New Mesa Owner - Troubled by hiss

[Strat N My Stuff]

Glad to join the ranks of Boogie owners having bought an Express 5:25 :mrgreen:

This is my first tube amp and I am troubled by the loud "hiss" when I have gain and master both above 12:00. Perhaps this is normal and I just don't know better. It seems that I should be able to set the controls to get max volume without so much ambient "noise".??? It doesn't matter what the guitar volume is. Normal??

Advice would be appreciated as my three day period to return is up tommorow and I would have to go first thing in am for credit. Its 1 1/2 hour drive I don't wan't to make unnecessarily. Jeff

 

[Barry]

Glad to join the ranks of Boogie owners having bought an Express 5:25 :mrgreen:

This is my first tube amp and I am troubled by the loud "hiss" when I have gain and master both above 12:00. Perhaps this is normal and I just don't know better. It seems that I should be able to set the controls to get max volume without so much ambient "noise".??? It doesn't matter what the guitar volume is. Normal??

Advice would be appreciated as my three day period to return is up tommorow and I would have to go first thing in am for credit. Its 1 1/2 hour drive I don't wan't to make unnecessarily. Jeff

I dont own an Express but the master being run that high seems a bit odd but again i cant say that im that familiar with the new express amps .

 

[Strat N My Stuff]

Are you saying that normal use would only use the first half of the master settings?

 

[Ryanenski]

I have the same "hiss"on my 5:25. I seem to remember the F 30 having the same background "hiss" or white noise.

 

[Dutchman]

Unplug your guitar cord from the amp and then check if the hiss is still there. If it's still there it may be a tube, or several tubes.

Cheap tubes can create huge amounts of hiss in high gain amps.

If it goes away then it's somewhere in the signal path. Start with just a guitar and guitar cord.
Getting the cleanest signal into V1 can be challenging.

FYI all high gain amps have a higher noise floor than solid state amps,
just as crap tubes are noisier than high quality tubes.

I know this is all general and not specific to the 25:5 Express but I have found that all tube amps react the same, However they all sound different :roll:

 

[Ryanenski]

Guitar plugged in, or not, still hiss. Mesa tubes, new amp, 2 weeks old.

 

[barneyc4]

Yup. Same crap with my F-50. 1 week old tubes. Hiss without the guitar plugged in. Specially in the contour channel.

 

[Russ]

Like white noise hiss?

 

[barneyc4]

yea, already retubed the thing.

 

[Russ]

Checked your cables?

 

[barneyc4]

It hisses without anything plugged into the amp.

 

[Russ]

Might be small parts inside need attention. Before going to service, try cleaning your preamp tube sockets and pins and reseating your tubes too. Something else is play musical chairs with your preamp tubes you might have a noisy one.

 

[AtomicMassUnit]

Hiss is shot noise from stray electrons inside the tube, it's par for the course with high gain amps.

 

[Dutchman]

Is the hiss affected by the treble tone pot? Does dialing treble or bright down make it go away, or reduce it?

I know with my amps as the gain goes up the treble has to go down or the snakes start crawling out.

A noise gate in the effects loop may eliminate the hiss also.

Unfortunately when you run a tube amp wide open all of the amps own ambient noise shows up. Pots, resistors, all make there own self noise.
Some are better than others, but I have never heard one that's dead quiet.

Have you called Mesa? It would be interesting to see what their take on this is.

 

[Barry]

Glad to join the ranks of Boogie owners having bought an Express 5:25 :mrgreen:

This is my first tube amp and I am troubled by the loud "hiss" when I have gain and master both above 12:00. Perhaps this is normal and I just don't know better. It seems that I should be able to set the controls to get max volume without so much ambient "noise".??? It doesn't matter what the guitar volume is. Normal??

Advice would be appreciated as my three day period to return is up tommorow and I would have to go first thing in am for credit. Its 1 1/2 hour drive I don't wan't to make unnecessarily. Jeff

Call Mesa artist relations . 707 778 6565 . They are on the west coast so there may be a time difference, not sure where you are at . They are closed on Fridays .

 

[bonchie]

Hiss is totally normal in a tube amp. Thats why the sell things like noise gates and noise reducers (like the ISP or rocktron).

When you add gain to a tube amp the preamp tubes create hiss. The way to get rid of this is by getting a noise reducing pedal and plugging it into the effects loop. That will kill the preamp hum, which is what you are hearing.

Again, don't do anything crazy, hiss is totally normal with the gain and MV turned up.

 

[Russ]

There is a normal amount of noise that comes with tube amps, especially with high gain. I have been assuming that you are at least familiar enough to know that. If the hiss is worse than it should be, by all means fix it.

 

[Strat N My Stuff]

Thanks for the discussion and suggestions. I wasn't able to stay at the computer long enough to read before tonight, so out of not knowing if it was normal, I still have the 5:25 and return period is over....so its MINE.

I did check out the volume and without question, if the master is below 12:00 and the gain isn't past 2:00 the hiss is just barely noticable. But that seems like a good deal of the "best" part of the amp is left unused. I did find that setting the pre amp higher and the master lower could produce a similar and probably more pleasing tone.

In seeking the loudest CLEAN tone using the 5 watt mode, seems the master needs to exceed the pre amp (gain).....am I wrong????

 

[Strat N My Stuff]

Just to let those who might care know, I took back the 5:25 and now have an LSC. Not addressing many other concerns/considerations I figured I would share that there is NO COMPARISON in the noise levels of these two amps.

Now that I now the "slight" noise an amp can generate, I wanted to let those considering the 5:25 to know that it is great for certain needs, but it does come with extra noise.

 

[Ogi-wan]

Do you mean that the LSC has a lot less noise at low volumes than the 5:25, even at the latter's 5-watt setting?