Left channel fading in and out

Bifwynne,
The speaker cables are the Anti-Cables (solid core copper with a thin layer of coating) with bare ends so switching L and R would most likely not show anything.

I checked the tubes and the bias was spot on. They are relatively knew as I replaced them in late July. I'm of course talking about the power tubes in the monoblocks. I don't know how to check the input tubes in the power amps and the tubes in the line stage. Those are over year and a half old.

I might contact Rogue Audio to get Mark's input on the tubes. In the meantime, I'll follow Al's advice, which is always a good idea :) Thanks again for the suggestions; I'm pretty bummed about this.

It appears it is the speaker, after all. When I turned the system on, with the volume knob all the way down, I heard some crackling sound coming from the left tweeter. When I turned it up, with no music on, the crackling disappeared, but the fade-in and -out continued with the music playing.

The night the problem started, I apparently put a record's sleeve on the volume remote by accident and left the room to get a drink from the kitchen. With a delay, the volume began to go up. I ran back to the room, and a friend of mine who was in the room, grabbed the remote and turned the volume down, but the knob must've have gone up almost all the way up for a second or two. It is possible that it caused some damage to the tweeter. I'm surprised since we listened to several records with no issues after the remote incident before the problem revealed itself. But at this point, it's seems to be pointing to the speaker. The SR-17.5 from Silverline Audio are incredibly well-made and I know they can handle a lot (apparently max output is 126 dB), but I guess all it takes is a moment of inattention and bad luck sometimes.

Hi Marek,

A passive speaker (one that does not have a built-in amplifier, and an AC plug that plugs into the wall outlet) cannot make any sound without a signal being sent into it. And if the volume control is all the way down, there should be no signal being sent into it (apart possibly from very low level hiss or hum generated by the amplifier, or by preamp circuitry that is downstream of the volume control, or as a result of ground loop effects between the preamp and amp).

So I continue to suggest performing the channel swaps, to determine the component that is responsible. And I think that Bruce (Bifwynne) could very conceivably be correct that the problem is a tube.

Best regards,
-- Al

Al,
Yes, the low level hiss is what I would usually hear with my ear close to the tweeter. But when I powered up the system today, that hiss had some crackling as well.

I checked the cartridge alignment and it was correct. I will start the check as you suggested. If it's a tube, would it be one of the power tubes or the input/driver or line stage tubes?

If it's a tube, would it be one of the power tubes or the input/driver or line stage tubes?

Don't know; could be any of the above, or something else. The fact that crackling occurred with the volume control all the way down, though, most likely indicates that the problem is either in the amplifier, or in preamp circuitry that is downstream of the volume control (for example, the output stage of the preamp).

Best,
-- Al