Insane buzzing on my RM50! Anyone else?

[ak37]

I was about to trade off my RM50 to a member but during my final jam session with it before I packed it up and it started this insane annoying loud buzzing sound. It made no difference which channel it was on. It didn't stop until I switched the standby on. I checked the power tubes and had no led's lit. They seemed fine. It is the only time it has ever done this. I was wondering if anyone else had this issue. After a few times of switching off and back on it quit and has been fine now. I don't feel comfortable trading it to someone if it is on or about to go onto to the fritz!

 

[ak37]

New power tubes did the trick!

 

[Julia]

Power tubes can get into the dark redplate zone and make that noise, yet not be hot enough to pop a fuse.

 

[ak37]

Thanks for the info!

 

[kc2eeb]

I had a really bad hum and noise problem with mine and it turned out to be a loose mounting screw holding the power supply/diode/filter board
to the chassis. Two of the screws are marked chassis ground, 1 is near the heat sink for the heater DC voltage regulator (where those vent holes are cut) and the other at 3 o'clock to that. One was really loose.
You have to pull the chassis to get to them.

 

[MasterOf1Angel]

sometimes that is just the power supply that you are plugged into. changing plug locations helped for me.

 

[bhuard75]

i agree that bad tubes or tubes on their way out can do some create some weird sounding problems. this spring two tubes were going bad in my rm100 and it sounded like a whirl wind tornado inside my cab. drove me nuts.

 

[ak37]

Thanks people! I will file these to memory for future reference. I am not a total newbie to tube amps but I am a newbie to guitar and playing through them. I have been a drummer since I was 14 and guitar is something I had allways wanted to do so after a parting of ways with my best writing partner/guitar player (he moved) I had to try to take it up myself. I have an old Ampeg V4 and purchased a pristine late 70's Marshall half stack for $300 from a guy that was about to pawn it to go buy some crack in 1992! I have just never had them long enough to experience any of the little quirks that make up their personality. The old Marshall I rolled to the afore mentioned guitar player for what I paid for it. I have loved the tube sound every since. I had a Blackheart B5VH which is a nice clean sounding little head, then a B52 AT100, then a Carvin x100b and a Crate V33, then a Hughes and Kettner Tri Amp and lastly my RM50. All of these had their use but they just were not for me. Currently my RM50 is going to CrankyRay for a trade for his back up RM100. I will say that I will remain with the Randall Family. I just wanted three channels. That is why I was asking about tube noise. The amp was only a few months old as far as my ownership of it from the store and I got it new. I had no idea how long it had set on the floor there so I didn't know about how long the tubes had been used and to what extremes. I just didn't want to trade Ray something that was gonna give him problems. I new if I asked and there were some common issues that were major some of you folks would have some insight. This has been a great forum since I have been here, other than the rip incident. I don't want to have kharma waiting around the corner for me for passing off a potential problem child.