Another thing I've seen a lot is mechanical connections causing those symptoms. They can almost seem like magic too; You'd think they'd be consistent but they're not. If the junction makes contact but poorly, it's an intermittent connection with highly changing resistance. Places it can develop are volume pots, switches and tube sockets.

Then there's those weird Valve Art tubes. Remember them on the Paramours? More magic. Sound great when running, but like Geiger counters when idle. Sometimes. And only every other tube does it, some sound great. Don't guess that's what's up with your amp, but I thought it worth mentioning. 'Spose it could be something like that.

Those are some of the things I'd look at.

thanks
-akhilesh

2 watts is not much for 94db speakers, what decibel levels are you hitting(spl meter). I have a pair of JBL 4800 (10" 3-way/91db) that when I play on my 45 SET amp will sound just loud enough to hear, but on a pair of Edgarhorns(105db) will run you out of the room.

I wonder if the output of the cd player is a difficult impedance for the 45 amps to take????

Bring them to my house this saturday and lets check it out. What about the 300B amps, does this situation also occur?

Ron

Bob

The more helpful idea would be to suggest an exhaustive look into where is the overload taking place? You can go so far as to seperate stages, but this might not give a clear picture if there is stage-stage interaction in the PS.

If you it is an open loop, or short loop NFB amp you ought to be able to proceed from the input stage to the final and see some evidence of overlaod/clipping. Be thorough, and ask questions as required.
cheers,
Douglas

Bottom line, I think it could be that you are trying to squeeze too much output power and you are getting driver stage distortion.

Good luck
Gastón