Line6 Spider 4 150 with sound issued... No clean settings

[Ozzy]

I have had this amp from new 4 years and after about a year it started sounding really bad then would be ok for a while. Well now it is horrible with fuzz on every setting. I have seen lots of people at the line6 forums with exact same issues and Line 6 techs never admit there may be a issue with their amps.

Anyone found a solution on this board? Anyone with similer issues? I have done all their troubleshooting....its the amp itself thats bad I think.

Jay
Vancouver Wa

Please Help if ya can

[Jazz P Bass]

Just so you understand, this amp is a computer with (2) TDA7293 IC's for the power amplifier.
It is very complicated.
Therefore there is not a simple answer to your problem.

For now, try the headphone out jack.
If that is clear you have narrowed down the problem a bit.

There is a DI Out jack that you can run to another amp.
Same test. Look for a clear signal.

[J M Fahey]

The only definitive answer to this mystery, not yet repairing the amp but at least showing where the actual problem lies, is to inject a clean sinewave, 100mV at 1KHz at the input, choose a clean preset, and scope both the line out and speaker out(s) and look at the wave form at various volume settings.

Also inject signal at the CD/MP3 input and see what comes from the speaker out.

We might find clipping, oscillation, instability, etc. , all of which can be described as "fuzz" but actually looking at it is the only way.

If everything looks clean but sounds dirty, then we can strongly suspect the speakers or very dirty grounding connections at the phones or speaker out jacks.

[Ozzy]

Thanks both of you for the clear awnsers. Im beggining to think this amp is a lemon. Funny thing is sometimes it plays excellent for a few days then its just trash. The fuzz also seems to have gain as we=hen the strings are played a little hard the volume goes up. A power chord or anything like sabbath or metalica sounding just sounds like there is a fuzz box added. All the amp models are crap.

Can someone please recommend a really killer amp for my Schecter guitar? It has a floyd rose bridge and duncan pickups. Something that is in the 300 - 400 range new or even used if its the right amp. I play metal and do lots of sabbath ozzy and Dio type stuff. Ive been playing for 3 or 4 years off and on and am not really good but almost can play. People have been telling me that Im pretty good but I am just intrested in it for the fun and stress release I get.

I will try the tests you both told me about and let you know whats the result.

Thanks again...prolly the last line 6 amp or any modeling amp. Im thinking Tube amp....mesa boogie are pretty cashy. Cant afford one of those now.

Thanks again

Jay

[Enzo]

The thing to do really would be to reflow the LSIs.

Jazz said it, this is a computer with two power amps. Your description sounds to me like one of the bits in the DAC is getting stuck. That might be one of the tiny legs on one of those 100-legged ICs is not well soldered. If we reflowed the solder on the IC, that would clear up. Of course the IC itself could have some weird intermittant issue inside, but I;d bet on the solder a lot more than on that.

A missing or stuck bit usually sounds to me like a bad speaker or a blown amp stage.


People are too hung up on "common issues". They think there is a list of exact things that go wrong with amps. I read posts in threads where a guy says his amp is dead - no light, no sound. A year later a guy posts up, "Hey, did you ever find out the solution to that? My amp is doing the exact same thing, won;t go into the lead channel." Which means to me the guy has a totally different idea of what exact thing means from my idea, and that he thinks that whatever went wrong with the first guys amp would be the exact same thing wrong in his. Life ain;t like that.


people often have similar sounding problems. Imagine "sound cuts out". Well the whole damned amp is involved with making sound come out, so just about anything in it could cause that. And while it might be a resistor in both amps, it could just as easily be two different resistors in the circuit.

And for a technician to fix it, he usually has to see it do it. The techs at Line 6 - and how do you talk to one? - probably are not aware of some particular fault that results in this exact symptom. Even if my guess is right, and a leg on a 100 pin IC is loose, that is a solder issue, and on anay amp with iffy solder, it is not likely the exact same pin would be loose. There are 100 pins, and any one of them could be loose, and each one dos a different thing. If you have say 32 bit sound generation, any one of th 32 bits could be stuck or missing, and it would sound distorted. With an experienced ear i can tell that it is a low significance or high bit, even if i can;t say just which one. (Significance in the math sense) But to the user, "distorted" is what they hear. So if I knew that bit #4 was bad on his amp, that wouldn;t help us much to find a bad bit #27 on yours.

