Noise through my rig

[Abe]

I have a Korean Ibanez RG-270 through a Zoom 505 (ok don't pay me out) and an 'original' Crybaby, going into a (don't get too jealous now) 1987 Marshall JCM 800 100W half stack.
The Zoom is powered by a dodgy generic power supply, two of my three leads are average quality and I am getting a fair bit of noise through it all.
It is pretty obvious that the single on the guitar is noisy, as that gets very noisy straight into the amp with the good lead, but what could be causing the rest of the noise?
I know that the power supply should be a proper one, but I don't really want to buy a real one, and I will probably just go to low-impedance batteries for a start, and take it from there. The other two leads I will probably replace, but I don't know if that will do the trick. My Crybaby is a little noisy but that's only when it's on. I'm not willing to get a different wah, and although I will replace my single with a Virtual 2 or similar (DiMarzio) in the future, my main aim is to reduce the noise through the Zoom (if possible).
Does anybody else have a Zoom that they've managed to reduce the noise on (the noise is even more obvious through the JCM), or is it just naturally noisy?
I don't want to use any noise suppressors or anything; they really take a lot of depth and sustain away.

[Jon68]

Abe, I had the same problem with a Zoom 505. I am playing through a '65 Fender Super Reverb. I always had a steady hiss when the Zoom was plugged in, even in bypass. I exchanged the pedal and the problem continued. The hiss disappeared when plugged into a solid-state amp or new-design tube amp.

What we finally figured out - the Super Reverb has a very "hot" (high-gain) preamp with a large dynamic amplification range that amplifies the noise. I suspect that your Marshall is similar.

I tried connecting to the #2 jack (which has lower gain) and even replacing the 12AX7 tubes with lower-gain 12AT7 tubes. Both of these reduced the noise, but did not remove it. I adjusted the output gain of the Zoom and was able to "tune" the pedal for less noise, but it was still too much in the environment which I play. These changes also changed the way that my amp sounds - I finally sold the Zoom and carried my entire rig with me when I went to buy pedals.

I ended up with a Danelectro Chorus and Delay (very quiet) and a reissue Ibanez Tube Screamer (quiet enough). Recently I have added a Yamaha DG-Stomp with a Morley A-B-Y switch for bypass. The DG-Stomp is very quiet - it has no noise gate; it doesn't need one. I play either a '68 Les Paul Custom or a '98 American Deluxe Strat (with the "noiseless" pickups).

[Abe]

Jon,
I used to have a '64 Super Reverb and experienced a hell of a lot of feedback above 4, and the same noise, using any of the distortions on the Zoom.
Unfortunately I had to give it back to it's rightful owner; I just had it on loan for a few months.
(it was in pretty bad condition anyway)

I think that the Danelectro would be a good option considering chorus and delay are the only main features that I would be missing on the Zoom, and that I would get much greater customization capabilities through it.
Your help has been much appreciated, I think I will definitely go for a Danelectro Chorus/Delay or something similar, thanks.

[Raskolnikov]

Definately ditch the Zoom.
I can get incredible tone out of my mutant strat (again, with noisless vintage single coils) and a XXL distortion box into a good tube amp. You've got a good tube amp, you should be able to get awesome lead tone. Another thing to check is your amp cords. A crappy amp cord can make for all kinds of noise. Also, your guitar may have less than adequate sheilding and grounding, you may want to look at that.