Hi again, all.
Well, I've completed the build of my 63 Vibroverb clone. It's a beautiful amp and sounds killer with my Gretsch G6228. I do have some noise I'd like to minimize as much as possible, but I understand some is more or less accepted with these amps.
The primary issue I'd like to solicit help with is some hum that is proportional to the reverb dwell setting. It is unaffected by the volume knob on the bright channel, of course, and seems to be 120hz. This is with the tank plugged in. If I disconnect the tank, the noise is much gnarlier and seems to be louder and also a combination 60 and 120hz hum and buzz salad. I'll include a hi-res picture so you can see how the wires are run. I haven't done any trouble shooting other than replacing the 12ax7 in v3 with a 5751, and that just to tame the rate of gain at the knob a little. But the hum remains. It's not so loud as to be unusable, and in fact with the reverb knob at about 3 it is very usable at bedroom levels; I could probably gig with it in a noisy club and nobody would notice, but I'd like to reduce the noise floor if possible. I haven't yet swapped out the JJ 12ax7 in v4, but I do have a decent NOS replacement I could try in there. I just don't think that's the most likely culprit.
Of course, when the tremolo is engaged it ampliflies the mild hiss that is present there and I attribute the most likely cause of that to the presence of carbon comp resistors. Is there one in particular I might consider swapping out for a metal film that might reduce this?
Any wisdom or observations you can share would be appreciated.
Picture, as promised...
