F-50: Which Tube in V1 to reduce hiss???

hi all,

Have just received my shipped F-50 today. Ok the noise it produces is an issue and Mesa were helpful but said that it was just part of the amp and designed to be used for a live setting where the hiss wouldn't be much of an issue. In general I don't like hiss and will play this at home a lot so really want to cut that hiss as much as possible. Even live I hate hiss!!!

So any recommendations on which tubes (brands) that will work well.
I have heard Brimars are good. and 12AU7 have a lower value. Could someone point me in the right direction before I go buying a load of tubes on Ebay to experiment with!

Cheers,
Stephen

Ps. 1st time Mesa Owner and with my brief time with it I do really like it, but considering Mesa are such renowned amps i'm surprised that this issue couldn't have been tackled better that it is.

Tung Sol 12AX7 Reissue could be what you're looking for! Lowest noise and microphonics and best sounding for many people

Thanks for advice. Mesa said that if i wanted to cut the noise on the clean channel then Tube Position V1 could be experimented with.

V2 = Crunch channel
V3 = FX Loop
V4 = Phase / Output stage

Q. Should i just change V1 (and perhaps V2)? Or should i change the lot?

Q Any point changeint V3 (FX) & V4 (output stage) - it looks like they have less of an effect on the tone- or is there more than meets the eye here?

Q. What about the Power Tubes (2X 6L6's) - change or leave as stock.

Have read quite a lot of the reivews on Harmony Central but the are not clear what is the best way to reduce the hiss in the F-50. Replace tubes has been clear but to replace all or certain ones could do with clarification.

Any more tips for the newly fledged Mesa user?

Cheers,
Stephen

listen to ytse jam,,,tung-sol 12ax7 reissue,, they are great
http://www.dougstubes.com/12ax7.htm

my fault,,didnt finish reading your thread before I answered,,stupid me.
If you have the cash,,I would purchase a few tung-sol's.
V1 is the most important position for a good quiet tube. If its noisy the following tubes seem to pronounce it.
If you get a few new tubes you can experiment to see what sounds the best to you.
I own a rectoverb combo,it has 5 preamp tubes in it. Tung-sols in v1,v3,
and v5 phase inverter which is balanced,,but I cant say balanced in v5 helped anything or not. V2 is a stock boogie tube. I found it made the sound a little edgier. And if your not going to use your loop at all I wouldnt bother with that tube. Otherwise Ive tried the stock boogie tube,a JJ, and an electro harmonix tube in my loop position and it didnt seem to make any difference.
If the power tubes are working fine I would leave them alone. Theres nothing wrong with boogie tubes. Try some preamp tubes first,,they are cheaper than power tubes,,no need for matching,and probably will affect your sound the most,,,,good luck to you.
Good luck to you

+1 for the Tung Sols

I've got Tung Sols in my V1 and V2 in my F-50. Really happy with those tubes.

Are you sure it's the preamp tubes? Could it be dirty power or your cables? If swapping the tubes doesn't help, you may want to try a power conditioner, or an ISP Decimator in the FX loop. Just a thought

-AJH

hi all,

Many thanks for all the advice. The Boogie Board is really a vibrant place, pleasantly surprised at all the activity.

Hey recto-robbie, thanks for the heads-up on dougs tubes...
http://www.dougstubes.com/12ax7.htm

Gave me reasonable price on shipping here to good auld Dublin, Ireland, other tube sites were quoting up to $29 for shipping. Doug = $8, sweet.

Got two Tung Sol 12 AX7 reissues shipped so will have to wait and see. Will defo to some serious testing of Mesa Vs. Tung sol Vs. ECC83's that were stock in my Marshall JCM2000 TSL122 (now with High gain JJ's full set)

Please God the tube change will help kill some of the F-50's inherent noise. Its the amp for sure. Amp is new and going guitar, (even experimented with Line 6 Variax 700 famous for Zero noise/hum etc) straight into amp with gold plated lead and f50 is noisy. Even with no gtr plugged in you can hear all the hiss of this amp at idle.

Great amp liking it the more i play it - review on Harmony Central gave amp 6 initially and then 9/10 when the hiss problem got solved - so i am not alone!

Ok time will tell,
Cheers all for the advice.
Stephen

Ps. I use a NS-2 to kill the noice from my Indyguitarist Multi Drive, GE-7 Eq(mod), Cs-3(mod) & DS-2(mod). Works like a treat, especially when loud.

Question: Would it be possible to build a Noise Supressor into the amp to deal with the tube noise? To somehow loop the circuit through a Noise Gate!? Line 6 do it - but i guess you can do almost anything with computers. Fantastic to get that pure tube tone without the hiss. The best of both worlds (tube 4 tone and digital 4 silence!) I guess that is more a question for the Mesa product development department, but anyone have any opinions on that?

To Dopeman! V1 + V2 Tung sol 12 Ax7 - Effect on hiss???

Did you have the same problem with hiss with your f50? Did the Tung sol's help with the hiss problem?

To MesaENGR412:
Also its not dirty power as i tested my marshall Tsl122 beside it and is fine(not silence but the little amount of noise is hardly noticable - oh for the boogie to be that way soon) - cheers for the trouble shooting![/b]

I never had a problem with hiss on my F-50.

Btw are you using a lot of preamp gain or is there always a problem with hiss?

If the hiss is happening regardless of channel/gain then I would say there is definitely something wrong with the amp. I would assume it's a noisy tube... might be something else though. Don't expect the amp or any other amp with this much gain to be hiss-free if you are diming the preamp gain on the dirty channel.

Anyway try the Tung Sols in V1 and V2 and see if that helps. Even if it doesn't those are really good tubes to have anyway.

Not using a huge amount of pre-amp gain - mainly concerned with the clean channel - with gain and master at 5 its quite noticable in my quite attic space. Mostly using the Clean so i'm not really driving the preamp gain hard at all.

So Dopeman with your F50 was the clean channel always nice and quiet? I think that i feel quite strongly about the hiss (well - its more amp noise) - so i'll do a lot of testing with tubes etc... and will record the results on paper and on audio.

Have my Marshall TSL122 beside this and it is real quite in comparison to the F50-so while it is a tube amp and i expect some noise i don't expect that amount of noise-ok fingers crossed that i can tame this down...

Cheers

Sounds like a noisy tube.

Was just onto the seller in the USA. Helpful. Said the amp was dead quite in the shop. Looks like on its long journey from the USA to Ireland a tube must have got travel sick. Will try the re-tube experimentation ASAP!

Will post with update soon!

Mesa SPAX7 in V1 :!: