The Steel Guitar Forum

I bought a Quilter Steelaire a couple of months ago. I notice when I turn up the master volume quite a bit and also turn up the Gain volume there is a, louder than I want it to be, hiss going on even if I plug direct from my guitar straight to the amp. Does anyone else have this annoying problem?
Thanks, Alan

Mine is very, very quiet. Ping Quilter support by email.

Alan,
I'll assume you're not running anything in the effects loop. Mine is dead quiet.

Let them know, they will take care of you.

Single coil pickup ?

Mine had a lot of white noise with the gains set as you described. Very audible in recordings and not acceptable for a high end, high priced amp. Not a deal breaker but definitely coming from the amp and present even with nothing plugged into the input. Very annoying!

Yes, I have a single coil True Tone on my guitar.
I called Quilter today and the gentleman I spoke with said to use the 1+2 channel and split the output to both channels. It still has the same hissing noise. I really like the amp but that really annoys me. Like you said, a high end amp should not do that.

Mine also hums a bit but I thought it was due to the pickup (single coil). Is it louder than the usual single coil hum ?

Mine is a hiss that I don't associate with a single coil hum but maybe it has something to do with it. I have not tried plugging in one of my Humbucker armpit guitars yet. I'll give it a try and see what happens tomorrow.

I can't find a schematic for the Quilter Steelaire online. Does anyone know what sort of opamps they use?

I personally have never been in a live situation with my Steelaire where I had to run the master or the gain so high as to get the kind of noise being described. I have several brand amplifiers and they all have white noise when turned up to an unrealistic playing level. If I listen carefully, I can hear minimal white noise at playing level, but no more than I get with my other amplifiers, and I do have to intentionally listen for it. I do use both channels together on my Steelaire. I am happy with mine and the great sound I get out of it. I am with Steve, the only time I hear white noise which is objectionable is when I intentionally run my master and gain setting above reasonable levels. I hope Alan can resolve the concern he is having with his Quilter.

I understand I'm not much help when I state my amp is quiet, but I think I may need to add that I rarely need to play at high volume. Most gigs are miked, and those in smaller rooms don't need to push Much air.

I haven't noticed it in recording as well, again, moderate volume.

Mine also hisses louder than it should. No guitar plugged in at "idle".
I think I read somewhere that this was an issue with some of the steelaires.
Quilter fixed under warranty, but shipping the amp. Argh.
I haven't had time to deal with it yet, but will.
Patrick

Hope we get a post from Quilter on this.

You may have the Distortion channel engaged... this will cause hiss if the Gain is up. All amps with gain channels do this to some degree. You should be able to get a clean sound with no hiss... bumping the Master up all the way, then bringing the Gain down, is another way to change the hiss coming out.

My amp had a lot of hiss (white noise), no distortion engaged, and this occurred in both the single channel and dual serial channel configurations. I set up my volume and gain levels to get good dynamics and expression out of the volume pedal, not for the anticipated maximum volume on a gig. So I like a lot of gain, but not a lot of volume, and reducing the gains so they don't hiss leaves me with way too low of a gain setting. Overall, it was a very nice sounding and lightweight amp but for over $1000 street price it should be very quiet even with the gains set high like I normally have them on my run of the mill Steel King and Peavey amps.

Interesting;

I get a "white noise" on my Quilter Steelaire with the gain set at (8) and the master volume at (8).

I also get the same "white noise) with my Peavey NV112 at the same settings.

As I recall, when I had my Peavey NV400 I would also get "white noise" at higher settings.

My Quilter was noisier than my NV400, Webb 6-14-E and Peavey Nash 112 at equivalent gain settings. Otherwise I would not have commented on it as being noisy. It's noisier than the standard I've come to expect from steel guitar amps, most of which have a street price $1000 less than the Quilter!

I have not tried the Quilter amps yet but I have a Telonics TCA500 and it is the quietest amp I have ever used. An incredible 500 watts and yet even when turned up fairly loud it has no hiss or hum whatsoever. At idle all you can hear is the soft whir of the cooling fans...and those can can be switched off for a studio setting. I have a TC Furlong CB12 Split as well and while it is a great sounding and powerful cab it is no ways as quiet as the Telonics amp.

