I bought a BHK Pre Amp in June 2025 from PS Audio. Was purchased from Boulder and sent to my mates place in New York. When he came to visit he brought the Pre Amp with him and gave it to me.
I have to inform you my mate resides in New York and I reside in Malaysia, I use a step down transformer to connect the unit.
I hooked up the unit and all was good, saw tube glowing, and I remember reading unit had 2 tubes, but only one glowed.
Now after 1 hour 45minutes of playing the other tube on the right looking at the unit face front is not lighted and not glowing, and now an air sound appears on the right hand speaker looking at the unit.
Is this normal? Or is worse is to come?
I have emailed help desk and have not received any replies.
Would appreciate your advise.
PS. I bought it from Boulder cause it was cheaper than buying it here.
I’m not Paul, but I thought I would jump in to give you something to try right away. As a BHK preamp owner, I can tell you that you do need both tubes operating.
Switch the two tubes. If the right one starts glowing and the left one is now not operating, then you have a bad tube. This is an easy fix and not expensive (unless you get into NOS tubes, which is a whole different discussion ).
If only the left tube operates after the switch, then you will need to get guidance from PS Audio.
Good luck – hopefully the preamp did not get damaged on its journey from New York.
The tubes work, I read earlier in the forum so tried that, still same situation only left side glows. Hope I do get some assistance from Paul/ PS Audio .
Sorry to read this. The best advice at this point has already been suggested. Open the back access cover and, with the unit unplugged, swap the two tubes. If the same thing happens to the same side, then there’s a preamp problem. If the problem moves then it’s a tube problem and you simply need to replace the one tube that does not light up. That’s my guess, by the way.
I had an issue with distortion on one channel when I received a new BHK preamplifier. On removing the tubes cover I discovered one of the two small daughter boards (that stand vertically) behind the tubes had become dislodged in transit. I removed and refitted both daughter boards and the fault was cured.! Worth checking.
So what would be my next option. The serial number on my unit is PWP-B-5A0009.
It was shipped in the box to me so transit not the issue. Is there something that can be checked, as I would like to enjoy the unit as much as possible.
Be gentle as some of the BHK production had removable boards and some were soldered in. Also as you purchased a US model which runs on 120 volts what is the voltage in your country?
Over a period of time I had 3 BHK preamplifiers. First generation had removable boards, second generation fixed boards and the 3rd preamplifier had removable boards.!? If your preamplifier has removable boards, one eases them off the contacts, relign, and press back down again.
I have no idea what you are talking about me redacting your comments. If that happened and I did that my bad, I am using my phone in this forum not a desktop or laptop.
I appreciate your advise and all others but never did I intend to redact you views at all or any one else. Not my job to do that.
Send an email to service@psaudio.com and let’s see if we can get you some help. Does this mean you swapped the tubes and the problem stayed with the same tube slot?
Dirk’s comment was directed at me. As this forum’s moderator, I removed his reference to the earlier thread when I split off your issue to its own thread as the reference no longer made sense. Dirk did not initially know/understand what I had done.
Dirk and I discussed this off line. We are good.
Bottom line, you did not do anything. We are glad you are here. And hope you get things sorted soon.
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