Blackstar Artisan 15 - White Noise

Shipwreck

Hi folks, 

I bought an Artisan 15 last year for peanuts and got it serviced at Christmas as was making some funky noises. I haven't used it since but dusted it off for an upcoming show and it's making a fair of white noise (esp on the 15w mode) when "on". (silent on standby). It seems more extreme when turning the volume or tone knobs up.

I must confess I'm not sure if:

a) there is still a fault (and if there is anything I can do besides breaking my back to the tech) or
b) there is an expected amount of noise with an amp of this nature (I am used to 1-0.1w amps at home - I noticed some clean hiss when I cranked my Rocker 15 up to 15w yesterday) or
c) my flats power is dirty (I reckon it's pre every health and safety reg tbh)

any thoughts? 

De_Batz

White noise isn’t dirty power, I wouldn’t have thought. I own the artisan 30 and it’s pretty quiet at idle, but not silent. We get a flanged noise from the mains when the nearby industrial unit runs some of its gear…

White noise is probably preamp. For a very basic diagnostic check, try running the low power mode louder and the 15W mode at a similar volume. If it makes the noise go away by using the low power mode, something is off in the 15W mode. If not it is probably coming from the preamp. That amp has two channels so a thing to try would be switching your lead to the other channel and seeing if that makes a difference. 

If you have a spare ECC83, worth swapping it out as well. The EF86 may have more idle noise but it’s less likely you have a known good spare!

relic245

I get a lot of white noise with my marshall DSL40CR when the power valves need changing.

impmann

In my experience, not all EF86s are created equal - that can cause noise issues,

De_Batz

relic245 said:

I get a lot of white noise with my marshall DSL40CR when the power valves need changing.

But in that situation does it vary with control settings? I would have guessed not…

LionAquaLooper

“Black star. White noise” would make s great album name. 

relic245

De_Batz said:

relic245 said:

I get a lot of white noise with my marshall DSL40CR when the power valves need changing.

But in that situation does it vary with control settings? I would have guessed not…

Never checked to be honest, I had a spare set of valves and just tried them to try and eliminate the problem and it did.

Shipwreck

Thanks guys for all your input. If it is the valves (quite likely) - is it likely to be all of them or largely the pre or post? Might order some but would rather avoid the hit of a full revalve 

Shipwreck

Update: swallowed the 20 quid round trip in an Uber / upper body workout and took it to my tech. Quite possibly me overreacting, having noisey lights and all the guys in the room were like "EF86... of course". It sounded better in their room and only dimed was it super noisy so reckon I might be used to the 0.5/1w noise I get from my home amp

maw4neu

I've had the Artisan 15 in both Head and Combo format . . . Massively regret selling the Head in truth, but I can honestly say that I don't remember either of them being particularly noisy amps, quite the opposite really, especially the Head . . . Most valve amps have "some" white noise, and that can be a real pain, especially if your trying to record with it . . .   

De_Batz

Shipwreck said:

Update: swallowed the 20 quid round trip in an Uber / upper body workout and took it to my tech. Quite possibly me overreacting, having noisey lights and all the guys in the room were like "EF86... of course". It sounded better in their room and only dimed was it super noisy so reckon I might be used to the 0.5/1w noise I get from my home amp

Sounds like you’ve established that the problem, if there is one, is in the preamp as it gets noisier as you turn it up. 

I’m in the tinkerer camp here. If I think there’s even a remote hint of a problem, my brain won’t switch off so I’d be swapping tubes and poking around like the poorly-qualified idiot I am… which doesn’t help you, just putting it out there!

Shipwreck

Haha - I get it tbf, which is why I'd rather let some professionals take a look under the hood and reassure my anxiety

TheBigDipper

Shipwreck said:

Haha - I get it tbf, which is why I'd rather let some professionals take a look under the hood and reassure my anxiety

Not wanting to get inside your head with my own thoughts, but I'm exactly the same - once heard, it can't be unheard. So I try and sort it out myself. Then I take it to the local amp guy (who is pretty good and well respected locally). He then tells me there's nothing wrong with it and my first (unfair to him) thought is he doesn't know how to fix it and so he's just fobbing me off.