Both of my Quilters are "quiet as a church mouse"....with the 705's on my Rains guitars. I run my Master on full bore and the gain as needed based on the room size when we are not using mics. But I can't imagine playing in a venue where both setting are needed to be set wide open, if that's the case a mic should be used...I sure wouldn't want to be sitting in from of the amp for 3 hours without hearing protection.

Hi gang, Chris from Quilter Labs here. Just wanted to follow up to see if there is anything we can do to help. A couple of things to keep in mind. Quilter amps are all analog and as such, they will have the general equivalent noise level (and in most cases even better than) a tube amp of similar power. One thing you can do to see what the baseline noise floor is would be to simply unplug from the front. If the noise drastically reduces then you likely have noise somewhere in your chain. Often times customers discover noise problems that have been concealed by clamping outputs (Think ISP decimator type circuitry) built into the amp itself which basically shut the outputs off altogether. While this noise clamping may seem desirable, most well built instruments in good working order have very low noise floors to begin with and a clamping circuit only serves to add latency on startup and other introduce other bad behaviors that don't reflect well on a professional instrument. That said, the best thing to do is to make a short video (iPhone style video is fine) of your rig and be sure to identify your entire signal chain (i.e. using what kind of steel into what kind of volume pedal, what kind of effects, etc...) and send it to info@quilterlabs.com with a brief description so that Pat can lend you a hand. On a final note are you using "solderless" type connectors? They are bad. Simply bad. Eliminate them from your rig. We spent multiple hours troubleshooting a pro level rig only to find the culprit was solderless connectors. I cannot count on all my fingers and toes how many support calls were due to that. I encourage everyone to elimninate them wherever you need a reliable and professional connection. That said, it isn't impossible for a Steelaire to be noisy but it would be pretty difficult for that to happen so don't be afraid to email Pat for help at info@quilterlabs.com and he will help you work through it.

Chris, interesting post, I have used solderless cables for over ten years, have had no problem with them, in fact had ten times more problems with soldered cables in the preceeding years. I have Steelaire head , and have absolutely no problems with noise, using all G L cables and plugs ( right angle and straight), nothing soldered, it sounds great.Can you elaborate on why I shouldn't use them, and where the problem eminates from, all I can say is that they are the best cables I have ever had, as I am sure you will find an awfull lot of players saying the exact same thing, so obviously any thing that could effect the sound of the Steelaire is of great interest.Thanks for taking time to respond here, much appreciated.

I have talked with several amp builders who have expressed the same opinion as Chris on solderless cables. More times than not, when someone experiences a problem they have found that the solderless cable is the problem. I don't believe anyone can or will say "all of them cause noise" but they are a big culprit in many problems.

Played a gig Saturday and the amp was dead quiet, after I removed a bum solderless cable from the chain.
So another plus for Chris's advise and Quilter Amps.
I really like the Steelaire and am glad it's quiet again.
Patrick

Could part of problem with solderless cables be poor maintenance by owners, personally I checked mine every month, paying particular attention to right angle ones for tightness of cap, I do have a couple of the George L Master Plug type ( unfortunately no longer made) Never had problem with these ones or the straight ones, I also found having the plastic caps on helped to prevent the slackening off of right angle caps,.and helped with cable strain on the straight ones.
My question to Chris was to find out if problem was with the cable itself, in the make up of the cable, or with the plugs themselves, and if it was confined to the right angle ones or did problem also occur with the straight ones

Chris, what you said about "solderless" cords is so true. The people who like "solderless" cords are the ones selling them. I also see "many" people fooled by problems caused by "solderless" cords. One other thing that needs to be mentioned is the shielding metal in many cheap guitar cords on the market. The shielding is the ground. If you use any type of pre-amp in the signal chain, the ground can not keep up with the signal, with the cheap shielding metal. I found this problem in the brand "Live Wire" guitar cords widely sold by Guitar Center and other chain stores. The good old days where everyone used copper is gone! People are cutting corners and using cheap metals in guitar cords.