crackle riding notes

[buschfsu]

so my 5e3 sounds great at clean volumes and great full out distorted. In the middle though (dirty loudish) when i lay into the guitar i get a crrrrr riding on the transients until it hits a threshold and just the tone is left. i don't notice it when im playing full out cause im sure the tube distortion is hiding it. anyone have an idea? i thought it was the speaker but i have replaced it twice.

sounds like a solid state clipping sound. could it be dc in the signal path??

[cminor9]

DC in the signal path will often result in the pots being scratchy. If that's happening, then the caps before the scratchy pot are suspect.

how are your voltages? Did you try swapping out tubes?

[tubeswell]

so my 5e3 sounds great at clean volumes and great full out distorted. In the middle though (dirty loudish) when i lay into the guitar i get a crrrrr riding on the transients until it hits a threshold and just the tone is left. i don't notice it when im playing full out cause im sure the tube distortion is hiding it. anyone have an idea? i thought it was the speaker but i have replaced it twice.

sounds like a solid state clipping sound. could it be dc in the signal path??

Is this blocking distortion?? Have you got grid stoppers on the output tube signal grids? (1k5-4k7)