:( HELP! distored cleans on low volumes w/TSL 60

[mitchfosmond]

I bought a Marshall TSL 60 about a year ago. now, i'm getting a trashy distorted sound on my clean channel, at super low volumes. My lead channel is great, loud or not. Just the clean, i'd only have it on 2, and it sounds like its clipping. I've only had it out of my house a handfull of times. But, when i did, i used the emulated line out. with just the head. no cabinet hooked up, thus there being no load on the amp. could this be a possible cause? if not, what else can i check?

[oc disorder]

Hi welcome to the forum..
Firstly it is not recomended at all to run a valve amp without a load. A big 8 ohm resistor or some sort of speaker attenuator would be the way to go.
Transistor amps can run with no load but not valve.
This is why some valve amps speaker sockets provide a short circuit when there is nothing plugged in.
"Run with no load" usually means bye bye output transformer.
It may be difficult to tell with the distorted lead channel other undesirable
distortion so we have to try to pin point where the fault lies.
If you can patch the send into another amplifer see if the clean channel is behaving itself.
A loose jack plug in the loop return should mute the power amp or
remove the two output valves.
If it seems fine through the other amp this will confirm that the power stage may be faulty.
Plugging a signal from the other amps send into the power amp in of the TSL 60 should confirm this or even an output from a CD player or MP3 player (pref with a volume control turned down to about a third) should show if the power amp is ok.

The loop return should be a good point for the power amp in (TSL 60).

Post back what you find and lets hope its not the o/p transformer.

[Enzo]

Does the clean sound OK when LOUD? COnnect a diffeerent speaker to the amp. My first reaction is your speaker voice coil is rubbing.