trinityamps.com

When I built the turret board for my amp, I installed the component leads into the turret holes and soldered them. I need to replace a few of the carbon film resistors with metal film resistors to attempt to reduce the amount of hiss when the amp in cranked up (the hiss (not a hum) overpowers the guitar at that point.

My previous attempts at desoldering components in other projects hasn't had the best results. My question is this: Is it acceptable to clip each end of the lead being replaced as close to the turret as possible and then wrap the new lead around the turret with a good mechanical connection and solder on the outside of the turret? Am I going to cause additional problems doing it this way?

No problem. That's one of the reasons I prefer turrets over eyelets... they are very flexible in their connection options. In fact, when it comes to jumper wires, that's how I do it.

But, even a cheap "solder sucker" device will work just fine if you want a more consistent and clean look to your build.

I ended up buying a Aoyue 474A++ Desoldering System. It gets most of the solder out of the turret and then it's just a matter of heating the turret for a couple of seconds to soften the rest so I can remove the lead.

heh... that'll certainly do the job. I was actually referring to the $10 plastic guys with a spring-activated action.

I have one of those, just could never get it to work effectively.

Keen to know how it works out for you. On a rare occasion, we used metal film for the plate resistors. Change your tubes first tho to make sure its not just a noisy tube.

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

I've tried two completely different sets of tubes, which didn't have any appreciable effect on the hiss. I did have some weird issues with microphonics in the V1 position (a ringing when tapped with a stick) with several of the tubes. Moving the same tube to V2 or V3 the problems would disappear.

I changed the input resistors and V1 grid and plate resistors to metal film and that tamed the hiss somewhat. I can use the amp without the hiss overwhelming the guitar as long as I keep the volume/gain/tone controls at around 5 or less. Much more than that the hiss is definitely as loud or louder than the guitar.

I have a complete set of metal film resistors for the amp, but I just haven't felt up to tackling the changes, mostly due to frustration.

Something's not right somewhere... mine is very quiet. Do you have an audio probe? If not it is really easy to make one. Use that to pinpoint the source of the noise.

I have the parts to make one, just haven't done it yet. One thing that has kept me from doing it is actually how I should do it, i.e., with the amp on a dummy load or not and whether or not to use a signal generator as I probe. Since the noise is present even without anything plugged in, I'm not sure what the best course of action would be. Any suggestions?