I went on tour for six weeks and left my Sunn 100s in a basement. When I got back, I find there is significantly less headroom than before. It's breaking up around 5 or 6 when I used to have to push it pretty hard to break up at 9. It also seems like it might be quieter because my ears aren't bleeding.
What might be the problem? Tubes? I also just moved into a new house, could the electrical circuit be underpowered or something?
My guess would be a power tube. Similar thing happened to my Blues DeVille about a year ago, I had significant volume loss and earlier breakup than usual. Of course there were other things wrong with the amp at the time, but it seems to me like a tube thing.
Fran wrote:You boycott Danelectro but not this? Not really.
What?
Fran wrote:
Less headroom would mean more voltage rather than being underpowered surely?
Its probably something simple like its not been fired up much lately.
What they said. If a power tube change doesn't clear up the problem, try the rectifier tube if your amp has one (yes?). After that, it might be some worn out filter caps and/or preamp tube cathode bypass caps -- these tend to need replacing every 10 years or so.
(Lower voltage from the power supply does lower both headroom and volume, as the power tubes are more prone to starve for volts when you hit them with a hot signal, and can't fully amplify the signal peaks without losing power and clipping their tops off. Higher power supply voltage keeps the tubes well-supplied even with a hot input signal = less compressing/clipping of peaks.)
