Listen here young whippersnapper, not all of us old farts need walkers - some of us get by just fine with our canes and orthopedic shoes.
is it bad plugged in gain at 7 and volume on 4 red 1? mines pretty quiet also use Mogami golds
Several of the tube amps I've owned over the years have occasionally developed an intermittent crackling/static noise (including the DSL40C). Most of the time this is because of dust, condensation, etc. that builds up within the tube socket. What I've always done, on the advice of an old amp tech I used to know, is take out the power tubes and spray the pins with electronic contact cleaner. Then, work the pins back & forth in the holes a couple of times. This has worked for me every time, no kidding. Anyway, it's worth a try before you go through the trouble of getting new tubes, you can find a can of contact cleaner at an auto parts store for about 10 bucks!
Just got a new DSL40C and it has a bad preamp tube. Sweetwater will either replace the one tube with a JJ ECC83, or cut me a deal on 4 new tubes. Here's what I have to choose from:
I had the same experience with the reverb - it was almost non-existent with the stock tubes but when I swapped out the 4 preamp tubes all at once it suddenly came to life. When my PI crapped out not long after buying the amp, I popped in my current preamp setup - MESA SPAX7, two regular MESA 12-AX7s and a Sovtek 12-AX7LPS in the PI slot (later added Groove Tube EL34Ms as well).
You're always going to get some level of hiss from the Red high-gain channel, but with a good V1 tube you can certainly cut down on some of it. The stock tubes were definitely a little noisier on the Red channel - I was using my Decimator noise gate in the effects loop until I swapped the preamp tubes, now I don't feel much need to do so unless I'm playing at fairly high volume.Page 421
Great tone and awesome playing. Thanks for pointing out that post to me. I set my amp to the same settings that you have and there's a good amount of hiss at that point. Good to hear from someone that has the SPAX7 in V1 and be able to hear how quiet it is. I'm not expecting a miracle - just hoping it will cut down on the hiss somewhat.
On my way home from a customer today I passed a Guitar Center so I stopped in. I turned up a DSL40C with nothing plugged in and it was pretty noisy too. I guess that's the nature of this beast. There happen to be Blackstar HT Club 40 right next to the DSL so I did the same. When turned all the way up it had what seemed about the same amount of hiss. The difference was the Blackstar's hiss wasn't noticeable until maybe 6.5/7 - then it ramped up quickly. Oh, and don't worry - it was simply an unscientific test. I have no intention of downgrading...
