Popping whenever guitar volume is zeroed on Triple Recto 2ch

[scottm]

i have an issue with my triple recto 2ch and i was wondering if any gurus out there could help me. i get 2 pop sounds when im on tube rec mode and when either i turn the amp on from standby or whenever i play in overdrive - hit a power chord, mute the strings then quickly zero the volume on my guitar. so im looking for a tight cutoff and i get pop, pop!! this doesnt seem to happen in silicon rec mode.

when i zero the guitar volume and no popping occurs in silicon rec mode i can clearly see the tubes are louder (more purple glow) then in tube rec. ive read in tube rec mode the power tubes get supplied less voltage. so in tube rec mode i hit a chord, zero the guitar volume and see the tubes glow much less - and then the popping occurs.

i think it is a loose tube socket pin problem because i was swapping a lot of different brands of tubes to see how they sounded before the problem first started. i have cleaned the pins with deoxit and deoxit gold and swapped the tube with different ones but no luck. can loose socket pins cause popping? many thanks for any help...

 

[Old BF Shred]

Does it happen with any other guitar? If not, guitar volume pot dirty or worn. Some pop coming out of standby does not seem unusual, but high output tube idling current (bias volts set too low....) can cause it (as can worn out/failed tubes). I suspect 2 issues with similar symptons. 'Standby' thing might not be serious issue... if it does not do it too terribly loudly. I've seen it with other amps.
Have you swapped rec. tubes?

I have used de-oxit extensively....good stuff, but not if you use too much. The instructions say "wipe off excess". Failure to do this causes arcing and burnt spots on connector(s) making problem worse. This is especially true around high voltage or high current (like power/rec tubes).

Hopefully this will point you in the right direction. Good luck.

 

[scottm]

Old BF Shred, many thanks for your suggestions. yes, it was happening with another guitar so first thing i tried was to swap out the rec tubes with the older batch that came with the amp.

the ones im having an issue with are the mesa 5u4gb. swapping the old mesa 5u4g back in - there was no popping problem. so then i swapped each 5u4gb one at a time back into the amp to find the culprit - and found it.

so now i will have to buy a new mesa 5u4gb to make totally sure there is no popping with a complete 5u4gb set.

its a strange problem though, as originally these 5u4gbs had no problem in the amp. ill update this when i get a new tube to test.

 

[scottm]

ok so i bought a new mesa 5u4gb. same problem. swapped the power tubes with my spares cleaning all the socket pins before installing them. same problem. put the original power tubes back and replaced the rec tubes with mesa 5u4g 'coke bottles' - problem gone.

so its the mesa 5u4gb's but i prefer the way these effect the sound. a nice sag, compressed sound. its a real shame as the problem is really small but enough to be annoying.

does anyone else out there use mesa 5u4gb's with your 2ch dual or triple with no issues?

 

[scottm]

ok, so i spoke with the good people at mesa boogie and firstly they told me it was fine to use 5U4GB on a 2ch recto. after a bit of playing around with rectifier tubes, it was suggested to replace V1 V2 & V3. it turned out V2 was the problem tube. its strange as i have mesa 12ax7 russian-2 in V2-V5 and swapping the problem V2 with any of V3-V5 stopped the problem.

so it was a faulty tube - but only when it was in V2 and only with 5U4GB's in tube rec mode!! weird.

 

[animusofabbas]

i hate to hijack the thread but whats your serial number for your 2channel tripple rect? is the power cord connected or detachable. Im doing alittle research on ol tripple rectifiers. The earliest serial number i have come across is 1021. That has not been visually confirmed.

 

[scottm]

no prob. theres not much info on this board on the 2ch triple. Elpelotero's theboogiearchives.com is a really good source for general 2ch info. the 2ch dual "holy grail's" are the main focus in most posts on the serial number topic.

ive posted on here before my triple is an early 2000 serial r-144xx detachable power chord (rev g).

the earliest triple ive found when i was searching ebay a few months ago was r-05445 - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140251005699

i know that link will expire soon - ive kept the pics if anyone cares...