely 101dB/W/m, just plugging them in elevates your noise 16.5dB compared to at home.
 
I ran that same amp with my Klipschorns for several years. Dead quiet.

Did you try reseating all of the tubes?

You may also have a bad tube.
 
I used the 4 ohm taps. FWIW I have EH 6550 output tubes installed at the moment. I have a full compliment of tubes I can swap in/out to try and isolate any noise.
 
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