Tick, tick, tick.....Tick, tick, tick

[jdandy]

Tick, tick, tick. In short successions of three I was getting this noise over and over from my McIntosh C2300. I could see the left channel meter bounce slightly off of the rest position with each tick sound and I could hear the tick, tick, tick noise in my left channel speaker. It did not matter whether the volume was at zero, max, or anywhere in between, the ticking noise was constant and unaffected by the volume control.

I first noticed this about a week or so ago, so yesterday I made time to try and get to the bottom of this issue. I started by disconnecting each input one at a time for all connected components, then outputs and triggers. With everything disconnected from the C2300 except the power cord I could still see the left channel meter bouncing with each tick. This was driving me nuts, so I pulled the preamplifier from the rack, removed the top cover and replaced the two line stage Gold Lion 12AX7 tubes with a brand new pair of Gold Lion 12AX7's. I plugged the preamplifier into power while it was still open on the dining room table and powered it up. The meters were now sitting still, no movement from the left channel meter. Satisfied I had solved the problem with new tubes I installed the cover back in place, slid the preamp back in the rack, reconnected all inputs, outputs, and triggers, then energized it. Damn, the tick, tick, tick noise was back and the left channel meter was bouncing again. Scratching my head and staring at the rack it dawned on me to try relocating the Sonos Zone Player that was sitting on the rack's top shelf directly above the C2300. As soon as I shifted the Sonos Zone Player to the center of the shelf away from being over the C2300 the ticking noise disappeared. Placing the Zone Player back over the preamp immediately brought the noise back.

I had only recently placed the Sonos Zone Player in that position when I moved the Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 from that location to the shelf next to the Aurender N100H music server. Both of those two components are narrow enough to sit side by side on the same shelf. The Sonos had been sitting on top of my fan control temperature display controller on the top shelf. When I relocated the W4S DAC2 I moved the Sonos Zone Player to where the DAC2 had been sitting. I had no clue it would cause an issue but it certainly did. Obviously the Sonos emits some form of RF energy that made its way into the C2300 preamplifier when it was placed directly over it on the top shelf.

Silence is golden, and thankfully all is silent again with the C2300, and no more tick, tick, tick noise from my left channel speaker. Sure wish I had thought about moving the Sonos before I disconnected everything, pulled the C2300 from the rack, and replaced the line stage 12AX7 tubes. At least I had the opportunity to give the C2300 a good cleaning while it was out of the rack. So there it is. Just thought someone else might benefit from this experience.