PRS Archon 50 Hum

[MWebster]

Hey there fellers.

I have a strange conundrum with my Archon 50 head that just came in. It sounds great by the way, very "PRS".

Whenever it's on, no matter the channel lead/clean, or amp settings or even if anything is plugged into the front.. there is a low droning hum from my cabinet that is pretty annoying.

Ive tried it through multiple cabs to make sure it's not just the cab, then other amps through the original cab to be double sure and they were quiet. It's running into a power conditioner unit and the cable for the cabinet is double shielded high quality speaker wire. It's also likely not a ground loop because a quick test of defeating the ground at the plug changes nothing.

Again the noise is through the speakers, these new Archons don't have standby switches so if it's on its go time.

Does anyone have any insight? It's not like a loud brash hum it's just a really low frequency dull, bassy hum. Im not sure I'll be able to live with it long term if it's something you just have to accept.

 

[László]

Hey there fellers.

I have a strange conundrum with my Archon 50 head that just came in. It sounds great by the way, very "PRS".

Whenever it's on, no matter the channel lead/clean, or amp settings or even if anything is plugged into the front.. there is a low droning hum from my cabinet that is pretty annoying.

Ive tried it through multiple cabs to make sure it's not just the cab, then other amps through the original cab to be double sure and they were quiet. It's running into a power conditioner unit and the cable for the cabinet is double shielded high quality speaker wire. It's also likely not a ground loop because a quick test of defeating the ground at the plug changes nothing.

Again the noise is through the speakers, these new Archons don't have standby switches so if it's on its go time.

Does anyone have any insight? It's not like a loud brash hum it's just a really low frequency dull, bassy hum. Im not sure I'll be able to live with it long term if it's something you just have to accept.

You didn't say whether you tried plugging in only the guitar into the front of the amp, or for that matter, unplugging everything from the amp and seeing if there's hum.

If you unplug everything from the front of the amp, and the amp isn't making noise, it's something else in your signal chain. Could even be a bad cable.

You might say, "This doesn't happen with my other amps." Fine, every grounding scheme is different.

If you're using a pedalboard or other effects, are you 100% sure you don't have a 60 Hz ground loop?

If the amp makes noise with everything unplugged, it might be a bad tube.

 

[MWebster]

Well I took it to the dealer, turned it on and it whispered. It was so quiet. Brought it back home and it's got the same hum.

I'm using a dr.z z-best 2x12 cabinet but I can't see it being the cabinet. Is it my power at home? I do live in a rural setting. I'm also using a special power bar that is supposed to filter out dirty power, so to speak.

To confirm, it's a hum that is present regardless of if anything is plugged in to the front of the amp. I'm also pretty certain about the pedals, when I am plugged in there's no additional noise. I bought a separate CLOKS power supply for them.

 

[chewpac]

For what it’s worth I’m experiencing something similar with my Archon 50. Mine is a late model USA version, and I’m getting basically the exact same symptoms. I’ve swapped tubes around to no avail. this is persistent and annoying.

I spoke with a local tech this afternoon, and he said he’d be happy to check it out, but also that there has been a large increase in radio frequencies over the past few years that can cause this type of issue. He said he recently had an Ampeg in the shop that had been noisy in one location and very quiet in others.

I’m going to bring it to my singer’s place tomorrow to see how it behaves before I plan on bringing it in to the shop.

keep me posted on your progress!

 

[smalltownjon]

Mine has a little hum as well. A lot when the loop of on. Plenty of hiss as well. I feel like it might be a design flaw and some sort of ground loop issue internally. Idk.

 

[chewpac]

Well I took it to the dealer, turned it on and it whispered. It was so quiet. Brought it back home and it's got the same hum.

I'm using a dr.z z-best 2x12 cabinet but I can't see it being the cabinet. Is it my power at home? I do live in a rural setting. I'm also using a special power bar that is supposed to filter out dirty power, so to speak.

To confirm, it's a hum that is present regardless of if anything is plugged in to the front of the amp. I'm also pretty certain about the pedals, when I am plugged in there's no additional noise. I bought a separate CLOKS power supply for them.

So I was able to test mine at my singer’s place last night - it was silent. No hum, fx loop was perfectly quiet, etc. looks like it’s something to do with my space at home.

I have to say that this is interesting. The Archons must be particularly sensitive, as my other amps do not have these symptoms.

Now to figure out the problem and see what I can do to fix it....

 

[MWebster]

I believe it's a power quality type thing. Because mine was silent as well elsewhere. The darn thing! I tried defeating the ground and it changed nothing. That's also a dangerous thing to do. After lots of reading if your power sucks you can buy an isolation transformer with an outlet on the output side. It basically makes the output side very clean and this has helped many with this issue but they're not cheap.

 

[Davey]

looks like it’s something to do with my space at home.

I was going to mention this

All of my amps are quiet, but I have one that made noise and no matter what I've tried, I couldnt get it to quiet down.
Finally, I picked up an ebtech hum eliminator hooked up via 4 cable method and problem solved.

Still dont know exactly what it was, but its fine now and although my ocd is killing me, I'm not going to mess with it.

I'll add one more thing, maybe try different outlets in your home, maybe its just that one your using.

 

[bodia]

This happened at a buddy’s house. He even hired an electrician to try and figure it out. End of the day, it turned out to be the wireless unit that the water company installed so they could read his water meter remotely.

 

[ViperDoc]

This. Turn off your wireless network and see if it changes.