5150 signature

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dvdglfs
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Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2023 2:49 am

5150 signature

Post by dvdglfs » Tue Jun 06, 2023 3:08 am

Good morning,
I've just purchased a Peavey 5150 (signature) head and I have two questions about it:
  • It produces an important hum that my noise gate (in the effects loop) doesn't seem to attenuate. It's also very microphonic: as soon as I approach my guitar within a meter, the hum increases significantly. It disappears when the amp is in standby though. I tried swapping the preamp tubes, to no avail. Do you think I should change them? Or could it be due to something else?
  • I would like to know his age. I entered its serial number (10480624) into Peavey's lookup tool but the only information I get is that it was built in 1995 or later. Is there a way to know the year of manufacture more precisely?
Thank you very much for the kind help! Cheers,
David

susanoakes
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Joined: Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:17 pm

Re: 5150 signature

Post by susanoakes » Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:28 pm

dvdglfs wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2023 3:08 am
Good morning,
I've just purchased a Peavey 5150 (signature) head and I have two questions about it: pizza tower
  • It produces an important hum that my noise gate (in the effects loop) doesn't seem to attenuate. It's also very microphonic: as soon as I approach my guitar within a meter, the hum increases significantly. It disappears when the amp is in standby though. I tried swapping the preamp tubes, to no avail. Do you think I should change them? Or could it be due to something else?
  • I would like to know his age. I entered its serial number (10480624) into Peavey's lookup tool but the only information I get is that it was built in 1995 or later. Is there a way to know the year of manufacture more precisely?
Thank you very much for the kind help! Cheers,
David
Hi, I also bought a Peavey 5150 and here is my advice. Hope that it will be useful for you. The hum could be due to a bad (microphonic) preamp tube1. It is also possible that the hum is caused by a ground loop. As for the microphonic issue, it could be due to a bad preamp tube. You may want to try swapping out the preamp tubes to see if that helps.

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dak
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Location: Germany

Re: 5150 signature

Post by dak » Fri Jun 23, 2023 5:14 pm

dvdglfs wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2023 3:08 am
Good morning,
I've just purchased a Peavey 5150 (signature) head and I have two questions about it:
  • It produces an important hum that my noise gate (in the effects loop) doesn't seem to attenuate. It's also very microphonic: as soon as I approach my guitar within a meter, the hum increases significantly.
That sounds like the amp might be not properly grounded. The fault may be in the amp or in your house installation, and if you have a rocker switch for various ground bypass options (like the domestic, 120V models have), trying the various positions might make some difference.

But I think that's more for switching noise rather than hum. Regardless of the rocker switch, your amp should be grounded for safety.

By the way, that is not what is being called "microphonic", at least not unless you are loudly humming yourself. "Microphonic" refers to picking up vibrations/sound, not to picking up electric/magnetic fields.

dvdglfs
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Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2023 2:49 am

Re: 5150 signature

Post by dvdglfs » Mon Jun 26, 2023 2:52 pm

Thank you very much for the help guys! Unfortunately, mine doesn't have the ground switch. But I'll look into the preamp tubes and try the amp on another circuit to see if it isn't due to my (old) house installation.

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