Rockerverb 50 (MKI) head standby switch

[BlueWookieJim]

Hi, I've been wondering if this is normal, or possibly an issue.

I have a "new to me" Rockerverb 50 (MKI) head, that I picked up a bit over a week ago.

The thing I've noticed, unlike my rocker 30, is that sometimes when I come out of standby from On, I get a good speaker pop, and some scratchy / static noise. I'd say this happens 50% of the time. I also get a speaker pop occasionaly when going from On to Standby.

My Rocker 30 combo has always been dead silent in this regard, so I'm wondering if I should be concerned or not.

[Les Paul Lover]

Hi, I've been wondering if this is normal, or possibly an issue.

I have a "new to me" Rockerverb 50 (MKI) head, that I picked up a bit over a week ago.

The thing I've noticed, unlike my rocker 30, is that sometimes when I come out of standby from On, I get a good speaker pop, and some scratchy / static noise. I'd say this happens 50% of the time. I also get a speaker pop occasionaly when going from On to Standby.

My Rocker 30 combo has always been dead silent in this regard, so I'm wondering if I should be concerned or not.

I remember someone having this issue in the past with an amp, not sure which model. I think I remember that it was suggested that this could be a discharging capacitor.

My RV50MKI never pops.

[Norrin Radd]

My MKI also never pops. Something is definitely not right.

[BlueWookieJim]

Bummer. Hopefully it something my amp guy can address. I've been looking for one of these for quite a while. Other than the occasional pop, everything else about it sounds great.

I was thinking of getting it retubed, just to be safe. Maybe I should get this checked out first, just to be safe.

[Phlowen]

Yes! I experienced this same thing with my 50 MKI at one point. I was already planning on re-tubing it, so when the pop/static started happening I went ahead and replaced all the tubes. That fixed it for me. I would still occasionally get a pop when going from or to standby, and more often when I would turn off the power while it was on standby, but it was never concerning and the static noise never came back.

[BlueWookieJim]

Yes! I experienced this same thing with my 50 MKI at one point. I was already planning on re-tubing it, so when the pop/static started happening I went ahead and replaced all the tubes. That fixed it for me. I would still occasionally get a pop when going from or to standby, and more often when I would turn off the power while it was on standby, but it was never concerning and the static noise never came back.

Did you do a full re-tube kit, or just the power tubes?

[Phlowen]

I just went ahead and did 'em all at the same time.

[a.hun]

I just went ahead and did 'em all at the same time.

Which some of us don't actually advise ever doing, especially the preamp valves.

Sure you want to change power valves as full (matched) sets when needed. (And make sure that a tech checks the amp bias for the new ones!) But preamp valves can have quite an effect on the sound / feel of an amp, sometimes for the better sometimes not. If you want to know which ones work better for you than always swap them once at a time. That way you can easily identify which actually make an improvement, which don't. If they don't improve things than ut the original back and try another slot. This also helps to weed out ones actually causing problems. Otherwise I'd advise never throwing aay any known good working valves - not just a waste of valves but known good ones will actually be more dependable than new ones as the highest failure rate is in the first few hours of use when any weak ones often show up.

Preamp valves should also outlast power valves by about a factor of 4 - 5. Changing them all at once is wasteful and pointless, even counter productive. I only ever swap them out if they start to cause problems, and only the ones actually causing problems. Spend a little time getting to know your valves and your amp will sound and work all the better for it.

(IMO anyway...)


Andy.