Audio Amp Failure In 07 Ls460

[LS430 in New Zealand]

[Posted also in the LS460 forum]

I took delivery of my 2007 LS460 today. Very happy.

On the way home I dropped in the David Gray CD into the ML and gave it a whirl. Reasonably loud but not over the top. A couple of songs later during an impressive bass line the audio stopped outputing music and started to make a sound not unlike a CD skipping. Except it now keeps making this sound all the time, even if the Audio system is turned of. Eject all of the CD's, select FM - still no difference. Turn the audio off - still it wont stop (and cannot be altered with the volume control - that has no effect.) Only way to stop it is to turn off the ignition.

Head end (Tuner / CD etc.,) all operate normally but with no output apart from this continous "ziiippp - click - ziiippp - click" noise.

It draws some impressive current as well - the "ziiippp - click - ziiippp - click" noise manages to modulate the interior lights with each ziiipp and click.

So it look as if the Power amp stage is very broken. Only way I can stop the noise is by pulling the 30A "AMP" fuse.

Anybody had this fault?