4 week old daily driven kit making a loud pop but only on start up?

[robthatguy]

Hey guys, been enjoying my crack and twice now ( that I have noticed) on start up/ warming up my headphones make one loud pop to the point where this time I genuinely thought I may have damaged my drivers in my hd600s. There is no other pops no other noise after this single pop aside from a stray digital sounding noise that is coming from my router signal. When I built it I was tentative on checking all my joints and I passed the voltage and resistance check with a  fluke 87v within the 20%. Currently the crack is being driven from a schiit modi 3+ off of a splitter than goes to another amp that is shut off when not in use. I typically leave my volume knob right where its at and do not remove my headphones. The amp has not moved at all since it was built. The only thing that has changed since it was placed on my shelf is the power switch going one way or the other.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Sometimes certain tubes can be a little noisy as they warm up.  You could certainly just leave your headphones disconnected while the amp heats up.  Do you have the Speedball?

 

[robthatguy]

Sometimes certain tubes can be a little noisy as they warm up.  You could certainly just leave your headphones disconnected while the amp heats up.  Do you have the Speedball?

I don't have my speed ball installed yet, Was giving it a month to be sure I had 0 issues before installing it like the manual states to do.

Is it general practice to leave you headphones unplugged while the amp energizes? This is my first tube amp.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

The Crack is the only amp we make where you could rationalize doing that.  The others are transformer coupled, and the Crack-a-two-a has some modifications for a slow and controlled warmup. 

One test you can do is to plug in a cheap pair of headphones, then poke around inside the amp with a wooden chopstick to see if you can make the circuit pop by touching anything.  That's a good way to find solder joints that aren't 100%.