If you had a piece of your equipment that was beloved and valued, dieing, how far would you go to have it repaired?
As many of you know my little Vox 15w tube amp died and I replaced it with a Peavey Vypyr. After playing on the little Peavey for about a month I was jonesing for my little tube buddy. So plain and simple, nice warm tube(for what this amp really is), no frills, no modeling, just a clean, OD1 and OD2 settings. Now I'm not saying the little Peavey isn't cool because it certainly sounds ok, has some cool modeling. Its just that sometimes you just want a plain overdriven tube amp that you don't have tweak for 30 minutes to get that certain tone.
Fast forward. I spent all day yesterday fixing my little Vox. I bought it new for $60.00(discontinued blowout). The cost for a pro to repair it, $120.00 an hr. Let me tell you, this is one of their Chinese cheapo amps, and the circuit board showed it. Numerous broken traces and bad solders. Some traces could not be repair by my primitive Pete tools I had at hand, so jumper wiring was needed. I must of had the board out of this thing 5 times only to find out the circuit I had just repaired made it better but not fixed. I finally fixed them all.
Awwww, the sound of my little tube buddy makes me feel all warm inside. I sure hope my Peavey Valve King comes back from a warranty repair soon(this is not the vypyr). Seems Peavey had a run of bad input jacks
music is about being happy. you may never have got that tone again, and felt remorseful for the rest of your life. I'd say it's money well spent!
Hey, glad to hear you got your amp fixed.
i also have a valve king, but am having trouble dialling it in to get a sound i like. any tips??
"I like to play that guitar. I have to stare at it while I'm playing it because I'm not very good at playing it."
Noel Gallagher (who took the words right out of my mouth)
i would probably throw it at someone i hate and buy another, but i treat my equipment incredibly badly.
music is about being happy. you may never have got that tone again, and felt remorseful for the rest of your life. I'd say it's money well spent!
I'd say time well spent. Labor and parts were free. I love the fact that I turn every knob to 10 and jam :lol:
i also have a valve king, but am having trouble dialling it in to get a sound i like. any tips??
Unfortunatly not. My VK input jack died shortly after I bought it and its been in for repair ever since. Hopefully it will be back this week.
LOL at Jason
Glad to hear you got your amp going again, I can kinda relate. I tried for about the 4th time to fix my Marshall DSL401 this past weekend. Pulled it all apart, took out the circuit board and looked for bad solders. This amp has a famous problem of overheating which causes the pre-amp rectifier to go. I had actually gotten it working good about a year and a half ago, then took it to the Riverside Jam. It was about 95 degrees out and like a dummy I left it on standby for about 2 hours and it went again. So, I tried to fix it again this weekend, but no go. I think I will pull the speaker out and trash the rest. I can't believe anybody would mount EL84 tubes which are known to run super hot to a printed circuit board. :roll:
So, like you, I will try to fix an amp if I can, but I've finally had enough. I've had several Marshall amps, love the sound, but every single one has given me nothing but problems.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
music is about being happy. you may never have got that tone again, and felt remorseful for the rest of your life. I'd say it's money well spent!
That's pretty much it. AND...fer goodness sake...don't begrudge someone for earning a living fixing things! :wink:
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
Only as far as going upto repairing it not more than 50% of its original cost. Otherwise, I would keep the thing as a relic without repairing it at all.
Glad to hear you got it working Sid! I don't know if I wold spend much money personally, but again I am not that fussy what I play through. I suppose this could be an argument for a solid state rig if you can get your sound out of it. That said, my gear is mostly tube amps. :lol:
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
I suppose this could be an argument for a solid state rig if you can get your sound out of it. That said, my gear is mostly tube amps. :lol:
Its funny you say that. I have an old Peavey Bandit 112 that is SS that doesn't sound that bad. She's a work horse, loud and in clean channel almost sterile, has a decent overdrive or distortion channel. I have been able to coax decent sound from her(notice the Peavey thing I have :lol: ). If I had to play somewhere with a large venue I would take this amp. She's built like a tank, weighs like 65lbs, will put up with more abuse then you can throw at it, and sounds good in clean with a Marshall overdrive pedal in front of it.
Only as far as going upto repairing it not more than 50% of its original cost. Otherwise, I would keep the thing as a relic without repairing it at all.
That's a pretty hard and fast rule. What about something like a vintage tube amp? May have cost very little in the 60's or 70's and now needs a recap job. That recap job will likely be more than the price of the amp when new but much less than buying a new similar tube amp today if you can even find one the same. May want to use current replacement cost instead of original cost.
For Sin City Sid: What about replacing the circuit board in the amp with a hand wired turret or eyelet board? If you've got the skills for the circuit board repair you should be able to do that and you would likely have a better end result.
Pop music is about stealing pocket money from children. - Ian Anderson
I'd've fixed it up as you did. Might've thought about reproducing the circuit as a point-to-point project if the circuit board was really bad.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
She's built like a tank, weighs like 65lbs, will put up with more abuse then you can throw at it,
That's the same compliment that everyone gives Peavey gear.
It will take abuse, and come back for more! :lol:
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
A guy here had a Peavey amp fall out of the back of a pickup truck on the road at about 55 MPH on the way to a gig. It was pretty skinned up, but played perfectly.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
This amp is transister pre and tube a post. the only way I would consider a rewire would be to completely redesign it. that might be more work then its worth.
