Silly Amp Question/reccomend some cheap/decent tubes

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:37 am

turn on the amp, everything sounds fine, but within minutes, vlume fades, and everything gets crunchy. is this the tubes?

IroniaSudby · Post by **IroniaSudby** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:53 am

I think this is when your tubes are going poof or something.

Isnt this also when the amp sound like hot sex or whatever?

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:10 am

anyone know of decent but cheap tubes?

filtercap · Post by **filtercap** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:44 am

Sounds power supply-ish, though possibly tube-related. Clean them tube pins first and see if that makes a diff. If you've got a choob rectifier, that might be a suspect.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:45 am

air dusting the pins now...

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:53 am

man, i'm feeling dumber and dumber. dusted the pins, but there's 6 pins per tube, and 8 slots per on the amp. does it matter how they're inserted?

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:59 am

duh

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:28 am

dusted the tube pins, and everything seems almost A-OK
plays fine and dandy with little noise, but made a loud pop twice while playing (over the course of maybe five minutes.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:48 am

k, so just played it for 15+ minutes and everything seems a ok! thanks to filtercap for the solution and everyone else for their advice!

i love this amp. just wish it were more reliable.

filtercap · Post by **filtercap** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:51 am

Was the loud pop while you were hitting a low note/string hard, such as a loud chord using low notes like A, G, or E?

SAVEStheDAY · Post by **SAVEStheDAY** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:53 am

What kind of amp? My first guess is you have a microphonic preamp tube.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:55 am

filtercap wrote:Was the loud pop while you were hitting a low note/string hard, such as a loud chord using low notes like A, G, or E?

i honestly don't know. i think i was just noodling at that point.
but when i played longer, it was full songs, and there were no pops.
i'm sure there's all sortsa issues that just need a bit of maintenence as this thing craps out every few months, yet it's always a 5$ or less repair. and when it works i love everything about it, except it's obscene weight for a 2X12
it's kinda old (1979-1982ish?)

filtercap · Post by **filtercap** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 5:46 am

SAVEStheDAY wrote:What kind of amp?

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:02 am

filtercap wrote:
SAVEStheDAY wrote:What kind of amp?

peavey deuce!
hybrid sorta things
looks a lot like this

Justin J · Post by **Justin J** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:03 am

+1 on robroe's post. sovtek and/or ehx tubes are a really great value. i have ehx 6CA7s and sovtek 12AX7s in my hiwatt and i couldn't be happier.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:34 pm

k, so now it's getting weirder. channel 1 works like a dream. channel 2 everynow and then starts crackling up or fading out all together. the weird part is, that if i tap on the reverb tank (located on the bottom of the amp, under the speakers) it fixes it temporarily. what would reverb have to do with an entire channel?

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:41 pm

it may have a tube driven reverb?

it wouldn't hurt to get some electronics cleaner, put some on the end of your cable and use it to clean all the jacks, sometimes if fx loop jacks get nasty they can cause problems. not sure if this thing has an fx loop, but it's a good practice to keep all jacks/pots clean. dirty pots can cause all sorts of shit too, nothing damaging, just cutting out, scratchies, and pops etc...

chisa · Post by **chisa** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:46 pm

gaybear wrote:k, so now it's getting weirder. channel 1 works like a dream. channel 2 everynow and then starts crackling up or fading out all together. the weird part is, that if i tap on the reverb tank (located on the bottom of the amp, under the speakers) it fixes it temporarily. what would reverb have to do with an entire channel?

could be the connections between reverb tank and amp, clean em, also the same if you have footswitchable reverb

SAVEStheDAY · Post by **SAVEStheDAY** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:03 am

According to what I found online it looks like this has a tube power section, and ss preamp, so a microphonic preamp tube is out. So is a tube reverb problem.

You should be able to disconnect a reverb tank - this might be worth a shot just to see what happens. If you still have a problem it tules out the reverb tank and connection cable.

If you have an effects loop a great trick is throwing a patch cable in there. This works more than you might think.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:29 am

can't wait to get home and try all of this!