Noisy 6505+ help?

[Falloffthebonetone]

My guitarist has a 6505+ and the thing sounds great and all but we've noticed it's pretty noisy. If the pre-gain is past 3 we get this peculiarly obnoxious white noise coming from it. In addition the tone doesn't change too much for the guitar past 4 or 5 either, it just gets more noisy and feeds back more. This is all with the post-gain around 4 or 5 too, like garage/small bar/recording playing levels We're aware it's a noisier amp than most and it should be something we expect of it too, but still. Is this something we just have to deal with, or is there away around it? Is something wrong with it? Is there some kind of mod? Gear adjustment? He uses an LTD EC-1000FR that has EMGs which I know are really sensitive and hitting the amp harder so I know that's not helping.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

That amp is so over the top gainwise that the noise floor is ridiculous. And even when you dial everything back, trying to get a better midgain tone, it just sounds ............I dunno....not that great. It's hard to even get a good clean sound out of the clean channel. I don't know why they didn't just stick with the 6505. They had to redesign it to the II version, which has a crazy amount of gain.

The only thing you can really do is try some different 12AX7's in the 1st position. Borrow them from other positions if you don't have spares lying around. Maybe the Chinese 12AX7A that's there is noisier than most.

Plug the guitar straight into the amp, with the amp powered by a power conditioner, and see if it gets better.
Sometimes, more noise is introduced once you've hooked up a pedalboard.

 

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

The 5150II/6505+ has a tad less gain than the 5150/6505 and A-B'd side by side they are EXTREMELY similar sounding amps, the original having a bit more lower mids and slightly more aggressive sounding, while the 5150II is tighter and slightly more higher mid focused.

Anyway, something sounds seriously amiss here.
Post-gain on 4 and above is loud, and I mean, LOUD with a normally working amp and good cabinet. Loud enough to drown out an entire band, easily. The amp doesn't really get much louder after about 4.5 anyway, just turns into gradually more and more mushy, fizzy garbage as the power amp section begins to take on a heavy job.
Post-gain on 3 to 3.3 should be ALL you need in a 2 guitar band playing any kind of heavy guitar music.
So, some things to consider

1. Your fellow guitarist has a godawful terrible cabinet with incredibly inefficient speakers
2. There is something wrong with the amp
3. You guys are half deaf

If it's not either 1 or 3, might be time to have a tech look at it.

I've never found the 6505+ to be any noisier than most other high gain tube amps, but of course they can benefit from a noise gate pedal.
And yes, the amp does tend to get more compressed and not change much tonally after a certain point on the gain (depending on pickups, whether you boost the front end or not etc)

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

The noise gate doesn't work. We are a 1 guitarist band and he is the quietest one in it in feedback from the audience, not just us, this is him at 5 on post and like 6 on pre. And we aren't even as loud as most. Don't get me wrong, we're loud but we don't THRIVE on our volume, and like I said we play bars and smaller time gigs. The cab is the Peavy one loaded with the Shefield's, and we do actually think that is the weak point in his setup, next to his digitech multiFX pedal which isn't helping, but he's building a legit pedalboard right now. I guess it is time to take it to a tech.

 

[allstarrme]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

There are a few people that mod the peavey amps to reduce the amount of buzz/hiss and background noise or can add an Adjustable noise reduction circuit right into the amp on the lead channel. Its not super cheap but really seems to help with this. You may even be able to find out how to do this yourself if you dig hard enough. I live near both Voodoo amps and FJA mods and would have them work on it if it was me.

 

[LatsMcGee]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

I had the combo, when I upgraded the tubes and the speaker the hissy thing went away.....I never used any noise clamps with it....

 

[ken361]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

I had the combo, when I upgraded the tubes and the speaker the hissy thing went away.....I never used any noise clamps with it....

same here! prb bad preamp tubes

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

The noise gate doesn't work. We are a 1 guitarist band and he is the quietest one in it in feedback from the audience, not just us, this is him at 5 on post and like 6 on pre. And we aren't even as loud as most. Don't get me wrong, we're loud but we don't THRIVE on our volume, and like I said we play bars and smaller time gigs. The cab is the Peavy one loaded with the Shefield's, and we do actually think that is the weak point in his setup, next to his digitech multiFX pedal which isn't helping, but he's building a legit pedalboard right now. I guess it is time to take it to a tech.

From what you're describing and my experience with those amps I think it's in dire need of a retube. Peavey cabs are pretty decent and quite loud. I used to gig with a 412MS under a Silverface Bassman and couldn't get the thing past 4-5 on the volume before people's faces were torn off. I've run a 5150-2 through my cab and it was LOUD. It had a big of his but nothing than made it unusable.

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[TSE]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

http://wisdomsguitar.com/peavey-5150-and-a-boss-ns-2-noise-suppressor

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

http://wisdomsguitar.com/peavey-5150-and-a-boss-ns-2-noise-suppressor

I think he's got noisy tubes, which will hiss even with the volume control at 0. A noise suppressor won't help that.

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[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

Thank you all SO much for your help. We got into the studio last night and sure enough, after 20 minutes of having the amp running, the tubes finally gave out. So old tubes were the problem. We didn't consider it much because he had the tubes changed less than a year ago, but one thing he neglected to metion to me is that he once left it on for 2 days straight by accident at our drummers house... Nice. But seriously you were all a huge help. Any replacement tubes anyone can recommend for the thing?

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

Thank you all SO much for your help. We got into the studio last night and sure enough, after 20 minutes of having the amp running, the tubes finally gave out. So old tubes were the problem. We didn't consider it much because he had the tubes changed less than a year ago, but one thing he neglected to metion to me is that he once left it on for 2 days straight by accident at our drummers house... Nice. But seriously you were all a huge help. Any replacement tubes anyone can recommend for the thing?

No problem.

As far as tubes, there's lots of options these days, depending on how you want to tweak the tone.

If it were me I'd put JJ ECC83S's in the preamp and try to find a good deal on a matched quartet of SED/Winged C 6L6GC's.

EVH himself was running Electro Harmonix 6L6GC's in his Peaveys.

Mullard reissue 12AX7's are supposed to be pretty sweet, too.

Make sure you get the thing biased properly by a good amp tech.

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[TSE]

Re: Noisy 6505+ help?

The best results with my 6505+ is with Ruby 12ax7hg in v6, v1, v2, and v5 with JJ ecc803s in v3 and v4. He may like a Tung Sol in v1. I was not a fan of these as they accentuate the lows and highs making the mid sound subdued. As for power tubes go with JJ6L6GC or Ruby 6L6GCMSTR. I wouldn't drop the cash on SED or NOS tubes. With the insane amount of gain on tap in these amps you wouldn't really tell the difference.