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Hey everyone, first let me start by introducing myself. I'm Tyler and this is going to be my first post.
I have come to you all because the amp I play through has developed a very unpleasant issue. It's a B-52 AT-100 head. up until a few days ago it played fine. The only thing that I noticed about it was that the tone was harsh and shrill, not uncommon on these amps seeing how it still has the stock sovteks in it.
before the "go buy a new amp" "b52 sucks" "components are lame, give up" comments start, understand that I have owned one of these before and after borrowing my friends tung sols and trying them out in the pre amp these amps sound amazing. Sovteks really do sound THAT terrible in this amp, believe me.
On with the issue, the amp has a class A, class A/B, and solid state mode switcher on the back. Running in class A, the amp sounds alright. It only lacks the room shaking volume it used to have, but it still gets loud. It also lacks gain in this mode, only gets about half as much as before.
Running in solid state, again it sounds alright. Solid state is the loudest of all three modes and has the most tonal characteristics (bass depth etc)
Running in class a/b, the amp has almost no volume, the master and channel volume will be at half to 75% and the amp will sound thin, farty, and overall crappy as if it was a blown speaker. Not even one bit useable on stage. (does this while in distortion channel, i forget if it does it in the clean. can check today.) *it reminds me of this old peavy Solid state amp i used to have, when i would forget to put my foot switch in it would get "stuck" in this mode where it was neither distortion or clean, just complete and utter garbled treblish fizz, i would put the F/S in and it would go away.*
I can't afford a retube for another couple weeks but I have my questions as to whether it's a tube issue, the tubes all light up just fine in the preamp and power section, the recto tube lights up fine too, no microphonics coming from tubes (did the tap test). There WAS a couple of white powderish specs inside my reciftifer tube but very minimal, looks like charring from typical heat TBH.
What should I be looking for? I love this amp and quite honestly it has the sound i want, and i just don't want to give up. It really does give you that thunderous loose distortion that a mesa does only with the tonal imperfections that make you different from the mesa players (cause there's a real lot of them, and i like to be different.)
Thank you everyone, I'll be at work until 8:00 AM Eastern time, and awake at home troubleshooting my amp until 9AM to noonish.
SCHEMATICS can be found here: http://music-electronics-forum.com/t9765/ (Sorry, I don't know how to embed or upload an image!)
I have come to you all because the amp I play through has developed a very unpleasant issue. It's a B-52 AT-100 head. up until a few days ago it played fine. The only thing that I noticed about it was that the tone was harsh and shrill, not uncommon on these amps seeing how it still has the stock sovteks in it.
before the "go buy a new amp" "b52 sucks" "components are lame, give up" comments start, understand that I have owned one of these before and after borrowing my friends tung sols and trying them out in the pre amp these amps sound amazing. Sovteks really do sound THAT terrible in this amp, believe me.
On with the issue, the amp has a class A, class A/B, and solid state mode switcher on the back. Running in class A, the amp sounds alright. It only lacks the room shaking volume it used to have, but it still gets loud. It also lacks gain in this mode, only gets about half as much as before.
Running in solid state, again it sounds alright. Solid state is the loudest of all three modes and has the most tonal characteristics (bass depth etc)
Running in class a/b, the amp has almost no volume, the master and channel volume will be at half to 75% and the amp will sound thin, farty, and overall crappy as if it was a blown speaker. Not even one bit useable on stage. (does this while in distortion channel, i forget if it does it in the clean. can check today.) *it reminds me of this old peavy Solid state amp i used to have, when i would forget to put my foot switch in it would get "stuck" in this mode where it was neither distortion or clean, just complete and utter garbled treblish fizz, i would put the F/S in and it would go away.*
I can't afford a retube for another couple weeks but I have my questions as to whether it's a tube issue, the tubes all light up just fine in the preamp and power section, the recto tube lights up fine too, no microphonics coming from tubes (did the tap test). There WAS a couple of white powderish specs inside my reciftifer tube but very minimal, looks like charring from typical heat TBH.
What should I be looking for? I love this amp and quite honestly it has the sound i want, and i just don't want to give up. It really does give you that thunderous loose distortion that a mesa does only with the tonal imperfections that make you different from the mesa players (cause there's a real lot of them, and i like to be different.)
Thank you everyone, I'll be at work until 8:00 AM Eastern time, and awake at home troubleshooting my amp until 9AM to noonish.
SCHEMATICS can be found here: http://music-electronics-forum.com/t9765/ (Sorry, I don't know how to embed or upload an image!)
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