I touched every joint in the joint. I messed with the ribbons. I checked continuity from every angle, point, and part. I cleaned everything 3 times. I tapped with 100 things from a toothpick to a bowling ball. (next a LouisDeVille slugger)
This thing is effed. -ecccchhhh ecchhhhhh- noise with any disturbance at any point on any part of the whole thing. If I tap a screw that is not even installed from three rooms away the amp goes haywire. I think that is a case for quantum entanglement.
I have a 16oz quantum detangler with a waffled detangling surface. I am about to whip that out.
It's fun to complain though.
Signatures have a 255 character limit that I could abuse, but I am not Cecil B. DeMille.
The whole line, from Hot Rod Deluxes up including the Blues Devilles, are service nightmares.
Tube sockets mounted to the PCB, and wave soldered with poor quality solder seems to be a scenario for a lifetime of poor performance.
A tech buddy of mine finally resoldered all the tubes in a HRDx with silver solder, hoping the higher temp solder might hold up. Three other tries with standard solder, and after a bit the bad behavior returns.
Where's that thread on poor serviceability of SS amps? Applies here.
I did it. I fixed it. It works. The pair of output tubes the guy dropped with me to replace the originals...
Works like a charm. I beat it. I win. I could have been finished 4 hours ago if I had only not trusted those tubes. I ganked a pair from one of my amps. BINGO.
Mesa replacements with the Fender logo. One of each pair was browned out logos.. the owner mixed the pairs up changing them himself.
Isn't. That. Hilarious.
whew.. shit
Signatures have a 255 character limit that I could abuse, but I am not Cecil B. DeMille.
I had a HRDx for awhile and what happened was the poor solder thing, after it had already been fixed twice.
Connections went bad on one tube, led to the tube self-destructing, which led to a very distorted output, which led to blowing one of my orange frame D120Fs. It was during a gig and I didn't notice until too late.
I will never forgive that POS.
Needless to say, that amp is G*O*N*E gone.
This is the best one ever made now. It's way better than new. All the stuff that Fender should do is done. It honestly took me apart. Put me through fits, and another lesson relearned!
No way it could ever be worth doing. Too many problems on top of problems. Very tricky. Maddening!
Signatures have a 255 character limit that I could abuse, but I am not Cecil B. DeMille.
I feel your pain. I did the same exact thing with a Peavey Classic 50. Flaky tube found out but not until I touched up every solder joint in the thing. Now it will go forever....be sure to smash the bad tube into a million pieces before it ends up in another amp.
I have observed something with new tubes that appear bad though, sometimes a noisy tube in one amp works just fine in another. I have a corksniffing Twin Reverb that is very particular about what tubes it prefers.
Reeltarded wrote:I think that is a case for quantum entanglement.
I have a 16oz quantum detangler with a waffled detangling surface. I am about to whip that out.
Miles, great to hear that you sorted it out!
Probably good that you did not have to resort to the detangler. After pulling my hair out trying to resolve a particularly vexing issue, I used one on an Egnater Tourmaster that came in for service. While I managed to prove that wormholes do exist (if only short-lived and exceedingly unstable), my entire bench folded in on itself when I sprayed Boson Dispersant on the quantum foam. The whole mess kicked out a massive shower of gravitons (no pun intended!) and I'm glad I was wearing my safety glasses. I'm pretty sure I could see Vega in the shimmering portal where my bench used to be. That was an expensive mistake. The good news is that the client asked me to just build him a new amp.
