Milkman too noisy

[Nick Waugh]

I have a Milkman pedal steel mini - separate head and speaker cab. I love the sound but it's just too noisy. Not really problem live and in rehearsal. The problem is when I record. Everytime the engineer remarks on the noise and has to try and mitigate the noise. I had a session today and I decided that's it; I am going to get rid of it. Tim Marcus has been as helpful as he could be, even allowing me to return the amp to him from the UK. He upgraded the amp as mine is about 10 years old. He said the newer ones are less noisy. I didn't notice an improvement. So, my reason for posting was to ask for advice for a replacement for the Milkman, that is of similar quality, but that isn't so noisy. I am want to stick with a valve amp.

[Steve Mueller]

Try using a good 12AY7 in place of the 12AX7 in V1 position. It will make the amp a bit cleaner but also should cut out noise. I have a 2015 Mini with a 12AY7 in V1 and it's quiet as can be even cranked. V1 is the tube the farthest to the right looking at the amp from the rear. Also, get your tubes from Eurotubes. They completely test all tubes before shipping. A quirky tube can definitely cause noise problems. I've bought new tubes from other sources that were bad right out of the box.

[Ian Worley]

I wonder if the different voltage and frequency UK vs. USA makes any difference in how noisy the amp is

[Nick Waugh]

Thanks Steve. That is something I can try before thinking about replacement the Amp. I will give that a go. Yes, Ian, I hadn't considered that about voltage differences between our 2 great nations.

[Steve Lipsey]

I have two recent Minis and there is no noise whatsoever (and a long-ago older mini also had none that I can remember)....I have discovered that if you have a One Spot power supply in your chain, it can generate noise if plugged in with the wrong polarity...just turn it around to fix it. Or if you leave a cell phone on top of the amp, that can generate noise.
Mine are head+cab also...
I don't think you will find a quieter amp, and suspect that the noise is from something other than the amp itself...if the amp was fully upgraded it should have been fine...

[Stephen Cowell]

I have a Milkman pedal steel mini - separate head and speaker cab. I love the sound but it's just too noisy.
(snip)
I am want to stick with a valve amp.

These days the V1 preamp valve is the source of most of the noise... I'm sure Tim has gotten away from the carbon-comp resistors that plague older amps. You can spend crazy amounts of money chasing V1 tone, gain, and noise. Do you have a collection of 12A*7? Merely swapping a different one in will show you the difference, either bad or good. There are many different tubes that should work in that position... named 12AX7, 12AY7, ECC82, 7025, many others.

If you get another valve amp it will most probably have the same problem. Builders are limited to price points... if you require extreme performance from your V1 valve you'll need to do like the big boys and spend big bux on a Telefunken or other NOS valve... they are on the order of 300USD if you can find them.

This is new construction version, I have not tried them, but they are hand-selected for noise:
https://www.telefunken-elektroakustik.c ... ube-12au7/