Conrad Johnson Owners.com

I am new to this form. I purchased a new et3 in Nov of 2015. I noticed right from the start that the low gain phono stage sounded distorted .At first I thought the tubes needed a break in period . Now it seems as if the phono stage is out of phase . Is this a common problem. Also I noticed a hum in phono stage. I swapped out this pre and used my McIntosh c 35 no issues and no distortion . It is going back to the dealer . They said they will send it back . I am also hearing they are prone to tube failure . Any suggestion on what it could be.

I got the same problem of my premier 3 preamp when I played the phono stage, but the line stage was oK. Anyone have an idea about this issue!

It would be interesting to hear if Anthony resolved his issue and what the solution was. Strange that no-one responded to him back then.

I think it is unlikely that the phono stage is out of phase - in terms of left channel being the opposite phase of the right channel.

I think the phono stage is phase correct while the line stage is phase inverted (which is not the same as left channel being the opposite phase of the right channel) - but this is not an issue and would not in itself cause anything that sounds like distortion.

For both of you, I think it is more likely that one or more of the phono stage tubes are just noisy. Not all tubes are quite even when new. Some start out noisy while others start out quiet and get noisy after hundreds or thousands of hours of use. As the phono stage has to amplify very weak signals and provide a lot of amplification, it can be very susceptible to any issues with noisy tubes.

It is always a good idea to have a spare set of tubes around so that you can try swapping tubes to see if it fixes issues like this. It is a very easy test.

Hum could be caused by tubes or could be a grounding issue.

Good luck.