My beloved Archon 50 is suddenly noisy

[bodia]

Go figure! Glad to hear it was nothing with the amp!

 

[László]

That raises a good point. City power (any city power) is never going to be a consistent thing. It fluctuates according to local power station policies and current demand at any given moment. Every tube amp on the planet would benefit from one of those power conditioner boxes. (I forget what they are called.) Uninterruptible Power Supply's (UPS devices) for computers and stuff do the same thing too. With these power conditioner boxes, you dial in exactly what voltage you want and they maintain the correct voltage regardless of what the city power is giving you.

What the heck is the name of those things?

There are voltage regulators that will always deliver their spec’d power, made by companies like Furman; there are isolation transformers that literally isolate you from the power lines and then also deliver regulated voltage (Sola made one); there are Variacs that let you dial in your power level but don’t necessarily regulate the fluctuations (though some also do). And there are balanced AC versions of isolation transformers from companies like Equi-Tech.

So, a few permutations of this stuff.

There are also mastering houses that run the entire facility’s audio gear on storage batteries! Gateway Mastering is one that does this.

 

[jep1210]

Whelp the noise is back. Friday at the our gig, mid set, my girl looked at me with a look on her face like, what was that noise? After the set she asked me where the static came from and I said I don't know...our drummer was really loud that night and I didn't really even notice...I just wrote it off in my head that it was something affecting the many wireless systems we're running, wireless guitars, wireless vocal mics, wireless in-ears...a lot of potential interference possibilities. Then when I fired the amp up yesterday (at my place, not hers) and it started making that "tuning in an AM radio" sound she said "that's what I heard Friday". I kind of wish something would just let go so it'd be easy to identify the issue. Guess I need to take into someone.

 

[László]

Whelp the noise is back. Friday at the our gig, mid set, my girl looked at me with a look on her face like, what was that noise? After the set she asked me where the static came from and I said I don't know...our drummer was really loud that night and I didn't really even notice...I just wrote it off in my head that it was something affecting the many wireless systems we're running, wireless guitars, wireless vocal mics, wireless in-ears...a lot of potential interference possibilities. Then when I fired the amp up yesterday (at my place, not hers) and it started making that "tuning in an AM radio" sound she said "that's what I heard Friday". I kind of wish something would just let go so it'd be easy to identify the issue. Guess I need to take into someone.

Oh man, that’s a drag on the fun of playing. I hope it’s solved soon!

 

[Deleted member 5962]

Yeah, at this point I’d take it/send it in for service.

 

[jep1210]

I'm going to try one more thing first I have a set of new pre-amp tube coming from Doug's Tubes. I'm sure that's not the problem but you never know, AND I'll have a stock of 6 known good 12AX tubes to add to my stock.

 

[Deleted member 5962]

I'm going to try one more thing first I have a set of new pre-amp tube coming from Doug's Tubes. I'm sure that's not the problem but you never know, AND I'll have a stock of 6 known good 12AX tubes to add to my stock.

I haven't asked yet but was going too soon... what tube mix did Doug recommend for the Archon?