Hi Wayne,

You are correct - something is wrong. I have a hum on the Sherbourn amp, and I suspect it's either bad RCA cables or a ground loop. I'm going to start by replacing the RCA because the ones I'm using were pulled out of an old box from the attic, are 20 years old, and were only really for testing the amp. If the issue persists, I'll perform more troubleshooting. Everything else in the entire system is dead quite except for the plasma, which has always been loud (hum). It's one of those 550W 2008 Panasonic models. You know, a nice heat machine. Great picture though.

The company I work for is an IT company, are we acquired two AV companies last year. Both companies have resumes that show multi-million-dollar home theater designs/builds. So I geek out at work sometimes talking to these guys about AV stuff. Yesterday, one expert said that of all the cables he would recommend people swap out, he said to start with the power cords. Which is interesting to me because the Sherbourn didn't come with power cords, until today, so I used some computer cords (there are 2 12-amp cords) instead. When I move an RCA close to the power cord, the hum gets louder.

Now that I have the new power cords, I'll swap those, and then I'll swap the RCAs. I'll keep you posted

At 109 dB, how can you tell which amp is quieter? Seems it would be difficult to tell...

I can't wait to have 200+ clean watts to run through my Tritons. Happy listening, Murphyslaw1978! I bet it sounds great with both amps.

Cheers,

T Cobe

T Cobe,

LOL, good point. I'm not sure the best way to test 'quiet,' but I what I did was take an existing recording that I know has about 5 seconds of dead air but is still playing through the mics. I then copied it multiple times to generate 20 seconds of playtime. I then turn up the volume to -0 dB on the receiver and play it in a loop. There is virtually no sound coming from the Yamaha through the Tritons. There is, however, noise coming through the Sherbourn. In all fairness though, the noise doesn't seem to change whether I have gain at -0dB or -80dB. So this noise could just be feedback.

Hey Murphyslaw1978,
That is an interesting test and once again, it does not sound good for the Sherbourne.
How old is the Sherbourne?
Does it have tubes by any chance? Tubes always give some thermal noise, some a LOT worse than others.
Just wondering why it should be that noisy?
All the best with your system,
God Bless,
Wayne

No tubes, this is an early 2000s solid state class AB/G amp. Just a giant 400VA transformer and 20,000 uF capacitance for each channel. Similar to Emotiva:

Thanks Murphy,
If it is noisy then something is wrong with it.
That baby should sound good, maybe not great, but definitely good.
I have a much older SS amp that still sounds great.
I gave it away because it was too big.
Can you get someone to look at the amp?
God Bless,
Wayne