Help - X-Cans v1 distorting badly

[markb]

Hi guys,

New to this forum, hope you can point me in the right direction. I have a recently purchased an x-can v1 that is distorting quite badly, especially with heigher impedance headphones like my Beyer DT-1990's.

I popped open the unit and it looks standard apart from two new valves. they are Russian 6H23. I was told by the previous owner these were new.

And yes I am using a 12vAC 1amp Power pack

Any ideas where to look for the issue would be greatly appreciated.

Mark.

[PinkFloyd]

Hi Mark,

It will, almost certainly be one or more bad caps that are causing this.... the amp is pretty old now and the Jamicon 85C caps tend to go bad after about 20 years. If the previous owner left the X-CANS powered up continuously then this will definitely be the case. The two usual culprits are the 100uF caps that sit next to the regulators on the upper PSU board but while you're in there it's always a good idea to replace all of them. It's not a big job if you know one end of a soldering iron from the other.

Is it distorting on both channels?

Welcome to the forum,

All the best,

Mike.

[markb]

Hi Mike,

Firstly thanks for your advice

Yes it is both channels, well lucky I ordered your v1 cap upgrade kit

I also have a v2 and a two v3's, one v3 with the usual burnt out resistors near the TIP trannies. I noticed my other v3 has different resistor values around those trannies and they are mounted higher up off the PCB, so I might duplicate that on my older v3. Will prob hit you up for more kits after I get this V1 working.

Thanks again.

Mark.

[markb]

Hi all, it ended up being a bad set of valves, well one bad valve, Russian 6H23D. tossed them out and used a cheap set of Sovtek 6922 valves just for testing (don't like them at all), going get a nice pair of Miniwatts. Russian valves tend to sound very harsh on in the highs.