Eliminate EVH 515OIII 5O-watt 6L6 hum?

Bram576 said:
I have a Zuul mini. Key input works great. All my rigs are silent.
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The Key works fine on my clones, but I just find it makes it overly sensitive. You also have to be careful about sending a buffered signal into it. The signal strength of that buffered signal determines how sensitive it is. That is some of the things I played with when I made a modified version.

Maybe the actual Zuul is different, but this is just what I noticed with my clones.
 
romanianreaper said:
I wonder if I should try a suppressor? The gate just cuts the sound and maybe a suppressor is better for the 5150-III noise.
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I will also say my 5153 50w has never really been that noisy. No worse than any other high gain amp. I would suggest you spray out every jack with duster and plug a cable in and out like 10-20 times. Every jack... even the ones you dont use. Turn all the knobs back and forth multiple times. I would even suggest plugging the tubes in and out a few times each. A dusty connection that is weak can cause all kinds of weird issues.

I had something happen recently where the green/blue channels seemed to have no gain and volume. I am not 100% what I did to fix it, but I think spraying out the input jack went a long way.
 
Shask said:
I will also say my 5153 50w has never really been that noisy. No worse than any other high gain amp. I would suggest you spray out every jack with duster and plug a cable in and out like 10-20 times. Every jack... even the ones you dont use. Turn all the knobs back and forth multiple times. I would even suggest plugging the tubes in and out a few times each. A dusty connection that is weak can cause all kinds of weird issues.

I had something happen recently where the green/blue channels seemed to have no gain and volume. I am not 100% what I did to fix it, but I think spraying out the input jack went a long way.
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Yeah... Mine wasn't that noisy when I purchased her in 2O18. But channel 3 (RED Channel) has been going so hot even at 3 Gain and 2 vol. I did a test and shouted into Jessica's pickups (My white/black/red striped series) and she went microphonic.

Then I opened up the 515OIII 6L6 and tapped on her tubes. Low-and-behold it's the V1 tube that's going microphonic. She was never stored in poor conditions but I didn't play her for about a year from 2O19-2O2O, then only played her on and off from 2O2O until about a month ago when I really started firing her up every day.

Tubes just go sometime I guess. But it now seems the big issue has been that she (the 515O III 6L6) has a bad tube. Ordering some JJ 12AX7 ECC83-S tubes this week. Pop them in and she should be sitting pretty...

Oh, and I saw some online demos of the ISP DECIMATOR RACK PRO G.

HOLY EFF'N SHEET!

I'll never abandon DUNLOP/MXR for sound and tone... but I immediately dropped the $5OO.OO on this utility rack unit. Will get the 515O III 6L6 fixed up and with the DECIMATOR she's gonna slay!

(SHOUT OUT to Napalmdeath for the ISP tips and making a believer of me! 🙏)
 
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Decimators are awesome; I've been using the pedal versions for over a decade now. I'm sure the rack is even better
 
Let us know how the tube issue goes. I took mine to a tech and he couldn't find any issues with mine but you know how that goes. I wasn't there when he looked at it so not sure what all he tackled. I just know there is this big sound like an airplane engine and doesn't seem like a tube issue.
 
romanianreaper said:
Let us know how the tube issue goes. I took mine to a tech and he couldn't find any issues with mine but you know how that goes. I wasn't there when he looked at it so not sure what all he tackled. I just know there is this big sound like an airplane engine and doesn't seem like a tube issue.
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Sure thing... if I don't electrocute myself D-E-D DEAD trying to bias the damned thing!

😲

😝

🤣
 
romanianreaper said:
Here are some examples of the noise I get:



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Whoa!

The dings and dents on the tube are from the tube getting hot and reacting with finger oils, at least that would be my guess.

Sounds like you're picking up radio frequencies. My first thought would have been a tube. I'm no electrician and am still learning tube amps myself right now... but if a repair tech told you nothing was wrong I'd never go to him again. Perhaps a component like a transistor went? Or maybe there's a problem wit hyour transformer(s)?

Hope someone here can give you a better suggestion or directions to fix this.
 
515O_GUY said:
Yeah... Mine wasn't that noisy when I purchased her in 2O18. But channel 3 (RED Channel) has been going so hot even at 3 Gain and 2 vol. I did a test and shouted into Jessica's pickups (My white/black/red striped series) and she went microphonic.

Then I opened up the 515OIII 6L6 and tapped on her tubes. Low-and-behold it's the V1 tube that's going microphonic. She was never stored in poor conditions but I didn't play her for about a year from 2O19-2O2O, then only played her on and off from 2O2O until about a month ago when I really started firing her up every day.

Tubes just go sometime I guess. But it now seems the big issue has been that she (the 515O III 6L6) has a bad tube. Ordering some JJ 12AX7 ECC83-S tubes this week. Pop them in and she should be sitting pretty...

Oh, and I saw some online demos of the ISP DECIMATOR RACK PRO G.

HOLY EFF'N SHEET!

I'll never abandon DUNLOP/MXR for sound and tone... but I immediately dropped the $5OO.OO on this utility rack unit. Will get the 515O III 6L6 fixed up and with the DECIMATOR she's gonna slay!

(SHOUT OUT to Napalmdeath for the ISP tips and making a believer of me! 🙏)
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ISP has always worked best for me, bar none. If you think the 5150 III is noisy, try a JVM. Lord have mercy..
 
515O_GUY said:
On the video the video owner said they replaced all the tubes and the issue was entirely solved.

(Being that the video was 6 years ago) If it's your video, are you now having a new issue with your 515O?
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No not my videos and just for reference. The first one with that loud, airplane like noise is what I experience sometimes"
 
napalmdeath said:
ISP has always worked best for me, bar none. If you think the 5150 III is noisy, try a JVM. Lord have mercy..
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It’s not the inherent sound of the amp… it seems a tube has gone microphonic. Looking into quotes to get it fixed or re-tube it myself…

But thank you for the suggestions.

🤘🏻
 
napalmdeath said:
Do it yourself.
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I think I might be able to do it. I;'m just terrible at math. If ohms calculations or voltage formulas are involved I may just latch onto the transformers to end it all rather than carry a single, solitary decimal...

🤣

If you or anyone here has suggests on resources to reference I'll take the plunge and do it myself... 😁
 
It's more likely the noise will stem from the small preamp tubes which don't require any sort of biasing/calculation when replacing
 
515O_GUY said:
I think I might be able to do it. I;'m just terrible at math. If ohms calculations or voltage formulas are involved I may just latch onto the transformers to end it all rather than carry a single, solitary decimal...

🤣

If you or anyone here has suggests on resources to reference I'll take the plunge and do it myself... 😁
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You don't need to bias preamp tubes. Plug and play.
 
I have a Friedman PT20 V2 coming in a few weeks. I'm going to plug into the same outlet, pedalboard, guitar, etc and see what happens. You never know with stuff like this. It could easily be my house wiring, cords, etc. Both have a great amount of gain so should be a good comparison.
 
romanianreaper said:
I have a Friedman PT20 V2 coming in a few weeks. I'm going to plug into the same outlet, pedalboard, guitar, etc and see what happens. You never know with stuff like this. It could easily be my house wiring, cords, etc. Both have a great amount of gain so should be a good comparison.
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Godspeed.
 
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