[guitardad]

Line 6 amps can be a PITA to work on, especially if a DSP (signal processor) related issue. Most of them with that fault customers just trash. Even at their scv centers around here most just give an est for the dsp board which is beyond the unit's value. Some get lucky and the DSP board can be resoldered. Most I have seen are just the IC breaking down and requiring the board swap. Line 6 does not supply individual components for those boards.

For what you want to play you can find an old Peavey Transtube Bandit ($150-200), Orig Peavey Bandit ($100-120 or so).
Another option are the Marshall Valvestate amps. Those amps are popular in the metal scene. VS100, VS265, 8080 can be had for about $200-300
Randall makes some decent SS amps as well in your price range used market.

For Tube? Used Behringer 333, Peavey XXX, Peavey Valveking, Carvin X100b combo. Cheapest tube combo for rock for anything new is going to run upward of $600. Closest for your style of play would be Blackstar. Check the used markets too.

[Jazz P Bass]

I did have a Line 6 (I forget the model#) come through with no audio.
Checked the TDA's, they are fine.
Traced the signal through the input jack opamp to an Analog to Digital ic.
From there it can be next to impossible to find a fault so I jumped to the 'Cool Audio' (Digital to Analog) ic that drives the output ic's.
It had a digital signal coming in & nothing coming out.
All of the drive lines looked good so I ordered the ic ($13.00)
Bingo, bango.
Good to go.
Sometimes you get lucky.

[Enzo]

Bingo bango?

Oingo Boingo:

[J M Fahey]

Can someone please recommend a really killer amp for my Schecter guitar? It has a floyd rose bridge and duncan pickups. Something that is in the 300 - 400 range new or even used if its the right amp. I play metal and do lots of sabbath ozzy and Dio type stuff.

Agree with getting a good SS head, by a big manufacturer who stands behind his products for years.
Peavey, Fender , and the real hidden gem: Crate.
ILLER amps for playin g the hardest Metal.

Under the hood, exactly the same as the mythical SS Ampegs.

Not surprising because they were designed by the same Engineers, built in the same factory and using the same parts

Listen to a few YT demos and decide.

Randalls are good, but the old ones are more expensive than they should because of Dimebag and the new ones are not the same.

Leaving out the traditional Randall constant current output? ... they must be crazy

What are they thinking?

Don't worry about tubes, you've been using SS so far with good results.

Playing Death Leprosy on the Crate GX130 - YouTube

[Ozzy]

strange that today it played great for a couple hours. havent tried it again. Wonder what makes it work well then trash?

Jay

[guitardad]

Like they said... it's a computer with a power amp stage. All modeling amps are and just about all will have issues at some point. I think it's heat and transporting. These units are assembled quickly and the boards are cheap, and may flex over time. That can cause the fine solder to fracture. Those 100+ pin Ic's wave soldered process are very often the cause of most intermittents. Line 6 svc just swaps boards. They want fast repairs. Problem is the boards cost more than the unit is worth. The avg customer that has that 3 year old Spider Amp just considers a new purchase. That is what Line 6 wants.

[g1]

Also, aren't the boards also triple layer? If you have an intermittent you will never know if it's a broken trace inside the board, or a short between layers. Board swap is the only "reliable" solution.

Edit: On a side note, has anything changed as far as service support now that they are owned by Yamaha?

[guitardad]

Also, aren't the boards also triple layer? If you have an intermittent you will never know if it's a broken trace inside the board, or a short between layers. Board swap is the only "reliable" solution.

Edit: On a side note, has anything changed as far as service support now that they are owned by Yamaha?

I have revived a few boards with a hot air station. I know other guys that put them in a toaster oven and fixed them. LOL

Most of the time you are not so lucky.