Did I ruin my Deluxe Reverb?

[StupidQuestions]

I accidentally had the internal speaker plugged into the external speaker output when it got unplugged a couple months ago. I havent played on it "a lot" but it has been significant. My amp got to the point where the volume wasnt even changing and it would cut in and out of connection until I diagnosed.

I have the speaker plugged in correctly now, but I cant tell if I damaged my amp or if I am just paranoid. Something doesn't sound right to me, but it could be paranoia. Anyone know how damaging that could be, having the plug wrong and all?

[The Dude]

I'm really surprised you didn't notice?????? You don't get much out of the external jack if the main jack is unused. Sure you could have done some damage, but the old Fenders are pretty forgiving. It wouldn't hurt to give it a checkout to make sure.

[JoeK]

I thought the originals and the reissue are the same setup? If you unjack the internal speaker the socket is a dead short across the OT secondaries?. The external speaker is supposed to be parallel with the internal speaker.

[The Dude]

I thought the originals and the reissue are the same setup? If you unjack the internal speaker the socket is a dead short across the OT secondaries?. The external speaker is supposed to be parallel with the internal speaker.

True. I've seen some cases where the shorting jack is not making a good contact or has some corrosion/etc. and you do get some sound out of the ext. jack. It's usually very low level and sounds bad. That's why I'm surprised the OP didn't notice. The other possibility here is that the shorting jack wasn't working at all or has been replaced with a "non-shorting jack", in which case, no harm would have been done to the amp as long as a speaker was plugged in.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Something doesn't sound right to me, but it could be paranoia. Anyone know how damaging that could be, having the plug wrong and all?

Yes you could have worn your output tubes to a frazzle. AND/OR burnt screen grid resistors. Hopefully didn't damage your output transformer. So here's what you do. Check your SG resistors, put in new ones if you burnt 'em. New output tubes too. If your sound hasn't improved to like-new after these two steps, maybe the OT is damaged.

"Guitar Player" interview with Eddie Van Halen, a couple decades ago. Eddie: "I like to use my Fender Bandmaster to play at home, plug the speaker into the ext speaker jack. Doesn't get much volume but the distortion is terrific. For some reason, I keep on having to have the output transformer replaced." So . . . you're in good company.

[bob p]

That EVH ... good guitar player, but what a knucklehead.

[isaac]

Thats hilarious regarding EVH. If it were me, I'd probably not have shorting jacks on my speaker jacks. I never do, just do regular jacks there. But yea, if you suddenly started using the original jack and it sounds fine I wouldn't worry too much, but i would check some of the previously mentioned things.