My Baby's Dying! - going to amp heaven

[jem7pbk]

My favorite amp an early 80's Ampeg SS150 is dying. I hooked up my pod to the fx loop ( and yes I did it correctly) and now when you play it ( with or with out the pod) it plays for about two mins. then fades to nothing! This was the first head I ever had ( and have had many since) I have used it for every thing and it never let me down before I love its tone and have had others of the same model line but they do not sound the same. maybe this is gods way of saying get that mesa head I have been trying to get. does any one think I could get the ampeg repaired? whats wrong with it. so sad

[Noodles]

Call your local guitar shop, If they can't help you they be able to connect you with someone who can.

[Kremlin]

Call an electronics shop, they should be able to fix it up for you.

If not, you can always get a new Mesa.. I LOVE my Mark IV, except the tubes are totally shot and I'm looking at seeing if I can swap it for a rackmount.

[ericbrowning]

Hey man, another Ampeg SS user! Hurrah! Sorry, I don't really have any advice, but I have an old SS-140C that is my main amp. *I love it too! *Have you ever found any way to keep the "clean" channel cleaner? I have to turn the gain up on it to get sufficient volume for playing with my band, but it starts to break up then. Well, any advice would be much appreciated, and sorry again to hear your baby's dying.

[jem7pbk]

sweet! ampegs rule
I also have a ss140c and two ss70's along with my dieing ss150
the ss150 sounds different then the others, but I put the gain at about 3 or 4 on the clean( on all my ampegs) then use a boss eq pedal to boost the vol. it works great! and stays clean

[Devo]

if your amp cuts out when the volume control is turned up higher than a certain number on the dial or when you hit a specific note You have a parasitic oscillation. This can overheat an output transformer, and really needs to get fixed fast. It can be fixed by gettin a retube, but you often need an oscilloscope to see what's happening in the electronics.

if your cathode bypass capacitors go open, the stage they're in loses gain, but doesnt fail. If they short, it shifts the bias point, and causes distortion as well as low volume but scince you say it works fine until it goes its probably the former.

Basically you need to retube, if the problem goes away, which it should cool otherwise get in touch with a real professional

[jem7pbk]

Quote: from Devo on 4:16 pm on Sep. 24, 2001
if your amp cuts out when the volume control is turned up higher than a certain number on the dial or when you hit a specific note You have a parasitic oscillation. This can overheat an output transformer, and really needs to get fixed fast. It can be fixed by gettin a retube, but you often need an oscilloscope to see what's happening in the electronics.

if your cathode bypass capacitors go open, the stage they're in loses gain, but doesnt fail. If they short, it shifts the bias point, and causes distortion as well as low volume but scince you say it works fine until it goes its probably the former.

Basically you need to retube, if the problem goes away, which it should cool otherwise get in touch with a real professional

Its a soild state amp no tubes

[ericbrowning]

Thanks JEM7PBK, i think i will try that, sounds like a good idea......although obvious lol, guess you just don't think of things sometimes.

[Devo]

sorry guys, Im no help then

I dont know my amp models, I guess I should have done some research before I said anything.

Steve

[jem7pbk]

its cool I think its the transformer oh well I get it fixed some day just picked up a 5150 stack so it will do.