Princeton crackles when I play chords

[Gator]

I recently bought an old silverface Princeton Reverb (1977?) that I use for slide playing.

When I play single notes, it sounds great, but as soon as I play a double-stop or chord, it crackles - sounds like a loose connection.

I have had the speaker reconed, and had a good tube amp guy go through it. He replaced some caps and checked everything out, but the problem is the same.

[elipsey]

I recently bought an old silverface Princeton Reverb (1977?) that I use for slide playing.

When I play single notes, it sounds great, but as soon as I play a double-stop or chord, it crackles - sounds like a loose connection.

I have had the speaker reconed, and had a good tube amp guy go through it. He replaced some caps and checked everything out, but the problem is the same.

When I have seen this symptom it was usually an oxidized or damaged contact point, or once or twice a subtly bad preamp tube, but occasionally something harder to isolate, like an intermittent coupling cap, cold solder joint, etc.

Start by ruling out the easy stuff? It sounds dumb, but don't forget to check with a different guitar and cable. I would then clean all the contact points (that you can get to without opening it) like jacks, pots, and switches with de-oxit if you can get it, otherwise some kind of good electronics cleaner. Try swapping tubes in and out one position at a time if you have any spares, try switching their positions if you don't, but remember that on the PR V2 is a 12AT7, so it won't work right in the other preamp positions. After that, I think it gets a little trickier, but I may have overlooked something easy.

It's sure frustrating when you pay to fix shit that isn't broken, but remember you're also paying someone to keep you from getting electrocuted. Please don't open the chassis if you don't know how to discharge it without killing yourself

[52 Bill]

I have had the speaker reconed, and had a good tube amp guy go through it. He replaced some caps and checked everything out, but the problem is the same.

If he is a good tube amp guy, take it back to him and explain that the original problem is still there.

[keithb7]

I had a similar problem with a 1964 Bandmaster head. Two trips to local tech and he did not fix it. After that I vowed to learn how to do things myself.
Live amp, chassis open with a chopstick tapping to find colder solder joints did the trick All fixed now and good ever since. Warning lethal voltages are in the amp.
Do not attempt this is you do not know what you are doing.