New Tube CDP, Eastern Electric Minimax, a Question, and I'm an Audioholic

MrBuhl

Well - the wife and kids are out of town this weekend, so Dad's left to his own devices... never a good thing for the cash stash! Of course, I made good use of the time, four thrift stores and one community yard sale. Picked up many great CD and LP titles for the listening pleasure! I've also been loosely looking for a different CDP than my Sony S9000's (which I love, and are grossly overbuilt and sound good in my system... but... see "audioholic")

So - to make a long story long, I'm standing at the checkout at GW with a few CD's and albums, and notice a piece of 'lectronics sitting there. Hmm... Eastern Electric, never heard of it. Seems to have tube outputs though, interesting. Go home, research online, consult the Polkie oracle (search archived threads) hmm... seems to get pretty good reviews. @BlueMDPicker seemed to dig his. Go back to GW, still there, sign says, "ask at counter for remote" - of course, they can't find the remote. "Can you come back tomorrow sir? No, I'm sorry sir, we cannot hold it for you till we find the remote". Grr.

Go back this morning, find remote, take headphones (after reading 6Moons review) to test, yep, sounds pretty darn good. All functions seem to work, plays and sounds nice through phones, tubes light up, missing power button is all and a small ding on the LF corner. OK - I''ll take it.

Bring home, install in 2 Channel Rig, put on Carmina Burana (Shaw, Telarc - GREAT recording BTW). In a word, sounds amazing! Very easy to listen to, transients are fantastic. We may have something here. $285 all in with tax and remote - which I thought was a pretty decent deal.

Now my questions - now that it's warmed up a bit, (preheated an hour - and an hour listening) there seems to be a light crackling in the speaks, turn off for a minute, restart, plays silent and ok and then crackling starts. Do I have a bad tube by chance? Something else? Not worth at fix and this price or I did well enough i have room to work? Probably can pickup replacement power button online?

Many thanks - Happy Memorial Day all!

MrBuhl

marvda1

is it in one or both speakers? if it's in one speaker, change tubes around and see if it moves with the tubes.

MrBuhl

Great idea! Thanks - I'll try it!

MrBuhl

Switch is on - it has Electro Harmonix 6922's - look to be recent made in Russia. - date code '07. Letting her heat up.

Man - when it ain't crackling, this thing sounds so musical. JT on now - like having him in my living room! Effortless. And I'm sure there's WAY better tubes out there to roll in!

MrBuhl

dang it all - same crackling back again after about one disc. Both speakers.

hochpt21

Holy moly...great deal!!

I could be wrong, but I think that is what @HEINEY_9 moved on to after selling me his dared.

EndersShadow

hochpt21 wrote: »

Holy moly...great deal!!

I could be wrong, but I think that is what @HEINEY_9 moved on to after selling me his dared.

He moved onto a line stage preamp from them. This is a CD player

hochpt21

EndersShadow wrote: »

hochpt21 wrote: »

Holy moly...great deal!!

I could be wrong, but I think that is what @HEINEY_9 moved on to after selling me his dared.

He moved onto a line stage preamp from them. This is a CD player

Hence the CDP... Lol

F1nut

Could be any of the following. Bad tubes, cold solder joint(s), bad cables or a cracked board.

WilliamM2

hochpt21 wrote: »

Holy moly...great deal!!

Not if it's broken. Hopefully they have a decent return policy.

MrBuhl

F1nut wrote: »

Could be any of the following. Bad tubes, cold solder joint(s), bad cables or a cracked board.

well - you step away for a few hours and come back to that... and that doesn't sound good. Take it there's no easy diagnosis and it's probably better to return it?

F1nut

Depends on what you call easy. Swapping tubes is easy for anyone. Checking the rest depends on your skill set.

F1nut

Oops, swapping cables is easy too.

tonyb

MrBuhl wrote: »

this thing sounds so musical. JT on now - like having him in my living room! Effortless. And I'm sure there's WAY better tubes out there to roll in!

Now you know why many go bonkers over tube gear. Can't beat the musicality with a stick. Fantastic deal there too, worth having it checked out.

hochpt21

WilliamM2 wrote: »

hochpt21 wrote: »

Holy moly...great deal!!

