ShortScale.org

first off, the shop that i originally tried to make it out to that was only 1 hour away didn't pan out at all. i get down there using my google map'd directions, and it's somebody's fucking house. okay, fair enough. maybe the guy does work out of his garage. BUT, nobody was home, and the phone number that i called two days prior (and had a working voicemail attached to it) now just went to a fax machine. great. so now i'm in the middle of the fucking desert, and i had neglected to bring my internets with me so i could punch up directions from here to the other place in the relative vicinity. so i spend the next 45 minutes looking for a kinko's to use their internets. so i finally find one, get my directions, and off i go.

i get in there, and the tech tells me that it's a SIX TO EIGHT WEEK WEIGHT FOR THE AMP TO GET ON THE BENCH. BUT I CAN PUT A RUSH ON THE ORDER FOR A MERE $65. okay, well, i don't live nearby, and the next closest place is another 30 - 45 minutes away. so i authorize the $65, and we go back to the work bench. right away, he hears a rattling within the head. not good. when he pries it open, it turns out the rattling is from two screws holding one of the side shrouds in place. they'd come loose and were just rattling around. no big deal. turns out the the tubes weren't lighting because one of them had shorted and drew too much current. a fuse blew and got so hot as to melt the non-lead solder behind the clip. nice.

now comes the REALLY fun part. in addition to the $65 rush fee, the guy tells me he can replace the tubes at $140 + tax FOR A SET OF GROOVE TUBES and another $65 labor to install/bias them. so, i ask him, "if this amp is only 90 days old, when does the 5-year warranty kick in?" he said the tubes are only a 90 day warranty anway AND that they have to be marshall tubes, which they don't carry, which take weeks to get in from marshall. he said they COULD just install other tubes with no labor involved, but i would have to buy new tubes. i told him, fine and that i'd get new jj's to him.

now this was the icing on the cake. eurotubes. I FUCKING LOVE THESE DUDES. shipped? $58 for a matched quad of E34L's, and they're shipping directly to the shop that i will never, ever go back to once i get my amp back. sheisters.

so anyway, i love the marshall sound, but i'm not impressed with the racket of getting one UNDER A FULL 5-YEAR WARRANTY repaired.

/angrybeenontheroadallfuckingdayrant

every guitarist owes it to himself to become a tech, if only to save yourself from days like this one.

I dedicate my next beer to you, jase.

thanks, man. when i have the means, i'll invest in the equipment to at least bias my own amp. hope it isn't too hard.

and thank god for the prosonic. i plugged in this afternoon to check the tones, and it sounds wonderful with the hh jag. not as versatile as the jvm, to be sure, but definitely not as broken either.

Dude. That fuckin blows. I'd flip the fuck out on the guy, personally.

That sucks! Sounds like you need to pm Mike from now on when repairing amps innit?

dots wrote:thanks, man. when i have the means, i'll invest in the equipment to at least bias my own amp. hope it isn't too hard.

i've never actually done it myself, but i think all you need is a multimeter.
i don't know. maybe it's different for marshall amps.

bubbles_horwitz wrote:all you need is a multimeter.
And know the math.

dots is an information vacuum. Once he works out the math, it's all downhill from there.

Aug wrote:

bubbles_horwitz wrote:all you need is a multimeter.
And know the math.

dots is an information vacuum. Once he works out the math, it's all downhill from there.

I'm actually suprised that a dude like dots who's a go getter type, hasn't tinkered in the DIY guitar shit yet.

Or maybe he's holding back on us, because if Diva finds out he can fix shit he'll have a big Honey-Do list waiting for him.

That sucks!
But at least the JVM will be back with you in working order soon enough

I can't believe the lack of service and expense you had to go through under warranty. I hate to say it but a lot of what he was saying sounds like lies. Tubes 90 days? Nope.

