Bizarre Noise When trigger cable is connected to 1068

[InTheRed]

First off, I am a new Rotel owner as of 12/24. I unexpectedly got a 1068 and 1075 for Christmas. Pretty freaking cool.

I spent half of yesterday hooking it up. Unfortunately, about 15-20 seconds after firing the 1068 up it began to make a very bizarre noise. It sounds mechanical, like a bad hard drive or something, but it very well could be electrical. It doesn't sound like anything a unit with no moving parts should make. Anyway, it wasn't right.

So, I unhooked everything and plugged it into a different outlet. It was fine. I then took it back to the cabinet and plugged it into the same outlet of the surge protector. It fired up fine. For some reason I had a hunch and plugged in the 1/8" mono mini-plug cable I got from radio shack back into the "trigger 1" jack and the sound started again immediately.

This is my first experience with triggers (which is why I thought it must be the problem), so I really have no idea what could cause this problem. Maybe the cable I got was bad. What does everyone here use?

Anyway, it's not necessarily critical as the amp is right there and easy to turn on and off, but it would be nice if it worked. Has anyone heard of this and, more importantly, heard of a solution?

I searched for "1068 trigger", but only found one thread unrelated to this.

BTW, the sound was coming from the 1068 itself, not the speakers and the trigger did not turn on the amp.

[soundhound]

Santa was VERY good to you, you must have been good.......You can change the triggers in the set up to see if it is hardware related to trig out 1 or 2. Thru process of elimination you should be able to determine if it is output jack(s), cuircuitry pertaining to, or cable, this is 12vdc +/- and I am unsure of the reaction in a reverse polarity situation. I have the same set-up w/ the 1070 for fronts, and it's true love, Bob

[weijst]

Try plugging in the 1/8" mono mini-plug cable for about 90% (first plug it in completely, then pull it back app. 1 mm). Strangely enough this helped for me, as I was experiencing what I believe to be a simular problem.

Good luck.

ps: I think the sound you were hearing is refered to here as a 'hum'.

[InTheRed]

Thanks. I'll give those things a shot.

It'd certainly didn't sound like hum, at least not any kind of 60hz type thing. It's not consistent and sounds more like if something was loose on a small fan. I know that doesn't make any sense, but it's more like that than a hum.