riscado wrote:I think it's funny when people talk about amps like the deluxe and say, it's dead quiet, I never heard a deluxe that was dead quiet with both volumes maxed, I'd say it's inherent to the circuit, the hiss might be low but it's definetly there, not dead quiet by all means...
When I say "dead quiet" I mean dead quiet.  That's why the pilot light thing was such a goof, I sparked up my fresh build, turned the volumes all the way up and... nothing.  No noise, no hum, no hiss, no crackle.  It took me a minute or so to realize that everything was indeed o.k., the only flaw in my fresh build was a defective bulb holder in the pilot light.
(Knock wood)  My builds usually work correctly from the get-go, I'm not bragging because there are probably a hundred things per build I can screw up.  Oddly enough I do pretty good work these days, write that up to "Learning from my mistakes"!
There's no reason for a vintage circuit like a Deluxe to be noisy.  It's not like there's a bunch of gain stages in there to pick up and amplify stray hum and noise.  The simpler an amp is the quieter it should be, look at hi-fi amps.  Part of the process is that I spec EVERYTHING, that means I screen my caps for value and leakage, I measure resistors for value and screen them for noise, I carefully check and match my tubes, then I arrange my build so it's not a series of little transmitters and antennas.
nickt wrote:I'd hoped someone else might have had this issue and could say something like "geeze you removed the snubbers what do you expect! everyone knows that's a bad idea - newbies..." which might point me in the right direction  
 
   
Then add "snubbers" to your circuit.  33k, 47k, or 56k will work if you don't have 68k.  Or add 220k mixer resistors to isolate your plates on your preamp tube.
It's really tough to diagnose anything online, what you'll get is a "virtual diagnosis".  If you were sick, would you subscribe to an online doctor?  Imagine that... you go to "MD.com" with the sniffles, you tell the doc, "I got the sniffles"... the doc can't tell if you're 83 years old, you're overweight have herpes and a peg leg!  Like that.
When someone says, "Tweed Deluxe" I visualize a chrome chassis with a black eyelet board, tube lineup 5Y3 6V6 6V6 12AX7 12AY7.  I know what the circuit looks like, I have a pretty good idea of which layouts work.  If you have a 'scope available you could start poking around with it.  If you get a big ol' burst of hash at a particular location you're probably close to your problem.  Or we can do the Three Blind Men and an Elephant thing then share your epiphany when you solve your own problem.