Express 5:25, noise help

Team, my amp has two different types of noise, most noticeable on the clean channel. It's similar to what's described with other 50-watt amps: a "floor" of white noise proportional to the amount of gain and a popping type of white noise I can only describe as bacon frying. (No jokes here, please). The frying sound is only when the strings are played, not constant.

Now, some have said check and replace the tubes while others have said "have the amp repaired." Can anyone chime in if you've had a previously noisy amp that's quiet now and what needed to be done? Which tube was bad? What repair needed to be made?

Thanks to all in advance.


Ray

The hiss is normal and they say it can be somewhat tamed with tubes. Mine only does it a bit. Not enough to be a problem.

The "bacon frying" noise is not normal and should be looked it. Try tubes, if that doesn't help, bring it to a professional tech.

OK, is there anyone on the forum who had the problem, did something and then had it go away? If yes, let us know what you did so we may have a better starting point. Thanks to all in advance.

Ray

Hissing is tubes......the crackling is likely a bad coupling capacitor in the tone stack.......my 5:25 has the same problem; took it to a tech, he replaced the cap and all is well...........

OK, to keep everybody up to date on this, a buddy of mine came over with his 5:25 and it doesn't have as much hiss as mine. We swapped out the tubes one by one to find the culprit, but the excessive hiss remains. I have a call in to Boogie support and my local (if you can call two hours away local) authorized Boogie repair center.

When I have the good news of a resolution, I'll post it for all, friends. Many thanks for your insights so far.


Ray

Everyone, I wanted to post some very good news, not only for me but for everyone who feels they have a "noisy" amp like I did.

Kudos go out to two companies:
1. Mesa Boogie. I talked to Chris in the service department. Gave him the serial number, it was covered under warranty, no hassles whatsoever. Couldn't have asked for a more cooperative, professional person to be doing business with. He asked me to take it to an authorized service center, which I did.
2. Expert Electronics in Cincinnati. Marvin, owner. What a knowledgeable guy, supernice. He ran some tests, noticed some things and ordered parts from Boogie. Swapped them out, noise problem still there. He went back to Boogie and was able to get agreement on shipping the whole chassis back to Boogie to have them look at it and repair whatever the trouble was.

I just received the amp back last weekend. Sure, it took longer than expected, but all the repairs were free. All the noise I reported is gone. Yes, there's some small amount of hiss when you crank the gain, but that's life. I could not be happier with the product, the company and the authorized repair facility. In this day and age of blowoff customer service, these two people did more than right by me and I'd recommend them to anyone else on this board.

If you think your Express 5:25 is a bit too noisy, have it checked out. I did and the problem's fixed, for free. On top of that, I was jamming with my neighbors Saturday night, first time with the repaired amp and I was up against some 60-watters with tubes.

Guess who received a shout-out compliment from the crowd: "your guitar sounds fantastic!!!" (All the Boogie owners are nodding their heads in agreement. You know. Now I know).

You're up to date,


Ray

Thanks for the report Ray, but do you know what they did?
Thx

Friend, I wish I did. I had appointments and the wifey had to pick it up. Since Boogie fixed it, the authorized repair center was out of the loop.

I wish I could have posted "have the flux capacitor replaced, Doc!" or something helpful, but I'm not able to be any help in this area.

Ray

I had a reverb issue a while back (Accutronics tank failure) and Mesa/Boogie and their local authorized tech were fantastic!

I had a similar problem - bacon frying with an increasingly frequent (and loud) pop. Took it in - had to go back to Mesa. It was a bad screen or grid resistor (can't recall which). The hiss is still their and occasionally annoying when I'm playing low volume, but completely unnoticeable when it's cranked