Not if it's broken. Hopefully they have a decent return policy.

True.

However, when I posted that I was thinking it was the preamp. In which case your statement would still be true but would at least justify the double exclamation points.

heiney9

Get some deoxit and try cleaning the tube pins. This usually works for 50+ year old tubes. Perhaps the newer tubes haven't had time to build up nasty oxidation. I have a large bottle of deoxit as no tube goes in unless it's well cleaned.

Hopefully the issue is minor. EE stuff is built really well, not the typical "Chinese build" my pre-amp is point to point except for the input/output jacks.

Check cables as well, can't tell you how many times either a dirty tube or bad cable was the issue.

H9

heiney9

I'd also try another pair of tubes just to rule out a bad tube. I don't have any 6922, 6DJ8's or I'd offer you a pair to test and see if it's the tubes.

H9

MrBuhl

@F1nut - Thanks, sounds like I start with cables, which I have, then tubes, which I'll need to get - but likely wanted to try different tubes anyway (the Electro Harmonix turned out to be the better gold ones which is nice). I can do that easy. Skill set is willing, but untrained.

@heiney9 - Thank you - I'll grab a set of different tubes to test. I have Deoxit and Deoxit Gold - is one better than the other.

@tonyb - yea - it really sounds astoundingly different as you know - I was very surprised, because I actually really like the sound of my Sonys.

@hochpt21 - Thanks! Still excited - hopefully I'll dodge the tube bullet!

So general consensus seems like - hopefully its something simple, no guarantees, but it's probably worth checking out. I checked return policy, and it's not great - store credit only, so if this is worth fixing, it's probably worth my time to try some cheap fixes vs. Have a $300 credit at GW.

Many thanks all for your time and expertise and advice!

george daniel

F1nut wrote: »

Depends on what you call easy. Swapping tubes is easy for anyone. Checking the rest depends on your skill set.

Lol,,, the magic is back!

MrBuhl

Whelp...

Switched in a new set of SC Analog 2's - still crackly.
Switched to a different input on the Dodd - (moved from Aux 1 to CD) - still crackly.
Switched (just for S&G's) back in my Sony S9000ES - no crackly.

That's three cheap & easys down - Deoxit and new tubes still to go...

Had a dumb question/thought - could there be some kind of an electrical or gain mismatch between the Dodd and the EE CDP? Maybe I'll try running it into the Pio Elite on the HT side and see if static is still there...

tonyb

Wouldn't sound like that if it was. The Deox and the tube suggestions are first order.

marvda1

try a pencil eraser to clean the tube pins. then take a little contact cleaner on a q-tip to clean the eraser residue off.

MrBuhl

OK thanks all - cleaning pins and deoxit tonight - keeping fingers crossed. I have 7 days to figure it out or return and have a very large GW store credit LOL.

tonyb

You'll never know for sure unless you also swap the tubes out. With so little time left for a return, probably won't happen in that time frame.

MrBuhl

@tonyb I've got a set of NOS Phillips JAN 6922 due to arrive today at home, so hopefully I can test them out tonight! Figured that was a worthwhile and relatively small investment. I'll let you know how I make out!

tonyb

Cool man, didn't realize that. If the new tubes work with solving the issue, you going to keep that puppy ? That tube sound is certainly addicting.

MrBuhl

@Tonyb - Absolutely, this isn't a turn and burn, it's a keeper - I'll just keep the Sony for SACD playback and such. I'm addicted to the small snippets of juicy goodness I've already experienced. In fact, I've started looking around for tube CDP options if this one doesn't work out.

BTW, warmed up the EE with the new Phillips tubes for an hour while I fired some burgers on the grill (its National Hamburger Day afterall). Just popped in my Red Seal recording of
Van Cliburn - Tchaikovsky No 1 and Rachmaninoff No 2 CD. This one produced immediate static previously - 13 min in to Tchaikovsky and so far so good!!

MrBuhl

Keeping my fingers crossed @Zero !!

MrBuhl

Seems to be the case Dskip - most of the way through King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King now - still no static. I may have dodged the bullet after all! I'm starting to get hopeful/excited!

vmaxer

MrBuhl wrote: »

Keeping my fingers crossed @Zero !!

Good luck, hope it works out for you!!