Marshall over here are a dream to deal with, the mere fact he had a $65 rush charge is SHADY as fuck. What a cocksucker. I feel for you because it sounds like he was your only option at the time but he seems like a nasty character.

it did seem totally shady, and i was just getting more and more pissed as the transaction went along. on the one hand, he's got the thing open and is demonstrating what went wrong, all cool and competent. next minute, he's trying to smear his bullshit all over my penis, telling me it's chocolate. no way. i smelled it from the beginning. so glad i opted to get my own tubes. srsly? $140 for groove tubes? git tae fuck.

seems to me, that if you know you're gonna need new tubes for your amps, that you should prolly pre-order them and have them available...just like you would keep extra strings in your geetar cases...*shrug*

Aug wrote:seems to me, that if you know you're gonna need new tubes for your amps, that you should prolly pre-order them and have them available...just like you would keep extra strings in your geetar cases...*shrug*

Most people do that and I'm sure Jason does - however new tubes wasn't the only thing wrong - he needed teh amp fault diagnosed (fused tube, blown fuse) and the fuse replaced with a correct time and rated fuse, also then he needed power tubes installed and biased, which in the future I can teach him to do remotely, you just need a DMM, a screwdriver (precision and regular) and this thread:
http://jvm410.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=201

Setting both sides to 60mV (mA) is stock, I took mine up to 70mV a side (35mA a tube).

Mike wrote:I can't believe the lack of service and expense you had to go through under warranty. I hate to say it but a lot of what he was saying sounds like lies. Tubes 90 days? Nope.

Marshall over here are a dream to deal with, the mere fact he had a $65 rush charge is SHADY as fuck. What a cocksucker. I feel for you because it sounds like he was your only option at the time but he seems like a nasty character.

I've never had to deal with Marshall, warranty-wise, but I understand that on this side of the pond, they're pretty fuckin' good.

It's a bit shitty that the amp broke down in the first place. I always understood Marshalls to be pretty tough. So much so, that I smoked the warranty on my AVT. This was probably more to do with me being a dickhead, and too lazy to walk across the room to find actual roach material, as well as incredibly rockin, or something.

I'd say it was a pretty stupid thing to do, you lazy dope fiend.

They have excellent service in the UK though, they fixed the fuse and retubed my 6100 for me for a nominal fee and serviced (replaced) the pots and jacks free of charge.

Mike wrote:I'd say it was a pretty stupid thing to do, you lazy dope fiend.

They have excellent service in the UK though, they fixed the fuse and retubed my 6100 for me for a nominal fee and serviced (replaced) the pots and jacks free of charge.

damn, there's NOTHING in the states like that in my experience. the san diego place i used to go to was okay, but not even close to being that easy.

as for keeping tubes on hand, i do have a few old groove tubes, but i don't carry a spare set of them with me. i used to bring just one spare, but i stopped doing that a while back. now i have a spare head which seems easier to keep track of. . . plus, a spare amp saved the day at al's house in addition to the extra work that was required in diagnosing the real problem of a blown internal fuse to begin with.

i'm thinking i will take you up on learning to bias my amp(s) myself, though. if the closest "qualified" technician to me is 90 minutes away and charges $65/hr for the job, i think i can justify $35 for the setup the guy at eurotubes is offering me.

What's the setup? Bias probe?

You don't need it (unless you're biasing an amp without bias points - the JVM has them and I'm pretty sure your prosonic doesn't need to be biased) - the cheapest and completely legitimate solution to biasing a modern marshall is a DMM (Digital MultiMeter), a regular philips screwdriver and a precision straighthead screwdriver (for adjusting the bias pot)

it's the thing in the bottom right corner. $10 for the probe and $25 for the multimeter. seem to be pretty decent prices.

Bottom right hand corner where? I can't see it on http://www.eurotubes.com/

I suppose getting a probe isn't a bad investment, and a DMM is useful for loads of stuff around the house. Go for it.

Mike wrote:Bottom right hand corner where? I can't see it on http://www.eurotubes.com/

I suppose getting a probe isn't a bad investment, and a DMM is useful for loads of stuff around the house. Go for it.

sorry, forgot the linky.