tube amp problem (cont.) - tube shopping

K

kuhniget

New member
Well I picked my super champ back up from the shop since the guy said the transformers are back ordered for three months. But it powers on now so I'm guessing I could just buy a new tube and pray hard it doesn't happen again. If so, any particular brand or whatnot of tube I should look for? They're 6V6's
 
Yeah the light came on and the lone 6V6 warmed up, he must have just tossed the other one. No sound though. Apparently I got a free new fuse out of it. Guess I'll just order a pair of tubes and see what happens. Trial and error huh? Looks I didn't need too much advice, but ya never when someone might have had the same problem. Would definitely save time and money.
 
Is that a Super Champ XD? Scary- I love mine, but now am wondering about reliability. What was your experience that lead up to the failure like?

Group- are these reliable amps?
 
the amps are pretty basic.....a bad tranny, bad bias pot, bad filter caps, all will blow a tube.

pick up some JJ-tesla off of ebay.com, they will be cheap and reliable.

check out mercury magnetics for a transformer.

you should have it in a few days.
 
perhaps i should say opps..........



the tubes will heat up with around 6 volts DC as heater voltage.

can you bias them? you may not be getting full voltage, just heater.
 
kuhniget said:
Well thank you. It was such a good deal I can't complain, as long as its a relatively inexpensive repair. The speaker was recently upgraded by the previous owner and it looks as though the tubes Electro Harmonix. I'm assuming those aren't stock
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You did say you bought it used. I would think reliability questions cannot be reliably answered if we use a used amp as a measuring stick. You have no idea what that previous owner really did to it. Assuming it was not defective to begin with, a guy would have to do something pretty darn stupid to blow a transformer. Dont ya think?

iownrocknroll is right..... you should be able to contact Mercury Magnetics and they should be able to tell you what tranny to use as a replacement. It is not hard to do, just tedious.....but WELL WORTH IT!!
 
stevieb said:
Is that a Super Champ XD? Scary- I love mine, but now am wondering about reliability. What was your experience that lead up to the failure like?

Group- are these reliable amps?
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I loved mine too, still do in its vegetative state. Yeah it was used, but it was trouble free for almost a month. I cranked it plenty of times, fiddled with all the knobs, treated it like a newborn baby. I played with it one day, turned it off, put my guitar up, came back to it the next day and from the first flick of the switch the tube was glowing purple with popping noises coming out of the speaker that seemed like they were being made by what the tube was doing. I don't know how to describe exactly what it was doing so I'll just use this example. If the tube was clapping, I could see it clap, and I heard its clap through the speaker. I'm inclined to think this has just been a bad tube issue since only that tube was affected, but I know less than nothing about all of this so that doesn't count for much.
 
soundchaser59 said:
I'd get a second opinion. I'm not convinced that your transformer is blown.
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And you'd be correct. Today has been quite the learning experience for me. There's basically three shops around town I go to and today I found the one I will give the rest of my guitaring business. At one the guy doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing. At the other I feel like they don't want me in there. And at this shop, the most humble-looking of the three, the guy is extremely nice and helpful and I'm convinced he's more knowledgeable than any of the other shop owners I've talked with. But all that's beside the point.

I had only been to this place once before to browse and hadn't been back until yesterday when I decided to see if this guy could help me out. Told me he was out of 6v6's and would have to order them. I went back today and brought my amp (which I am not happy with the condition it was returned to me in. There are scuffs and scrapes I know I didn't put there, the guy moved the back board of the amp which means he drilled new holes, lost the little rings that go between the screw and the holes, and the screws were crooked). I told him where I had taken it before, his face said it all. I told him what the guy said, his face said more ha. He didn't have 6v6's but he pulled out some used larger ones that still fit and the amp powered on and played fine. The only downside is the wait :( if only I had gone to him first, but ya live ya learn.

Here's a side story to how this guy helped me. I bought a Mexican tele bout 5 months back. Paid for a set up with it, picked it up at the end of the day and for some reason I had always been suspicious of whether he had actually done the setup. Well I asked my new best friend if he would give me his opinion. I brought it to him and he quickly reached the conclusion that guitar had not been set up at all. He spent about ten minutes on it fixing the intonation and the bridge and I hadn't even asked for a setup yet. I had always noticed that when I played I could hear something like a harmonic behind what I was playing, he fixed that on the spot, said the nut hadn't been cut correctly. He told me my strings were dead as a doornail, course I knew that it was time to change them. Anyhoo, as much as it hurts to be without my guitar tonight I left it with him for the setup its needed for quite some time. It's nice to have found someone that seems to genuinely want to help you rather than just take your money.
 
That is awesome! I'm glad you found someone competent, because that SCXD really is a tone monster in its own category, and for the money. ONce you get it running right, you wont be disappointed with the sound, especially if you ever get to plug it into a bigger speaker cab!

Cooooool Stuff! :cool:
 
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