I have the same amp/speaker combo's. as you and it is dead silent.  I turn my system on without heaters with adcom ace-115 line conditioner and no pop's.  I hope this helps..it's a great sounding smooth amp that looks great. good luck resolving these issues...should be easy..also a call to Steve may be in order...I find him very helpful and easy to reach.  let us know when you resolve this

I had a SE34I.2+ and really liked the liquid and open sound. When it "blooms" you will know it, as it will sound consistently more open. Steve recommends some on 5hr/off 5hr cycles if you are inclined to accelerate the process of seating the caps, and of course, play music when on!!! I can't recall how long it took with the amp, but I think it was pretty fast... maybe a week or two, then it continued to improve over time.

I never used the standby switches, turning the amp on and off with my Brickwall surge suppressor, and don't recall any popping. 120v though if that has any impact.

I did have a slight hum that could be heard when within a couple feet of the transformers or a few feet from the speakers. It never bothered me or the music though. My Torii has a very slight hum in both places too, but again, not a problem for me.

Hum seems to be a mind bender at times, there are so many ways for it to be introduced. There is a Hum troubleshooting article (and many other interesting articles) written by Steve Deckert if you would like to have a look.

https://www.decware.com/newsite/articles.html

Then there is calling Steve if you have a way without going broke!

Good luck and enjoy your new amp!

Yes, the Hum could be tubes. I have a lot of different tubes and they definitely vary a bit in noise. I think these amps are so transparent that, if there is hum potential, you will hear it whether from cords, power, tubes....whatever. But you also hear the music....not just the sounds of music, so I put up with a little hum.

I think mine is partly power. I have some minor EM/RF filtering, but the hum does seem louder and quieter at different times of day.

Your amp normally comes with Winged C EL34, Ruby 5U4G and NOS 6N1Ps I think. So you have a nice tube combination, in keeping with the amps design. I suspect you will keep those Siemens in place, but you never know. The 6N1Ps will be warmer if I recall. I also, reckon your tubes will be taking 50 hours or so to come out, so you are in for some real pleasure in a few days!

The thing I remember about that amp was a liquid spaciousness and speed, but enough bass too. So I think you will find the bass will increase as it burns in too. And even if it never gets to house thumping, in my room it became very real indeed.....the kick and string bass sound like instruments in the room. Also, I found that using Decware interconnects made all the tonal attributes better, but most notable was more harmonic texture and micro detail on top, and notably deeper bass, compared to other cables I had.

That pre kit looks nice. I would give yourself 100 hours or so with your amp before judging if you think it would be overkill or not. I suspect not though. I find Steve's stuff to be so natural sounding that by adding my Zstage I got more tube sound, but only the good stuff. And like you, I questioned the extra signal path thing, including more wire, but to me this stuff works as it should and synergistically, so I did not experience overkill at all. With the Zstage it became smoother and had more 2nd order harmonics... but also the gain, a very useful bias adjustment, and sound tuning flexibility by using different tubes. Being able to tailor the dynamics, weight and tonal balance by riding the gain stage volume with the amp volume is no small thing.

I am  ignorant about adding gain to your phono stage. Sorry.

I would call Steve on that one. He is full of good ideas with loads of experience from the basis of a personal music quest...and a vinyl head. I gather it is important to him that his customers have the best experience they can have with his gear too. But it sure must be possible without a pre.

I think if I were adding a gain stage, I would try to get the gain of the phono stage closer matched to the CD player and then make my gain stage so that I could have switchable inputs, allowing you to tailor the sound of both sources. Though a great source is the thing alright, a good gain stage is awesome for easily tuning the balance for different recording qualities.

For a simpler gain, there is also the Zkit-4 and Zkit-5 together making something similar to a Zstage if you add a 100K audio taper pot to the output of the ZKIT5. The one with the regulator tube would probably be really nice.

Just imagining! Good Luck.

JJ El34s eh. So the stock selection has been adjusted since I had mine. Steve has really good ears so it would be interesting to explore that particular group. I have heard good things about JJ EL34s but never tried them. I look forward to your sense of them.

I did not like the 6N2P compared to 6N1P at first, but recall the 6N2P smoothed out quite a bit with a long burnin. Then I notably preferred it in my setting, and wondered why it did not ship with the amp.

Interesting the 6550. You have the Hazen Grid mod in that amp that brings out a lot of good sound qualities......sort of astounding by reports of folks who experienced the pre-mod state and then the mod. If I am not mistaken the mod requires EL34. So it is interesting that, even though it is such a popular tube, the 6550 compares so favorably. Have you had a chance to look over this paper?

https://www.decware.com/newsite/paper145.htm

Happy explorations!

Sounds like you found a good synergy with those KZ Muse caps, and them not even burned in. No matter what the original recordings sound like, it sounds like you like it! Tube comments make total sense. Happy listening.

Hello Richard, Sorry to hear about the caps. Burnin to me is rough, in part because I am so impatient. And if the sound is "off," just a touch, I mess around while burning something in. I always come up with useful information tending to learn about different ways to accomplish synergy, but it is sometimes inefficient. I just can't help it though. Anyway, it seems the first sound "signature" and "balance" from something is often closer to the "Bloomed" sound, especially with caps. And then they proceed to jump around from lean to bright to muddled to bassy or whatever before coming back to a much better sound than the original sound, but with similar signature values. Makes me wonder what those Muze caps would sound like in 100-200 hours?????

One thing I do recall with your amp and more-so with my Torii, is that the "bloom" is just the first stage of realizing the amp's potential. It will likely fade in and out of that magical place for quite a while longer. But your baseline rises up a notch, as your points of brilliance do likewise, so it is all good!

I may be crazy too, but I always hear burnin shifts and changes longer than some folks seem too. 100-200 hours seems a bit more in line with my experience than 50-100 be it Russian tubes, or caps, or wire. And your amp has all those!

I look forward to hearing what you come up with in sorting out the phono stage.