Funny Howard Dumble Story

[WhopperPlate]

Hello Everyone,

I'm a bit new to the forums and have only really hung out on the Trainwreck side of the forum, but I thought everyone would appreciate a funny story about Dumble I heard from my old friend.

One day as my friend was coming in from surfing he noticed Dumble loading an amp onto the back of a pickup truck. He yelled out to the driver and the truck quickly backed up and slammed on the brakes, launching the amp violently to the ground where it lay in a pile of broken tube glass. My friend, being a guitar player and very intrigued by this behavior, followed and watched as Dumble picked up the amp, took it inside his house, swap in new tubes, fired it up and made it roar.

My friend knocked on his window trying to inquire about the amps, but Dumble simply told him to "f*** off".

My friend later returned with a fan of $100 dollar bills, and Dumble grumbled and let him inside.

That's all I got, I hope someone enjoys the tale.

[Structo]

Yes somebody has mentioned that HAD road tested and crash tested his amps for durability while on tour.

Did your friend get an amp from him?

[butwhatif]

All part of the burn-in process

[WhopperPlate]

Yeh, he bought several over the years; not sure which ones. The dummy sold them all! He's kicking himself for sure.

[Bob-I]

I've heard so many stories about dropping amps out of trucks, fire escapes, second story windows. Very non-scientific stuff. I don't doubt that someone actually does that, but I'd bet the real engineers have better ways of testing amps for vibration and shock survival.

[talbany]

My HORROR story.. I put my 49 Tweed Pro in the back of the truck.. Took off after the next red light and heard the tail gate fall.. Looked in the rear view and there was my vintage 5c5 laying in the middle of the road .Luckily I was making a U turn and no one was behind me.. Aside from a slight relic job on the tweed suffered only a broken tube.. 60 year old tweed cab still solid as a rock ..+1 on old Leo..

Tony

[WhopperPlate]

I asked him what amps he owned, he got his in the early 80's I think he said. The first was a ODS, the second was a dedicated slave amp, and..oh I forgot the third, something a bit unique if I recall. I'll try to remember and ask him again.

I drop test my new builds on to a thick rubber pad to shake things up a bit and rock anything loose. They all run great.

At Mesa Boogie they hit the chassis with a rubber mallet while the amps running until something breaks, fix it, then repeat.

[guitardude57]

At Mesa Boogie they hit the chassis with a rubber mallet while the amps running until something breaks, fix it, then repeat.

We used to do that at Motorola back in the 70's at a Video Monitor plant.
IWT............intermittent when tapped.

In testing we would smack the shit out of the chassis to see if anything was loose, or a borderline solder joint.